2008 Religious Freedom Report- Aid To Church In Need

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Religious Freedom in the World Report 2008

Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) International

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Publisher Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) International Bischof-Kindermann-Str. 23, D-61462 Königstein Editorial committee Marc Fromager (France) Francesco Meloni (Italy) Javier Menendez-Ros (Spain) Berthold Pelster (Germany) John Pontifex (Great Britain) Roberto Simona (Switzerland) Editorial coordination Benedikt Steinschulte, Attilio Tamburrini, Marek Zurowski Editorial secretariat Ursula Müllerleile Collaborators Marta Allevato, Pierluigi Baccarini, Daniela Bricca, Centro de Libertad Religiosa (CELIR UC) de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile Rodolfo Casadei, padre Bernardo Cervellera, Camille Eid, Vincenzo Faccioli Pintozzi, Annie Laurent, Caterina Maniaci, Andrea Morigi, José Louis Orella, Giovanna Parravicini, Franco Pisano, Oscar Sanguinetti, Chiara Verna Translation into English Frank Davidson, Pierre Rossi, Francesca Simmons Proof reading/Revision Frank Davidson, John Newton Graphics and printing Tipografia Città Nuova della P.A.M.O.M. Via San Romano in Garfagnana 23 – I- 00148 Roma © Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) International Bischof-Kindermann-Str. 23, D-61462 Königstein Reproduction of this text, in part or in whole, is permitted on condition the source is cited. Cover image © JS Design Maps © GEOnext - De Agostini, 2008 ISBN 978-0-9553339-7-2

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PREFACE Why do we need a Report on Religious Freedom? At a time when concern over human rights has moved from fields once occupied by specialists and international organisations to the broader ones of media and public opinion, it seemed appropriate to produce a document that provided a wider public with information that was hitherto limited to specialised publications or websites consulted mostly by interested scholars. The decision by the General Council of Aid to the Church in Need International (ACN International) to publish the 2008 Report on Religious Freedom was a response to such a need, increasingly expressed by international public opinion, to know the real situation of human rights in general and religious freedom in particular, the latter seen as an inalienable right of every human being. All this has been done on the basis of the well-founded hope that with the availability of more information, awareness and consciousness can be raised among government authorities as well as political, social and religious leaders in countries where religious freedom in particular and human rights in general are not fully respected. It has also been done with the understanding that it may improve the life of millions of human beings whose deepest and most personal right has been trampled, a right that many have fought for and defended in the past and for which they are still willing to sacrifice their well-being, living standards and sometimes life itself. Religious freedom and human rights The terms used in writing each country report are based on Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Paris, 10 December 1948), the declaration upon which the United Nations Organisation (UNO) is founded and thus shared, in principle at least, by all 191 member states. Article 18 says: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. In the light of this declaration, religious freedom can legitimately include: •

the freedom to change religion (i.e. no one’s religion can be imposed);

•

the freedom to express one’s religion both individually and collectively, something which bears upon the law insofar as the latter must grant religious groups legal status and autonomy;

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•

the freedom to practise one’s religious beliefs both in private and in public;

•

the possibility for individuals and institutions to organise their religious life, pass on their creed and spread their values.

Diplomats, political leaders and media commentators have closely examined previous reports on religious freedom, considering them indispensable instruments to know and evaluate the state of religious freedom in all the countries of the world. National parliamentary committees, European MPs and conferences promoted by the OSCE have also started paying attention. Although written by an association like ACN, which serves the Church wherever it is persecuted or threatened, the 2008 Report, like previous ones, has adopted a non-confessional approach, vetting the situation in each and every country, highlighting every restrictive legal-institutional practice or every socio-cultural or ideological case that involves any kind of imposition, coercion, violation or persecution of people on the basis of their religion, faith or belief. The Report thus does not simply focus on the situation of Catholic or Christian communities, but pays heed to the irrepressible yearning that every human being has for the truth as well as his or her longing for religious freedom, remembering that “a wrong is done when government imposes upon its people, by force or fear or other means, the profession or repudiation of any religion, or when it hinders men from joining or leaving a religious community” (cf. Dignitatis humanae, nos 6 & 2, foll.). This requires straightforward thinking, speaking and action, which Pope Benedict XVI has in fact reiterated recently and on various occasions. “Religious liberty,” he said, “is indeed very far from being effectively guaranteed everywhere: in certain cases it is denied for religious or ideological reasons; at other times, although it may be recognizable on paper, it is hindered in effect by political power or, more cunningly, by the cultural predomination of agnosticism and relativism” (Angelus of 4 December 2005 and address to the diplomatic corps on 9 January 2006). ACN’s presence and role The 2008 Report additionally seeks to inform a wider public about ACN’s goals and the environments in which it operates. ACN is not primarily a charitable, humanitarian or welfare organisation; it is rather an association whose mission is to provide concrete assistance to local Churches wherever they are in need. Fr Joaquín Alliende President ACN Int.

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Index

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Preface page 3 Guide for using this report 7 Country reports 11 Sources consulted 523 Index of countries 529

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N D E X

Annex: Worldwide Freedom of Religion The Catholic point of view 533 ACN in the world 541

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Guide for using this report

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Guide for using this report Aims and methodology This report has been compiled with the support of a group of researchers, scholars and journalists who have gathered and made available information derived in the main from international sources, from accounts and reports by various different religious groupings and from on-the-spot eyewitness accounts. The aim has been to provide a broad yet detailed picture of religious freedom in the world, with the greatest possible objectivity and, by allowing the different religions, faiths and religious groupings to speak for themselves, avoid any value judgements as to the beliefs or convictions underlying their religious practices and teachings. The objective and the utility of this report consists, we believe, principally in making available, within the context of an organised whole, such news, facts, situations and personal testimonies as otherwise risk being passed over in silence or lost, amid the bombardment of daily information, from public view and from the attention of the international religious and political institutions, for lack of a more comprehensive understanding of the rights and duties pertaining to religious liberty and to human rights more generally, which is the specific focus of this report. Structure and format The country entries record and describe the current situation and the most recent events in regard to religious freedom in the countries concerned, set out according to the following format: – a summarised description of the legal and institutional framework in relation to the right to religious freedom, indicating any improvement or deterioration in the situation during the period under examination; – the situation of the local Catholic Church and of the Catholic faithful; – the situation of the other Christian confessions and/or denominations; – the situation of the other monotheist religions (Judaism and Islam); – the situation of other religions, beliefs, communities and religious groupings. Legal and factual sources consulted The information on the legal and institutional framework of the various different countries, and on the legal and social situation regarding the right to religious freedom, has been drawn principally from the basic reference work in the series Biblioteca Comares de ciencia juridica, edited by Professor Ana Maria Vega Gutierrez of the

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University of Rioja in Spain and published in 2003 in Granada, Spain by Editorial Comares. The figures have in some cases been further updated and checked using the website Political Resources on the Net. As far as the information sources generally are concerned, these are listed in the appendix after the relevant section. These are derived, as can be seen from the religious sources cited, from a variety of different faiths and denominations; for the rest they are reports furnished by international organisations and agencies that are concerned with the issue of human rights and, more specifically, religious freedom. For other information, obtained locally, the sources are sometimes not cited, for reasons of their personal safety. Special thanks are due to the staff of the Projects Department of the International Headquarters of ACN, whose priceless dedication in checking the information given and, in many cases, direct knowledge of the problems involved have contributed greatly to the successful realisation of this project. Statistics The statistics given are drawn from a variety of different sources, which have been chosen on the basis of their credibility and trustworthiness. The most basic data, as to the number of inhabitants, is for many countries the result of estimates and not based on genuine census reports. Among all the available options, the data furnished by the Istituto Geografico De Agostini in 2006 seemed to be among the most credible and closest to the average of the data derived from a variety of other sources. The religious makeup of the various different countries is the aspect that is the most complex and difficult to verify of all, as students of this field know all too well. For some countries scientifically credible studies do exist, but for others one sometimes has to rely on figures from directly interested parties, which clearly do not provide us with a verifiable picture. Given the need to make a choice, we have decided, for the number of Catholics, to adopt the data supplied by the Statistical Yearbook of the Church, in the edition of 2008, while for Christians generally and for the other religions and movements we have based our figures on the projections of the year 2000 in the World Christian Encyclopedia, edited by David B. Barrett and printed by Oxford University Press – New York, 2001. This work is generally regarded internationally and in the academic world as the most profound study on the subject of the religions in the world. In a few cases, indicated appropriately, more recent data were used which were felt to hold out the promise of reliability. In what regards the statistics about refugees and internally displaced people, we used the data given on the website of the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees).

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Country reports

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AFGHANISTAN

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AREA 652,090 kmq POPULATION 22,580,000 REFUGEES 42 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 132,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 98.1% Others 1.9%

Baptized Catholics 300

AFGHANISTAN

In spite of ongoing attempts to implement reforms, the situation as far as religious freedom is concerned is still very difficult in this country. On human rights issues the pro-Western government of President Hamid Karzai (considered a moderate Muslim) is paralysed between the expectations of the United States and their allies and those of the extremist Islamic factions in its own Parliament. The Taliban offensive is not only a military one – though 2007 was the bloodiest year since their fall from power in 2001 – but is also being conducted at a political and ideological level. In July 2006 the Afghan Grand Council of ulema – the Islamic scholars – asked the President to reinstate the religious police as was the custom under the Taliban regime. Karzai did not refuse. On the contrary, he promised the ulema to present this request in Parliament, giving rise to concern among human rights activists. Under the Taliban, the religious police, officially known as the “Department for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice”, patrolled the streets punishing women who went out without wearing a burqa, men whose beards were not kept tidy or anyone listening to music. The objective was to impose an extremist interpretation of Islamic Law on the population. This department was dismantled after 2001. The Minster for Haj and Religious Affairs, Nematullah Shahrani, denied that the department would have police powers and insisted “The job of the department will be to tell people what is allowable and what is forbidden in Islam” (The Independent, 17th July 2006). For the moment this proposal has not been approved. However, in the province of Khost during the month of Ramadan in 2006 (September-October) a “commission for morals and rules” was de facto established, arresting anyone selling alcohol or performing “ethically improper gestures”. This commission had not been authorised by the central government. Between 2006 and 2007 there were serious episodes involving violations of religious freedom, which also affected the majority Muslim community. Events such as the imposition of the death penalty on a man who had converted to Christianity, and the protests against the Danish cartoons on Mohammed, had widespread and violent repercussions all over the country.

AFGHANISTAN

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Legislation on religious freedom In a country that is totally Muslim, proselytism by other religions is culturally considered as opposition to Islam, but there are no laws against it. Foreigners found proselytising are deported. The Constitution of 2004 guarantees “believers of other religions, the freedom to profess and practise their faith within the restrictions established by the law”. Article 7 expresses the country’s commitment to respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, Islam is defined as the State religion and “no law can contradict the principles of the sacred religion of Islam” (Article 3). The Shari‘a, as the source of legislation, makes the country’s commitment to respecting fundamental human freedoms rather unrealistic and leaves little space for religious freedom. The president and the vice-president must be Muslims, although there is no indication whether they should be Sunnis or Shiites. Apostasy and blasphemy are not regulated by State laws and Article 130 of the Constitution establishes that, in the absence of provisions on this subject, Hanafi Law should be applied, an Orthodox Sunni school of law observed in Central and Southern Asia. Defamation of Islam (blasphemy) or its recanting (apostasy) are not covered by Penal Law and are therefore crimes indictable in compliance with Islamic Law – which in these cases prescribes the death penalty. Conversions are thus forbidden in practice and those who abandon Islam to embrace other religions are obliged to practise their faith in secret. In Afghanistan the power exercised by local mullahs and imams is still very strong, especially in the interior of the country, far from the urban centres. According to experts on the Catholic AsiaNews agency, “the country is still in the hands of the mullahs and the Shari‘a has the last word on everything”. They add that Afghanistan’s evolution will take a very long time “because religion is too deep-rooted and the mullahs’ decisions are indisputable”. Christians The most glaring example of the Constitution’s internal contradictions and the difficulties experienced by Afghan Christians, was the one involving Abdul Rahman. This 41 year old man, separated from his wife, was arrested in February 2006, after his family, with which he was battling for the custody of his children, reported him for having converted to Christianity. Rahman, who had a Bible on him, was accused of recanting Islam and being an apostate. During the trial in March in Kabul, he confessed that he had converted 16 years previously after meeting a health worker from a Christian NGO helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan. He had then emigrated to Germany, where he had lived until 2002. After the fall of the Taliban he returned home and asked for custody of his daughters. The public prosecutor, Abdul Wasi, offered the accused the withdrawal of the accusations in exchange for recantation. But Rahman

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refused. Wasi, who described the Christian’s behaviour as an attack on Islam, called for him to be put to death by hanging. Heavy international pressure was put on the president to intervene in Rahman’s favour. This case also moved Pope Benedict XVI to write to Karzai at the end of March asking for his life to be spared. Rahman was released on the night of 27th March in total secrecy, after being declared “mentally unstable and unfit to stand trial”. Italy has granted this man political asylum and ever since then he has lived under very close police protection. On 29th March, just as Rahman was about to arrive in Italy, the Afghan National Assembly protested against his release stating that it was “against the nation’s laws”. Members of Parliament called on the government “to forbid and prevent his escape” and on the Supreme Court, which had ordered his release, to “justify its decisions”. According to some observers, the position assumed by the members of parliament was simply a way of ingratiating themselves with public opinion. In various cities in fact, protests of an extremist character were organised. In Mazar-e-Sharif in the North, a few hundred students and professors marched, shouting “Death to Christians”. Faiez Mohammed, an imam in Kunduz, likewise in the North, said that “the Christian foreigners occupying Afghanistan are attacking our religion”. It is precisely this identification of Christians with the foreign troops that contributes to a very hostile environment for the Afghan Christian community, which could in fact be described as “catacomb-like”. The only Christians who practise their faith openly are members of the international community, and the only church allowed is the chapel inside the Italian Embassy in Kabul. After the Rahman case, a report by the UN General Secretariat dated September 2006, recorded at least three other similar cases brought against Afghan Christians. One had a tragic ending with a convert arrested for murder and then killed in prison by a cellmate who had found out he was a Christian. With no distinction between denominations, all Christians are accused of proselytism due to the imprudent zeal of a number of Protestant groups. One example is the tragic case of a group of South Korean Christians, kidnapped by the Taliban in the Kandahar area in the summer of 2007. On 19th July, on the motorway linking this southern Afghan city to Kabul, a group of Taliban guerrillas had stopped the bus in which 23 Koreans were travelling to the capital city. Most of the Koreans were members of the Saemmul Community, a new Protestant church set up in 1998 in Bundang, in the suburbs of Seoul, by Pastor Park Eun-jo. Since 2004 he has also been president of the Korea Foundation for World Aid, set up by him to help developing countries, among them Afghanistan – in spite of dissuasive action by the government in Seoul. The official Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, did not mince his words: “The Taliban know that these Korean aid workers have come to Afghanistan to convert good Muslims”. On 23rd July the Korean Council for Religion and Peace (KCRP), a coalition of seven religious groups that includes Protestants, Catholics and Buddhists, released a

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statement saying that “the hostages are innocent people who do voluntary work in kindergartens and hospitals with no political hostility”. But past experience had persuaded the Taliban to the contrary. In August 2006 a group of South Korean Protestant missionaries had planned to hold a “peace march” in Kabul involving some 2,300 Christians; the Afghan government however had managed to stop them at the very last minute. The city of Kandahar is the stronghold of Islamic extremism. “Its Taliban” – wrote the Korea Times – “are obliged to learn the Koran by heart at the age of five and educated to hate other religions, in particular Christianity. Ever since they lost political power in 2001, following the intervention by the US Army, they have become increasingly zealous and ferocious in their terrorist attacks on foreigners”. The kidnappers wanted an exchange of prisoners, but the Afghan government immediately made clear that it would not accept this. This crisis involving the Protestant group came to a dramatic conclusion; two hostages, including the Presbyterian Pastor Bae Hyungkyu, who was leading the group of 23, had been killed in the days following the kidnapping, while the others, including 16 women, were released in two separate groups, on 13th August and 30th August. To ensure the release of its citizens, the government in Seoul was obliged to negotiate directly with the Talibans and promise to withdraw South Korean troops from the country, as well as banning all missionary activities in Afghanistan. According to the Bishop Lazzaro You of Daejon, who is president of the Korean branch of Caritas, this gesture “has humiliated the nation”, while the priest who ministers to the international Catholic community in Kabul, Father Moretti, spoke to AsiaNews of a “dangerous precedent that could be used to evict all non-Islamic people from the country”. Muslims Religious freedom is far from being a right, even for the Muslims themselves, the vast majority of the population. Blasphemy is the charge laid against all those who “put a foot out of line”, including journalists, women, and any activists who ask questions, express doubts or protest at injustices. In November 2007, over a thousand university students protested in Jalalabad, in the east of the country, calling for the death penalty for Ghaws Zalmai, who had been arrested on a charge of blasphemy. The man was guilty of having distributed thousands of copies of the Koran translated into Dari (Persian), in a version not however approved by Islamic scholars. In February 2006 the world protests against the publication of the cartoons portraying Mohammed and considered “blasphemous”, also reached Afghanistan, where in two days eight people died in the resulting violence. In March 2007, Kabul announced the creation of the first state Koranic schools (madrassas) with new curricula for the students. The objective was to counter the Taliban policy of using education as “a terrorist weapon”. The project involves setting up

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Positive signs There have however also been some positive signs in recent years, indicating a greater openness and allowing a degree of optimism. For years the small Catholic community consisted of just a few de Foucauld nuns and 4 or 5 foreigners. Now however there are Asians, Africans, Latin Americans and a few Europeans. Since April 2006, four of Mother Teresa’s nuns have been in Kabul and have opened a home where they provide shelter for the most needy children found in the streets. Many people feared that their presence might create problems with the Islamic extremists, but for the moment they are simply appreciated by the population. Another discreet and constant presence is that of the Little Sisters of Jesus, all of whom are working in the medical sector and in the hospitals. They have been in Afghanistan for 46 years and are the only Christian community that remained there even under the Taliban. In May 2007 the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) opened a second mission in Bamyan – in the extremely poor Hazarajat region – in addition the one in Herat. The Jesuits here devote themselves to teaching English and biology at the university. Finally, Caritas International is also present, supported by the Italian, American, Irish, Dutch and German Caritas organisations. Sources Korea Times AsiaNews AFP The Independent

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at least one government madrassa in each of the country’s 34 provinces. The scheme involving these new Koranic schools is intended to include some 50,000 students, and the curriculum will include 40 percent of the timetable devoted to religious subjects, 40 percent to general culture and 20 percent to IT and foreign language teaching. It is hoped that this will equip young people with greater technical capabilities and offer them better employment opportunities than the students from the traditional Koranic schools, who themselves usually end up as teachers of religion, mullahs or Taliban. All activities in these madrassas will be supervised and monitored by the Ministry for Education, which also intends to encourage enrolment by girls. Other minority communities, such as the Hindus and Sikhs, likewise complain of discrimination both in the social and the employment fields.

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ALBANIA

ALBANIA

AREA 28,748 kmq POPULATION 3,170,000 REFUGEES 77 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 38.8% Affiliated Christians 35.4% Non religious 25.6% Others 0.2%

Baptized Catholics 513,000

Initially in the preamble, and then in detail in Articles 10 and 24, the 1998 Albanian Constitution allows the right of religious freedom and the equal treatment of all religions by the State. It also acknowledges the religions juridical status. Cordial relations between the various religious faiths have helped to create a generally positive atmosphere in this country. There is no one State religion; they are all equal in the eyes of the civil authorities and there is no religious instruction in schools. The majority of christian believers belong either to the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania or the Catholic Church. Religious groups do not need to register, and the predominant religions (Orthodox, Catholics, Sunni Muslims and the Bektashi Muslim community) enjoy many official privileges and particular prestige due to their historical presence in the area. All religious groups are permitted to open bank accounts, however, and to own land and buildings. There are very few members of the Jewish community, about 600, and there are no synagogues or active prayer centres In 2007, in the strongly Catholic region of Shkoder (Scutari), a controversy over the erection of a statue in honour of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, who is of Albanian ethnic origin although born in Macedonia, was successfully resolved. One of the leaders of the local Muslim community initially criticised the fact that the statue was to be placed on public land, maintaining that Mother Teresa was a figure who belonged to the Catholic Church’s patrimony of saints. However, the national leadership of the Albanian Islamic Community had instead expressed their approval of this initiative since she was an important personality for the entire country, regardless of religious belief. In the end the Islamic community in Shkoder also withdrew its complaints and fell into line with the opinions expressed by the community at a national level. On 12th January L’Osservatore Romano reported an incident involving the demolition of a cross that had been publicly erected, this time on the hill above Bushat, in Northern Albania; this act of vandalism, which took place on the Muslim festivity of Eid al-Adha or “Abraham’s Sacrifice” (two months and ten days after the end of Ramadan, during the period in which the pilgrimage to Mecca takes place), was actually part of a dispute

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ALBANIA

that had for some time been ongoing between the Catholic community in this village and the Muslim communities in nearby villages who did not want the crucifix at the back of their valley. On 30th September the same source reported the address by Pope Benedict XVI on 29th September at Castel Gandolfo to the new Albanian Ambassador to the Holy See, Rrok Logu. The Pope emphasised the seriousness with which the government in Tirana is addressing the completion of legislation regulating its relations with the religious communities in the country. He also expressed his appreciation for the efforts made by the authorities in resolving the difficult issue of the return of, and compensation for, those properties confiscated by the communist regime from the various religious groups, and in particular from the Catholic Church, Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania, the Sunni Muslims and the Bektashi Muslim community. On 5th December 2007 L’Osservatore Romano reported on the signing, two days earlier in his Tirana offices by Albanian Finance Minster Ridvan Bode, and Monsignor Giovanni Bulaitis, the Apostolic Nuncio in Albania, of a supplement to the already existing agreement of 2002 between the Holy See and Albania on a number of financial and economic issues. In particular the agreement established the rules for the fiscal status of the institutions belonging to the Catholic Church.

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ALGERIA

ALGERIA

AREA 2,381,741 kmq POPULATION 33,450,000 REFUGEES 94,137 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 96.7% Affiliated Christians 0.3% Others 3%

Baptized Catholics 5,000

According to the Constitution of 1976, amended in 1996 “Islam is the religion of the State.” (Art. 2). Furthermore, “the freedom of conscience and the freedom of opinion are inviolable” (Art. 36). It should be noted that in Algeria the crime of apostasy does not exist in law. In this country of over 30 million inhabitants, there are very few Christians. The Catholic Church claims to have 4,000 members (the Algerian government says there are 10,000); whereas the Protestants are thought to number somewhere between 3,000 and 20,000. Most of these Christians are foreigners (Europeans, Lebanese, students from sub-Saharan Africa and some Americans). Since the 1990s, however, there has been evidence of a movement involving the conversion of Algerian Muslims to Christianity, in particular in Kabylia. Most, but not all, of these converts are being baptised into the neoProtestant communities of American origin (Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, Evangelicals). In the last two years, the press, as well as a number of Algerian and foreign imams, have produced an increasing number of articles and expressions of alarm at what they call the “evangelisation” of Algeria. Hence during a visit to Tizi-Ouzou, in March 2006, the famous Egyptian Sheik Youssef El Karadoui declared, “Kabylia is an Islamic land. It cannot disassociate itself from Islam, just as Islam cannot disassociate itself from this land. Those who are trying – in vain – to evangelise this region have chosen the wrong society. Kabylia will not sell out its faith, which is Islam” (Liberté, Algiers, 31st March - 1st April 2006). Soon after this, Sheik Abderrahmane Chibane, President of the Association of Algerian ulemas said: “Some neo-crusaders are trying in every way to Christianise Algerians. The mosques, the schools, the media and the institutions of the state must oppose this!” During this same period, on 15th March 2006, Hamid I. Kabyle, who had become a Christian and worked as a guide in the Basilica of Saint Augustine in Annaba, was murdered by persons unknown. After being kidnapped, he was beaten, his limbs were broken, then his throat was cut and his body abandoned outside the city. This year about thirty sub-Saharan students attending a week-end course of Biblical studies in Tizi-Ouzou (in

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Kabylia), were told they were to be expelled from Algeria. The intervention by the Senegalese Ambassador enabled this decision to be revoked, however (Le Monde, 26th February 2008). Nonetheless, it was in this context that the Algerian government adopted various measures to restrict the freedom of the practice of the Christian faith. On 28th February 2006, the President of the Republic, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, signed a law (Ordnance 06-03) that “lays down the conditions and rules for the exercise of religious worship other than Muslim”. Permission for non-Muslim religious practice now falls under the jurisdiction of a National Commission for Non-Muslim Religious Services, a department of the Ministry for Religious Affairs (Art. 9 of the Ordnance). The practice of these religions is subject to the following conditions: “Allocation of a structure for the exercise of religious worship is subject to the prior approval of the national commission for the exercise of religious worship” […] “All activity is forbidden in premises intended for the exercise of religious worship, which would be contrary to the nature and objectives for which (the premises) are intended” (Art. 5). “Collective exercise of religious worship is organized by associations of a religious character of which the creation, approval and the functioning is subject to the dispositions of the present ruling and of the legislation in force” (Art. 6). “Collective exercise of religious worship takes place exclusively in structures intended for this purpose, open to the public and identifiable from the exterior” (Art. 7). This same law also establishes penal sanctions. Punishment of one to three years imprisonment and a fine of between 250,000 and 500,000 Algerian Dinars will be imposed on anyone “who, by verbal or written or distributed discourse in structures where religious worship takes place or who utilizes any other audiovisual means, containing an incitement to resist the fulfillment of the laws or the decision of the public authority, or tending to incite a group of citizens to rebellion, this without prejudice of more serious penalties, if the incitement is followed by effects”. The penalty is increased to 3-5 years, and the fine doubled “if the guilty party is a leader of religious worship” (Art. 10). “Without prejudice of more serious penalties”, punishment of 2-5 years imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 - 1,000,000 Dinars is imposed on anyone who “incites, constrains or utilises means of seduction tending to convert a Muslim to another religion, or by using to this end establishments for teaching, for education, for health, of a social or cultural nature, or training institutions, or any other establishment, or any financial means”, or who “makes, stores, or distributes printed documents or audiovisual productions or by any other aid or means, which has as its goal to shake the faith of a Muslim” (Art. 11). Finally, there is punishment of 1-3 years imprisonment and a fine of 100,000-300,000 Dinars for anyone who “conducts a religious worship service contrary to the dispositions under Articles 5 and 7” […], “organises a religious gathering contrary to the dispositions of Article 8 […], “preaches in structures intended for the exercise of religious worship, without being designated,

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approved, or authorised by the religious governing body of his faith, competent, duly authorised on national territory and by the relevant Algerian authorities” (Art. 13). These provisions were confirmed by a law approved on 20th March 2006 by the National Council, Parliament’s lower house. This law was the object of an applicative decree published in the Official Gazette on 3rd June 2007 which spelled out the creation, organisation and competences of the National Commission for the non-Muslim Religions. These new rules are essentially aimed at Evangelical preachers, but “historical” Protestantism (Lutheran or Reformed), present in Algeria for decades, also feels affected – to the extent that the neo-Protestants try to infiltrate themselves to acquire the credibility they lack. The Catholic Church is also affected, to the extent that articles in the press concerning the conversion of Muslims by these neo-Protestants, are often aggressive towards Christianity generally and do not differentiate between the denominations. Journalists in fact generally illustrate their articles with photographs of Catholic buildings, such as the Basilica of Notre-Dame d’Afrique, or a photograph of Monsignor Henri Teissier, Archbishop of Algiers, thereby leading to a distorted association that sows confusion in the minds of the population, in particular in Islamic groups. Monsignor Teissier has responded to the resulting situation as follows: “This decree is mainly aimed at the Evangelical movement that has been developing in Algeria for about twenty years. In spite of everything, we too are affected by these provisions […]. We are sorry that the Algerian State has adopted provisions of this kind in an area in which respect for conscience should be the priority” (Il est vivant, JulyAugust 2006). In applying this new legislation, police supervision over places of Christian worship has increased. In May 2007, the local authorities of 48 wilayas (departments) invited all the Catholics present to leave Algeria, in accordance with a directive from the capital and on the pretext of the threats issued by the islamist terror group Al Qaeda in the Maghreb. The leaders of the Catholic Church were obliged to appeal to the highest Algerian authorities so as to have this decision annulled (Le Monde, 26th February 2008). Shortly after this the Centre social du Corso in Algiers was closed; this was where the White Father Jan Heuft worked and bore the name Rencontres et développement (Encounters and Development) (La Croix, 27th February 2008). In June 2007, five young Christians were brought to trial in Tizi-Ouzou accused of proselytism. One of them had fallen into a trap set for him by a plainclothes policeman, who had asked for Christian publications and then arrested him after being given a Bible (La Croix, 3rd September 2007). In November that same year, four Brazilian Catholic voluntary workers of the Salama Community were ordered to leave the country within two weeks, without explanation and although their papers were in order. This order was revoked later, thanks to the intervention of the Brazilian Ambassador (Le

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ALGERIA

Monde, 26th February 2008). The Algerian authorities also rejected half of the visas requested by the Catholic Church for replacing personnel in religious communities or for visits from the superiors of congregations (La Croix, 27th February 2008). In particular this was the case for a number of members of the Mission de France, a congregation whose commitment to the independence of Algeria, has been acknowledged by the Algerians themselves (Le Monde, 26th February 2008).

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ANDORRA

ANDORRA

AREA 468 kmq POPULATION 78,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 93.4% Non religious 5% Others 1.6%

Baptized Catholics 77,000

The 1993 Constitution guarantees freedom of worship, albeit acknowledging a special relationship with the Roman Catholic Church, in compliance with the traditions of Andorra, a principality governed by the Head of the French State and by the Bishop of the Spanish Catholic diocese of Urgel. All citizens are guaranteed their fundamental rights, with no discrimination with regards to race, gender, place of origin, religion, opinions, or any other personal or social condition. Article 11 specifically states “The freedom to profess one’s own religion or beliefs”, which remains “subject only to the restrictions established by the law and necessary for protecting public security, order, health or ethics or the fundamental rights of others”. The Catholic Church is guaranteed “the free and public exercising of its activities and the maintaining of its relationship involving special cooperation with the State” and “the Catholic Church’s organisations with juridical status are acknowledged, in compliance with their own laws, has having full juridical rights within the framework of Andorra’s general juridical system”. The government is responsible for paying those, who, appointed by the Catholic Church, provide optional religious instruction in state schools. The government has expressed its commitment to ensuring that Muslim pupils should receive an Islamic education; however, the local Islamic community has not yet chosen the teacher to be entrusted with this task. Ecumenical relations are cordial and the Anglican community celebrates its own religious functions in the Catholic Church of La Massana twice a month. No significant institutional changes or important episodes with regard to the subject of freedom of worship were reported in 2006 and 2007.

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ANGOLA

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AREA 1,246,700 kmq POPULATION 14,993,000 REFUGEES 12,069 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 19,566

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 94.1% Others 5.9%

Baptized Catholics 8,334,000

ANGOLA

Article 8 of the 1992 Constitution reads as follows: “(1) The Republic of Angola shall be a secular State, and there shall be separation between the State and churches. (2) Religions shall be respected and the State shall protect churches and places and objects of worship, provided they abide by the laws of the State.” In practice, the government is tolerant towards all religious organisations and with its policies has continued to contribute to the free expression of religious freedom. During 2006 and 2007 no significant changes occurred in religious legislation, after the approval in March 2004 of a Law establishing the requirements for registering religious groups, which must have at least 100 thousand adult members resident in the country and be present in at least two thirds of the provinces. The Ministries for Justice and for Culture currently acknowledge 85 religious groups that, regardless of the number of members they have, have maintained their status over these past two years. Most of the population is Christian; the Catholic Church estimates that 55 percent profess the Catholic religion. The National Institute for Religious Affairs (INAR) under the Ministry for Culture acknowledge the presence within the country of the main Protestant communities, among them the Methodists, the Baptists, the United Church of Christ and the Assemblies of God; they estimate however that their presence is in decline (about 10 percent) within the national territory. There are more than 800 religious organisations, many of them of Congolese or Brazilian origin, based on Evangelical Christian groups that are still awaiting registration by the INAR. Nonetheless, the government has not impeded their activities. The Muslim community is close to satisfying registration requirements, having once again applied in 2006 after a first attempt in 2004, and should soon acquire official juridical status. This request has also been sponsored by the Ambassador of the United States, who in a number of interviews given to newspapers and the radio, specifically requested that Muslims should be granted the right to freedom of worship in this country. In February 2006 the government was criticised for having

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closed down 3 mosques that the police authorities believed were causing problems to traffic flow. Local Muslim leaders worked successfully with the INAR, negotiating an agreement that allowed all the mosques to reopen by December 2006. There were no reports during 2006 and 2007 of abuse or discrimination with regard to religious beliefs or practices. Although Angola’s attitude as far as Islam is concerned is not a positive one, this particular situation is caused above all by cultural differences with Muslim West African immigrants rather than religious intolerance. In the interior of the country there are still members of the rural population who adhere to the traditional practices of indigenous religions. During the period covered by this Report, the government banned 17 religious groups in Cabinda from practising their religion, accusing them of practising harmful exorcism rituals on adults and children accused of “witchcraft”. Although the law does not acknowledge the existence of witchcraft, the harmful actions committed during the practice of this religion are considered illegal. The members of these religious groups were not oppressed, but in 2006 two of the leaders of these groups were arrested for ill-treating minors and sentenced to 8 years in prison. In recent years, government agencies, ecclesial groups and civil society organisations have continued important awareness raising campaigns against traditional religions involving shamans, animal sacrifices and “witchcraft”. The various sensitising programmes have been addressed at discouraging the harmful practices of such religions and not traditional religion as a whole. In particular, the Church and organisations linked to it have based their campaigns on discouraging animal sacrifices and the work of the shamans. In rural areas and in small towns there have been reports of exorcisms involving physical harm, with the resulting injury and even death of a number of people accused of witchcraft. In February 2006 the Fides Agency reported the death of Father José Afonso Moreira, an eighty-year-old Portuguese missionary of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans, formerly Holy Ghost Fathers), killed by seven shots in his own home. It is thought that this murder was the work of bandits and that he was not killed for any political or religious reasons. In fact, as emphasised by the sources, Father Moreira was loved by everyone since he had been working in Bailundo for over 40 years, even during the tragic civil war of 1975-2002. The dispute between the Catholic-Church-owned Radio Ecclesia and the government has not yet been resolved, but the situation has however improved. This radio station – which has been broadcasting since 1954 and is the most popular independent radio station – has for years hosted programmes critical of the government’s policies. This radio is only allowed to broadcast within the province of Luanda and for years has attempted unsuccessfully to obtain permission to cover the entire national territory. A number of its programmes are in fact currently broadcast via Vatican Radio, so that

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Civil war A important step forward in the reconciliation of the entire Angolan territory was taken in August 2006, when, after 27 years of civil war that disrupted the country until 2002, the climate of violence also ended in the Cabinda province, a region in which the army had been accused of installing a real authoritarian regime with arbitrary arrests, torture and violence. The government in fact signed a Peace Treaty with the main rebel group in Cabinda, a northern region, rich in oil, which for years had claimed independence from the central power. A former Portuguese colony, annexed officially to Angola in 1975, Cabinda consists of a narrow strip of land between Congo-Brazzaville and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in which about 60 percent of the country’s oil resources are concentrated. In signing this Treaty, the guerrillas from the Front for the Liberation of Cabinda obtained special status as an autonomous region, providing the local government with powers usually exercised by the central government, among them the right to control the production of crude oil that supports most of the entire country’s economy. On 23rd March 2007, the Angolan government and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) officially declared the end of their joint programme for

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they can also be heard beyond Luanda. In 2004, President Dos Santos had publicly declared that Radio Ecclesia could operate at a national level. In 2005, in fact, Radio Ecclesia operators started to organise themselves for broadcasting from five other provinces. The Angolan law on the subject of the mass media, promulgated in May 2006, establishes that non-state radio stations must be present in each province so as to broadcast from there, and consequently, at a national level. Due to restricted financial capabilities, however, Radio Ecclesia, has been unable to expand much beyond the Luanda region. There have been improvements as far as the right to information is concerned, thanks to a Bill approved by the Angolan government and addressed at regulating means of information in view of the approaching elections initially to be held in 2007 and then postponed (due to a serious lack of infrastructures after the civil war and the slowness in the registration process for voters) with a general election programmed for 2008 and a presidential election planned in 2009. The new law puts an end to censorship and to the previous legislation forbidding journalists to personally defend themselves in court in cases involving libel. This provision has also broken the state monopoly over television. In spite of this, Human Rights Watch has criticised this law and asked the government to bring its legislation in this area into conformity with international standards. The general legislative election programmed for 5th/6th September 2008 will be the first election since 1992.

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the return of refugees. Under this scheme, almost 410,000 refugees have returned home since 2002, the end of the thirty-year long civil war that resulted in over 300 thousand victims. The programme for their return lasted over three years, involving not only repatriation operations, but also aid to the refugees – both those returning home with the help of humanitarian agencies and those who returned to Angola by their own means. This return resulted in a need to immediately create the basis for a sustainable reintegration; hence, the areas involved were provided with new or restored medical centres, schools and houses for teachers. International NGOs and organisations also set up micro-credit projects so as to launch the country’s economy, projects that so far have helped over 10 thousand people. The Catholic Church has also confirmed that the government has agreed to fund the building of schools and churches and to return property confiscated during the Angolan civil war. Sources Fides, 10th February 2006 La Repubblica, 2th August 2006 PeaceReporter, 16th November 2006 PeaceReporter, 29th December 2006 AGI/Reuters, 9th February 2006 Confinionline, 23rd March 2007

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ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA

AREA 442 kmq POPULATION 64,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 93.9% Spiritists 3.3% Others 2.8%

Baptized Catholics 8,000

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The right to exercise complete religious freedom is enshrined in Article 11 of the Constitution of 1981, which also guarantees the right to change one’s religion and the right to teach religion freely. In practice no violation of such rights has been reported. Religious groups are not required to register, but registration gives them the right to tax exemptions for the purpose of building or restoring places of worship. On religious matters the government collaborates with the Antigua Christian Council (ACC) which promotes mutual understanding and tolerance among the various Christian denominations.

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ARGENTINA

ARGENTINA

AREA 2,780,400 kmq POPULATION 38,970,000 REFUGEES 3,263 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 92.9% Muslims 2% Hebrews 1.3% Others 3.8%

Baptized Catholics 35,972,000

The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Argentina, approved in 1853 and amended on several occasions up until 1994, states in Article 2 that “the federal government supports the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion”, but guarantees religious freedom for all in Article 14. Encouraged by the political authorities, the various religious denominations are seriously committed to ongoing interreligious dialogue. During the period between 2006 and 2007 there was some tension in relations between the Catholic Church and President Kirchner. In November 2005, the Argentine Episcopal Conference, presided over by Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, had released a document entitled “A light for the reconstruction of the nation”. As explained in an article in the magazine Mondo e Missione dated May 2006, in this document the bishops had expressed their concern for “the scandalous increase in the inequality of the distribution of wealth” and warned against “the danger of violent protests by some of those excluded from the world of work”. The President was offended by the document and responded by criticising the Church for its alleged silence during the military dictatorship. On many occasions the press have spoken of Cardinal Bergoglio’s “sincere sensitivity towards the poor, his simplicity, the clarity of his words and his profound spirituality”. When the Cardinal publicly deplored the “blasphemy” shown towards the Virgin Mary, the Pope and Christian religious symbols during a state-sponsored exhibition by the artist Leon Ferrari, the President reacted harshly, citing artistic freedom as a pretext. There has also been tension between the government and the Catholic Church over legislation concerning human life and family law. Divorce has been legalised in Argentina, as have partnerships between homosexuals, although these are not recognised as marriages. There have been debates on the legalisation of abortion too, and also over a proposed law which seeks to introduce sex education in schools. In July 2006, as reported by Vatican Radio on the 15th of that month, the Argentinian bishops expressed harsh criticism of a draft law for the legalisation of female and male sterilization. The legalisation of sterilization, they explain, in a document published by the

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Episcopal Conference, “is a violation of the human right to the integrity of the body”. Another moment of friction between the Catholic Church and the government occurred at the end of October 2006, when Bishop Emeritus Joaquim Pina Batllevell of Puerto Ignazù decided to run as a candidate with an independent political coalition party, opposing Governor Carlos Rovira of the province of Misiones, as an ‘institutional statement’ rather than an act of “party politics”. The case was reported by the ZENIT Agency on 5th November 2006. Governor Rovira had in fact wanted to change the Constitution to allow indefinite re-election to this post. Bishop Pina had therefore stood as a candidate because a fundamental principle of the Constitution was at stake. Following the victory of his coalition, the bishop formally announced “I will not hold any political office”. In fact, the Church has historically played a role in constitutional matters, as shown by the example of Fray Mamerto Esquiú, a priest and Argentinian patriot who was instrumental in the framing of the Constitution in 1853 and whose cause for beatification is currently advancing. This incident, together with the backing given by the bishops to the protests by the teachers’ unions, was seen as a provocation, both by the president and by the government. Finally, there was the case of a Protestant minister, the Reverend Paul David Caballero, who received threatening letters and a “deleted” photograph of himself, after the Mayor closed down the new offices of the congregation he leads in the city of Quilmes, a case reported by Compass Direct News on 23rd October 2007. According to Doctor Ruben Proietti, the president of the Christian Alliance of Evangelical Churches of the Republic of Argentina (ACIERA), this was an extremely rare event: “Nowadays, in Argentina”, he told Compass Direct News, “there are very few problems involving discrimination and abuse directed against religious groups”. However, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), which monitors anti-Semitic incidents, reported that during 2006 there had been 586 such cases, 25 of which had involved threats (threats of bombings and physical attacks) and 392 antiSemitic propaganda. Sources ACI ZENIT Compass Direct News Mondo e Missione, May 2006 and June/July 2007 Vatican Radio The Tablet, 15th July 2006

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ARMENIA

ARMENIA

AREA 29,800 kmq POPULATION 3,220,000 REFUGEES 4,566 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 8,400

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 84% Non religious 13.3% Others 2.7%

Baptized Catholics 150,000

The Constitution of 1995 in Article 23 states the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religious belief. About 95 percent of the population of Armenia belongs to the Armenian Apostolic Church. Most Catholics (some 220,000 in a country of just over 3 million) follow the Armenian rite and come under the jurisdiction of the Ordinariate for Armenian Catholics based in Gyumri, which in turn depends on the Lebanon-based patriarchal see of Armenian Catholic Church. The 50,000 or so Catholics who adhere to the Latin rite belong to the Apostolic Administration of the Latins of the Caucasus set up in 1993 and based in Tbilisi (Georgia). A small community of Evangelical Protestants also exists. There are Kurds and Azeris who follow Islam but many have left as a result of Armenia’s conflict with Azerbaijan. Likewise many Armenians who lived in Azerbaijan have been forced to leave that country and seek refuge in Armenia. The positive experience of ecumenical dialogue between the majority Church and Catholics continues. On the invitation of Karekin II, Catholicos of all Armenians, the third meeting of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches (created in Rome in 2003) was held in Ejmiatsin on 26th-30th January 2006. The proceedings were chaired by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and Metropolitan Anba Bishoy of the Coptic Orthodox Church. On 30th November 2006, during his trip to Turkey, Benedict XVI prayed at the Armenian Apostolic Church where he met Patriarch Mesrob II Mutafyan. On that occasion, he said: “Our meeting is more than a simple gesture of ecumenical courtesy and friendship. It is a sign of our shared hope in God’s promises and our desire to see fulfilled the prayer that Jesus offered for his disciples on the eve of his suffering and death (Jn, 17:21). […] We must continue therefore to do everything possible to heal the wounds of separation and to hasten the work of rebuilding Christian unity.” Turkey is currently home to about 82,000 Armenians. From 14th to 19th June 2007, on the invitation of His Holiness Karekin II, the capital of Armenia Yerevan also hosted the

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annual meeting of the Church and Society Commission (CSC) of the Conference of European Churches (CEC – founded in 1959, bringing together 126 Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican and Old Catholic Churches from all the countries of Europe, plus 40 associated organisations). “Meeting in Armenia, where Church and people, religion and culture are so closely linked, has given the Church and Society Commission an extraordinary base,” said its Director Rüdiger Noll, who is also CEC associate secretary general. The Commission took advantage of the meeting in Armenia to contact the OSCE mission in Yerevan in order to discuss the issue of human rights in the country, including the rights of conscientious objectors. In fact there are still problems with respect to providing objectors with a civilian service as a substitute for compulsory military service. On 23rd January 2007, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe approved a resolution calling on Armenian authorities to review its legislation so as to include a service that was truly an alternative to the military as well as pass an amnesty bill for conscientious objectors currently serving time in prison. Jehovah’s Witnesses for instance continue to refuse the existing “alternative” service on religious grounds because it requires them to wear a uniform and subjects them to police supervision. Some 82 of them are currently in jail. Similarly Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, and some Pentecostal denominations as well as the Molokany (a Protestant community that originated in Russia in the 17th century with some 4,000 members in Armenia) also refuse to be subject to the existing law.

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AUSTRALIA

AUSTRALIA

AREA 7,741,220 kmq POPULATION 20,700,000 REFUGEES 22,164 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 79.3% Non religious 16.2% Others 4.5%

Baptized Catholics 5,704,000

There are no problems with regards to religious freedom in this country – it is guaranteed by the Constitution and is respected by the authorities. Religious groups can operate freely without having to register. Religious teaching is available in public schools upon parental request and is often provided by volunteers. Occasionally, there is friction or episodes of religious intolerance involving individuals or small groups. For instance, in October 2006 a Muslim cleric stated in Sydney that “immodestly” dressed women invited sexual assault. The statement quickly drew condemnation from the wider community and from other Muslims as well, with the cleric involved eventually making public amends by explaining that he had been misunderstood. Following the incident two Islamic schools in Perth received threats by telephone. The police quickly identified a suspect, who was found guilty in February 2007, and sentenced to pay a hefty fine. In December 2006 the leader of a neo-Nazi group was released after he pleaded guilty in several explosive attacks carried out in 2004 against Asian-owned businesses and a synagogue in Perth; in both cases, the premises were also covered in racist graffiti. In 2007 the Privileges Committee of the New South Wales Legislative Council made an inquiry into a statement made by the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell. During a press conference on 5th June 2007, about a proposed bill on embryonic human cloning, the prelate said that “Catholic politicians who vote for this legislation must realise that their voting has consequences for their place in the life of the church”. Following a passionate defence in which he defended his right to comment on proposed draft laws, the Committee decided to dismiss the case.

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AUSTRIA

Apart from the Concordat with the Catholic Church, in force since 1933, the status of the other religious confessions is governed by the law of 1874 and the legislative amendment of 1998 on the “confessional communities”. This law provides for three levels of recognition, each with different rights and duties: • The status of a “recognised society” which presupposes at least 20 years of existence in the country and a total number of members equivalent to 2 permill of the population (around 16,000 members). • The status of a “confessional community”, with at least 300 members. These are required to submit their statutes, objectives and means of funding to the Ministry of Education, which decides as to their suitability. • The status of simple “associations”. These are governed by the Law of Associations. Generally speaking, minority religious groups are able to obtain recognition as “associations” without much difficulty and can thereby begin the process of moving towards the level of “confessional communities” which confers both fiscal and organisational advantages, albeit still inferior to those granted to the “recognised religious societies”, which additionally enjoy rights in the fields of education and state funding.

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AREA 83,859 kmq POPULATION 8,290,000 REFUGEES 30,773 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 89.2% Non religious 7.6% Muslims 2.2% Others 0.4%

Baptized Catholics 6,027,000

AUSTRIA

The Federal Constitution lays down, in Article 7, that “All federal nationals are equal before the law. Privileges based upon birth, sex, estate, class, or religion are excluded”. Article 10 further establishes that “the right of association and assembly” and “religious affairs” are matters pertaining to federal legislation. Although in certain important matters there is no single document that brings together all the legislation, many laws have the status of constitutional laws.

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AZERBAIJAN

AZERBAIJAN

AREA 86,600 kmq POPULATION 8,480,000 REFUGEES 2,352 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 686,586

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 83.7% Affiliated Christians 4.6% Non religious 11.3% Others 0.4%

Baptized Catholics

In Azerbaijan the right to freedom of conscience is sufficiently protected, even though some administrative restrictions can indeed give rise to repression from time to time, among them the restrictions on religious literature, the process of designating Muslim clergymen and the restrictions placed on the activities of unregistered religious communities. For some years now the Azeri parliament has been working on a new law to regulate freedom of conscience. Asked why the law is being changed, Agil Hajiev, a spokesman for the state commission in charge of relations with religious organisations, said that the “same law has existed unchanged for more than nine years. We hope the new version will be a better law to defend freedom of conscience”. Although the stated goal of modifying the law is to take into account new needs and fight a rising tide of religious extremism, many in the country are sceptical as to whether it will actually do anything to improve the situation as far as religious freedom is concerned. For instance, the new law imposes tougher controls on missionary activities. The reason is that “[m]issionary organisations of unconventional religious movements have intensified their activities in Azerbaijan and some of them have radical views. These organisations are trying to entice Azeri citizens to join their ranks. In a number of cases the activities of these organisations are the result of flaws in the legislation, which is why a new version of the law on freedom of religion is now needed,” a local member of parliament said.

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Catholics Azerbaijan’s tiny Catholic community faces few difficulties. With 130 local members, plus about 120 foreigners who are in the country for work, it has good relations with its neighbours. When Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, visited Azerbaijan, the spiritual head of the Islamic community of the Caucasus gave a dinner in his honour, an event attended by some 200 guests from the world of politics, university, economics, culture and religion. On 29th April 2007 the Catholic community consecrated its only church in the country, thanks to the support of the Congrega-

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Protestants The ideological and religious vacuum left by Soviet rule has reawakened interest in religion in many young people, a trend that has raised fears among government leaders over the possibility that foreign groups might exert a growing influence in the country. Open Doors, an organisation that defends persecuted Christians around the world, has reported that the Azerbaijani authorities are trying to stop Muslims from converting to Christianity; whose numbers have increased from 40 at the time of independence in 1991 to about 18,000 today. The reason behind this opposition lies in the fact that Christianity is closely associated with Azerbaijan’s arch-enemy, Armenia, a view which turns converts into traitors. A Baptist pastor, Zaur Balaev, was imprisoned, allegedly for violence and for resisting a public official (he is accused of beating up five policemen). He was given two years in prison and his sentence upheld on appeal. The local Baptist community immediately denied the charges, clearly false, given that the clergyman is not physically strong, and suggested instead that he was really arrested for his religious activities. Reverend Balaev, the head of the Baptist community in Aliabad in north-western Azerbaijan, was taken into custody on 20th May 2007 when police raided an “illegal” meeting of the religious group he leads. Balaev’s trial ended in a verdict on 8th August 2007, confirming that religion was the issue behind his arrest. The ruling starts out by claiming that Balaev was involved in an illegal religious meeting at his home for the purpose of drawing young people to attend his religious services. The ruling also cited complaints by the local imam, Darchin Mamedov, concerning Balaev’s “illegal propaganda activity.” For the past 13 years Aliabad’s Baptist community has tried to officially register with the authorities but to no avail. Ilya Zenchenko, head of the Baptist Union of Azerbaijan, said that his Church’s last attempt to register was in July 2007 but for the umpteenth time the public notary refused to certify its application for legal status, thus preventing it from going any further. Also in Aliabad, local officials continue to deny children a birth certificate when parents give them Christian names. Without it children cannot receive medical care or go to school. The secret police stormed a Seventh Day Adventist church in Baku during a liturgical celebration; they interrogated all those present and seized religious literature found during the raid. Subsequently, the community’s pastor, Rev Rasim Bakhshiyev, was

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tion for the Evangelisation of Peoples as well as a number of private benefactors, including the aforementioned Muslim spiritual leader, Baku’s Orthodox bishop and the head of the local Jewish community.

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threatened with prison if he ever brought together his group again. He and seven other members of the community were fined for trying to draw young people to their religious services. Law enforcement officials had already raided the community the previous summer but in that case there were no consequences. On the same day in Gyanja, Seventh Day Adventist pastor, Rev Elshan Samedov, was threatened with time in jail if he allowed school age children to attend his meetings. “We don’t know if the raids in Baku and Gyanja on the same day are connected,” an Adventist said. “However, it is significant that two days later, the opposition paper Yeni Musavat and the television station ANS both had libellous material accusing us of being connected with Armenians”. Six foreign nationals involved in religious activities were expelled from the country at the end of 2006 and in early 2007, after police carried out an overnight raid on 24th December 2006 during a meeting of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Baku. Two of those expelled were not even present at the meeting, but were deported anyway, on the basis of an administrative rule that does not require any court order. What was their crime? They were accused of violating a “ban on foreigners conducting religious agitation” (Forum 18 News Service, 9th January 2007). Police also seized computers, religious texts and money during the raid. In the absence of a civilian service as an alternative to military service, conscientious objection remains a crime in Azerbaijan. For the first time in the last few years, in October 2007 a Jehovah’s Witness, Samir Huseynov, was sentenced to ten months in jail (Forum 18 News Service, 22nd January 2008). All previous cases had ended in a suspended sentence. Muslims Azerbaijan is facing a situation characterised by renewed interest in religion, particularly in Islam even in its most extreme and foreign versions. This applies, above all, to the younger generation of Azeris. There are many reasons for this development. In an editorial published on 10th August 2007 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty noted that the trend is first and foremost a result of the ideological vacuum left by the collapse of the Soviet system. On top of that the country lacks a centralised Islamic educational tradition; it has no real political opposition operating in the country; and it suffers from great inequality in the distribution of wealth and high levels of corruption among government officials. Last but not least, most of the population is experiencing serious economic difficulties. Inevitably, this new religious fervour has raised fear among government leaders that Islamic terrorism might expand. The government has therefore announced its intention of taking control over religious education, especially for the young, and is taking steps against Wahhabi groups suspected of terrorist activities.

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Faced with the new interest by the state in religious affairs, various international observers are wondering about the future of religious freedom in the country. For Eldar Mamazov, a former adviser to President Heydar Aliyev, Islam, in its most politicised form, is getting steadily stronger. “It is because of the authoritarian regime,” Mamazov said. “The government stifles democracy, it puts pressure on the opposition. There is now a big gap in Azerbaijan and political Islam is trying to fill it”. Ilqar Ibrahimoglu, a moderate imam and human rights activist, agrees up to a point. For him the government’s growing interest in the threat of Islamic terrorism stems from a desire to control all dissent. Rasim Musabekov, a political scientist and an expert on Azerbaijan, is of the same opinion, maintaining that perhaps the greatest threat comes from the fact that a clampdown on suspected radicals might restrict everyone’s civil liberties, stifling those “who express their religious feelings in different forms from others” On 4th May 2007, BBC News reported that on the same day a Baku court had sentenced journalist Rafiq Tagi and editor Samir Sadaqatoglu, both working for the small bimonthly Sanat, to three and four years in prison respectively for inciting “national, racial or religious hatred” because of an article they had published in November 2006 in which they compared Christian and Muslim values, claiming that Islam had hindered people from progressing along freedom and development. Their claims had in turn provoked a strong reaction in Iran and among Azerbaijan’s more radical Muslims.

AZERBAIJAN

Sources Eurasia Insight Forum 18 News Service Interfax, 14th February 2007 L’Osservatore Romano BosNewsLife Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

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BAHAMAS

BAHAMAS

AREA 13,878 kmq POPULATION 333,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

The 1973 Constitution of the Commonwealth of Bahamas guarantees complete religious freedom (Article 12), protecting both individual rights and the rights of religious groups. It also bars the state from interfering in their internal affairs. The country’s Christian heritage is singled out and granted special recognition in social life and education, including post-secondary education. At the same time non-Christian minorities are not subject to any kind of discrimination. Only some practices originating from voodoo (obeah) brought by Haitian immigrants have been banned for reasons of public order and because they involve forms of intimidation and the unlawful practice of medicine.

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 86.9% Non religious 5.3% Spiritists 1.5% Others 6.3%

Baptized Catholics 49,000

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BAHRAIN

Christians On 25th November 2006 municipal elections were held, and won with a large majority by the Islamic movements. Among the candidates there was a Christian of Jordanian origin, Ibrahim Zahi Suleiman. A Christian woman, Alice Sammaan, is already a member of the Consultative Council, the assembly appointed by the King. In spite of this Suleiman was attacked by a local newspaper precisely because he is a Christian. “I was never discriminated against, however”, said the candidate, whose electoral programme had emphasised the consolidation of democracy as well as environmental issues. Muslims In March 2006 an “International Conference for the Defence of the Prophet” brought together 300 Muslim clerics in Manama in order to study possible ways of responding to the Danish cartoons. Among the conclusions reached were respect for all religions, dialogue with the West to make Mohammed and Islam better known, the creation of an international organisation to guarantee respect for Mohammed, an analysis of non-violent means, including boycotting, for protesting against the publication of “blasphemous cartoons”, and the rejection of all acts of destruction of places of worship, embassies and other buildings. In April 2007, the Shiite Islamic Enlightenment Society held its annual congress which aimed at reducing tensions between the different Islamic denominations. Shiite and Sunni scholars were present, including some from abroad.

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AREA 678 kmq POPULATION 757,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 82.4% Affiliated Christians 10.5% Hindus 6.3% Others 0.8%

Baptized Catholics 41,000

BAHRAIN

The Constitution establishes Islam as the State religion is and the Shari‘a as the source for the law. Although a degree of freedom of worship for non-Muslims is allowed, proselytism is discouraged, anti-Islamic books are forbidden, and conversion from Islam to other religions is made extremely difficult due to social discrimination –although not punishable by the Law. The State also exercises strict control over the worship of the Islamic communities in the country – both Shiite and Sunni. Although there is a Shiite majority, political power is firmly in the hands of a Sunni family.

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At the end of December 2007 there were incidents between Shiite protesters and the police, in the course of which tear gas was used and rubber bullets were fired. A press release from the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights stated that “39 people were arrested and another ten or so were wounded in these clashes”. The minister for the interior, in a statement quoted by the BNA official agency, denied that the arrests were politically motivated and stated that those arrested were suspected of having stolen weapons and a police vehicle. The protest had been organised by Shiite activists seeking compensation for the victims of human rights violations during the 80s and the 90s. In a statement, the main organisation within the Shiite opposition, the Association of National Islamic Understanding, asked the minster of the interior “to put an immediate end to these illegal and inhuman activities and release without delay all those who had been arrested”. Sources AsiaNews ANSA AFP Islamonline

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BANGLADESH

Extremism and terrorism During the months preceding the general elections, that were due to be held in January 2007, in the attempt to gain consensus, the government showed itself even more inclined to give in to pressure from Islamic extremism. In August 2006 the political alliance led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), whose leader at the time was Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, decided to officially recognise the Qawami madrassas (Koranic schools). As a result, the official MA diploma (in Islamic studies/Arabic literature) now has the same value as the Dawra, the qualification given by these same Qawami madrassas. According to the Prime Minister herself, the final step should be the recognition of the Fazil diploma as equivalent to a university degree, and the Kamil, given by the Alia madrassas, as the equivalent of a Masters degree. For some time previously, radical Islamists had been demanding official recognition of the ancient schools known as Qawami, which however, according

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AREA 143,998 kmq POPULATION 140,526,000 REFUGEES 27,573 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 500,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 85.8% Hindus 12.4% Affiliated Christians 0.7% Others 1.1%

Baptized Catholics 312,000

BANGLADESH

Article 2 of the Constitution establishes Islam as the State religion, but guarantees religious freedom for other religions. It also states that each religious community and denomination has the right to instruct and maintain its institutions autonomously. At least publicly, the government is committed to guaranteeing religious freedom, but attacks on minority groups such as the Ahmadi continue to take place. The authorities and the police often fail in their duty to ensure that the law is respected and arrive too late to help those who are victims of aggression on account of their religion. There are no reports of changes as far as religious freedom in this country is concerned. In 2006 extremists continued to apply pressure on the central authority in a number of different areas of civil life – above all in the field of education. In 2007 the indefinite postponement of the general elections, the declaration of a state of emergency and the instatement of an interim government supported by the army, shook the national political fabric. At the time this report was drafted, the political situation was still extremely unstable. The increase in Islamic extremism and the indifference of the international community remain the greatest threats to full religious freedom in this country.

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to intelligence agencies, are used to recruit and train new generations of extremists and terrorists. The government decision followed protests by various Islamic parties, such as the Islami Oikya Jote, a member of the coalition government at that time. Hence the pressure applied by extremists on various sectors of public life, such as education, continues. This trend has dangerous implications. According to local analysts, the Qawami are demanding legal status, but at the same time refusing any control over their administration and the curricula taught to students. The government has effectively given these schools carte blanche, allowing them to teach whatever they wish and as they wish, and then to turn out graduates, exactly like those from state and private universities that are subject to government control. These provisions go in the opposite direction of those advised by security experts who, after the series of coordinated bomb explosions throughout Bangladesh on 17th August 2005, called for more control over the activities and finances of the Qawami madrassas. The most radical Koranic schools are financed by Saudi Arabia and by conservative Islamic governments, wishing to return Bengali Islam to their own version of Islamic orthodoxy. Analysts are unable to provide a timeline, but when these tendencies do surface there may well be 20 million youngsters trained in extremism at the Koranic schools, appearing on the world stage. According to the International Crisis Group, there are now over 64,000 madrassas in Bangladesh; in 1986 there were only 4,100. Furthermore, there has been a proliferation of Islamic organisations and political parties since 1976, when the government abolished the constitutional ban on the formation and activities of organisations with religious characteristics. No one knows the precise number of these organisations; the government and electoral commission are unable to provide precise data. Government intelligence agencies have reported the existence of at least 100 political parties and Islamic organisations that are currently active. Between 1964 and 1971 there were about 11. Analysts warn that there is every probability that the country is preparing to enter a phase in which it will be led by an Islamic government. The situation of the Christians The Constitution guarantees the right to profess and freely propagate any religion, but proselytism is strongly discouraged. Foreign missionaries are permitted to work, but must often face serious delays of many months to obtain or renew their visas. Some have reported that the security forces control their movements very closely. In March 2007, Catholic Bishop Bejoy Nicephorus D’Cruze of Khulna – in the southwest of the country – reported to ACN that the faithful in his diocese continue to look for protection from Islamic extremists. “In Bangladesh the Christians are a small minority; we are afraid of extremism and we still need the State’s protection”, he

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explained. Then he added that “in this country the Church does however play an important role, especially in the educational field”. In tribal areas in particular, Christians continue to be the object of social discrimination and suffer pressure from extremist groups, which in some cases try to “bring them back” to Islam by violence and threats, and also in order to gain possession of their belongings. The most frequent charge against Christians is that of engaging in “forced conversions”, in other words of persuading the poor to convert in return for economic rewards or promises of material benefits. Rumours such as these often trigger orchestrated violence, carried out not only by Muslims but also Buddhists. The violence against religious minorities often has the aim of depriving families and entire villages of their properties. Minorities are particularly vulnerable, since they have little influence at a political level and the police often fail to intervene to protect their rights. Among the most glaring cases was that in the Chittagong Hills, where indigenous Christian and Buddhist tribal peoples live. In recent decades Bengali settlers have occupied this area, depriving the tribal inhabitants of their only source of livelihood. In April 2006 an attack on the tribal peoples in Saupru Karbari and Noapara, two villages in the Maischari cluster (Khagrachari district), resulted in one person killed, four girls raped, 45 people wounded, homes looted and a hostel for the young destroyed. The attack was carried out by a group of supposed “Bengali thugs”, who set out to rob the tribal peoples of everything they had, including the land, which they had worked so hard to make cultivable. These criminals did not even spare a Buddhist hostel for poor children, which was seriously damaged. A local journalist told AsiaNews that the police had made no effort to intervene to protect the inhabitants. During the days of violence the Buddhist monk Sumona Mahatero, the founder and director of the hostel that was destroyed, rushed to try and save the women who were raped, but he was grabbed by the throat, beaten and thrown onto the street by the Bengalis. Mahatero believes that he was the main target, in fact. His crime was that he had tried to stand up against the injustices and had worked for the development of these people. It is thanks to him that these outside thugs have so far been unable to take over the land as they would like. Those arrested for these attacks were later released, one by one. The government has not offered any form of compensation. The two villages attacked, and those close by, were left living in fear for many months. The children were unable to return to the hostel which may have to be permanently closed. Accusations of proselytism continue to be the motive for outbreaks of violence against Christians. In the villages of Durbachari and Laksmirdanga, in the Nilphamari district, on 26th June 2007, a number of Muslims attacked a group of Christian converts They gave them 24 hours to leave their homes or be beaten. These attacks followed the baptism on 12th June of 42 men and women who had converted from Islam. The violence that followed the threats left many people being wounded and one house destroyed.

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The media and the local authorities justified these attacks, blaming them on the “Christian practice” of “forced conversions”. Experts on the subject of religion in Bangladesh have explained that these are conversions not imposed in any way or obtained by deception, but the result of work that is very brave, but at times aggressive, by a number of Protestant communities. The man who baptised these people was Pastor Albert Adikari Hirok. Most of them came from poor and near-illiterate families, but there were also members of the middle classes. Islamic fanatics persecute them, especially the men, since they who support their families, and by driving them away they can also inflict economic damage. This is something that has been happening for years, however recent waves of Taliban and anti-US fanaticism have contributed to an increase in such pressure. Generally, the ordinary people are tolerant, but the extremists have already killed two evangelists who were showing films about Jesus in public. At times some of the NGOs are confused with the Church, and at times their money has been used to proselytise, especially in the case of some Baptist groups, the Koreans and some evangelical groups. Catholic missionaries usually work very carefully and even when people come to the parishes and ask for Bibles, prefer to advise them to obtain them independently. On 10th October 2006, two Islamic militants, Hafez Mahmud and Mohammad Salauddinn, members of the Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh group (JMB), were sentenced to death for the murder in September 2004 of Abdul Gani Gomes, who had converted to Christianity. The government blamed the JMB group for the 500 coordinated explosions that took place in various locations in the country on 17th August 2005, killing at least 30 people. The JMB is seeking to transform Bangladesh from a secular democracy into an Islamic regime, with the introduction of the Shari‘a. They have been blamed for many of the attacks on the national judicial system. On 30th March 2007, six Islamic militants were hanged after being sentenced to death for the murder of two magistrates during the wave of terrorist attacks in the country during 2005. Among those executed were the leaders of two well-known extremist groups: Shaikh Abdur Rahman, leader of the JMB, and Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai, leader of the outlawed group Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB). Both these groups are held responsible for the bloody campaign to introduce Islamic law. The Ahmadi Political and social instability added to progressive Islamisation have continued to drive the persecution of the Ahmadi minority. The extremists want the total annihilation of this community, which they consider to be “heretical” because they do not acknowledge Mohammed as the last Prophet. Frequently the extremists do not wait for official initiatives but set out by themselves to marginalise this minority. There have

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been many attacks on Ahmadi mosques, the attackers beating up the faithful, removing the original signs and putting up posters stating for example: “This is not a Muslim place of worship; Muslims beware”. Ostensibly, it is not their intention to close down places of worship, but rather to clearly point out that these are not Muslim mosques, they claim. They are empty words, however. In practice, the extremists not only maltreat the members of this religious minority group but also attack their mosques and organise marches, denying that Ahmadism is part of Islam and calling for it to be calling for a ban on its publications. In January 2004, after committing a number of crimes, the Khatme Nabuwat (KN) – an organisation of extremist Sunni groups whose goal is to preserve Islamic orthodoxy, and the main persecutor of the Ahmadi – managed to obtain a ban on Ahmadi publications. This was a real and effective legitimisation of the discrimination against them. The Supreme Court suspended this provision in December of the same year, but the violence has not stopped. The government is trying to put a brake on these extremist initiatives and is respecting the verdict of the Supreme Court. In March 2007 the police helped a number of leaders of the Ahmadiyya to remove a placard fixed to the front of their mosque in Khulna. The words on it stated that the building was not a real mosque and that “the Ahmadi are not Muslims”. This was one of the first initiatives of this kind undertaken by the forces of law and order.

BANGLADESH

Sources The Daily Star AsiaNews Compass Direct News

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BARBADOS

BARBADOS

AREA 430 kmq POPULATION 274,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

Article 19 of the 1966 Constitution, as amended in 1974, 1981 and 1984, guarantees, in some detail, complete religious freedom, including in the educational sector. Almost the entire population is Christian and most belong to the Anglican faith. Registered religious groups enjoy fiscal benefits. Foreign missionaries must have a visa which is easy to obtain. There are no reports of events conflicting in practice with all that is guaranteed by the Constitution. The small Muslim minority (about 4,000 members), resulting from immigration, has three mosques and an Islamic cultural centre.

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 97% Baha’i 1.3% Others 1.7%

Baptized Catholics 10,000

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BELARUS

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AREA 207,600 kmq POPULATION 10,268,000 REFUGEES 649 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 70.3% Non religious 28.9% Others 0.8%

Baptized Catholics 1,405,000

BELARUS

Under a 2002 law on religious freedom Russian Orthodoxy has been made the country’s official religion. The law does, however, recognise the “spiritual, cultural and historical role of the Catholic Church in the territory of Belarus” as well as the “inalienability of the Lutheran Church from the country’s history.” The same law recognises “Orthodox Judaism” and Sunni Islam. All the same, the law has come in for serious criticism for the restrictions and the limits it imposes on the constitutionallyguaranteed right of freedom of religion. Opponents of the law are particularly upset by its ban on prayer meetings in private homes and on its complex registration procedures which make it quite difficult for people to legally meet for religious services organized by other groups. The law also imposes restrictions on religious communities with respect to their worship activities. Similarly the state has claimed for itself the right to protect the Orthodox Church against sects deemed dangerous and worthy of serious punishment. In March 2006 President Aleksandr Lukashenko was re-elected with more than 82 percent of the vote. In power since 1994, Lukashenko has concentrated all authority in his office through a series of plebiscites and constitutional amendments that have given him the means to keep tight control on all aspects of Belarus’ social life. Claims of widespread irregularities during the election led to large-scale protests and demonstrations in Minsk (about 30,000 people crowded into Republic Square on 19th March to hear the sole opposition candidate, Alaksandar Milinkievich); these were crushed by police on 25th March with hundreds of protesters detained and a few opposition leaders arrested. Even though Belarusian authorities tend to exercise tight control over religious activities, President Lukashenko has adopted a pragmatic and populist approach in the matter. Generally speaking, he is open to the larger religious communities insofar as that openness can increase his popularity and unify the country. In light of this, a roundtable was held in Minsk on 19th September 2007 involving the country’s Deputy Prime Minister, Aleksandr Kosinets and, for the first time, the leaders of all the religions recognised in Belarus. On that occasion Mr Kosinets assured them that the “president was interested in religious

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matters;” adding that there would from now on be two such events per year. Moreover, he stressed the advantages the current legislation offers religion, insisting that no one should expect changes to the existing law. He noted that thanks to the law, the “recognised” religious communities have expanded considerably, increasing from 2,009 communities in 1996 to 2,953 in 2007; in particular the Orthodox Church, which has gained 460 new parishes. For their part Catholics and Baptists added more than 70 new parishes; Evangelicals another 180; Adventists 40 more; Jews 31; and Muslims 4 (Respublika, 21st September 2007). Yet the same law has generated widespread dissatisfaction among religious groups. A petition against it has already garnered more than 40,000 signatures with Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants all equally involved in the collection process. The sponsors of the initiative, which began on 22nd April 2007, hope to quickly reach 50,000 signatures as required by the 1994 Constitution in order to get the Constitutional Court to consider the matter. October 2007 also saw mass commemorations marking the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Stalinist persecutions in Belarus. In Minsk a citizens’ committee proclaimed 29th October as the “Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Stalinist Genocide”. Throughout the year the Christian Churches organised a variety of initiatives. Greek Catholics commemorated genocide victims during their annual pilgrimage to Polatsk on 15th July and celebrated a memorial service on 29th October in Kurapaty Woods near Minsk, where an estimated 50,000 to 300,000 people were executed in 1937 and 1938. In Minsk the Latin Apostolic Administrator celebrated a memorial Mass on 26th August. And on 21st October many Latin and Byzantine Catholics, as well as groups of Orthodox, participated in a “Day of Repentance for the Crimes of Communism” sponsored by some Protestant Churches. On 29th October a government-authorised march involving about a thousand people honoured the memory of those buried in the mass graves in Kurapaty Woods (Vatican Radio, 30th October 2007). Catholics In Belarus all four Catholic dioceses are registered with the authorities. The Catholic Church has five bishops, more than 400 parishes, 381 priests (half of them foreignborn) and more than 350 women religious. It membership is estimated to be around 1.2 million or 15 percent of the population. On 21st September 2007 Mgr Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz was appointed head of the diocese of Minsk-Mohilev, the same where he had started his Episcopal ministry in 1989 till 1991 (before being later appointed to the diocese of the Mother of God in Moscow). The new archbishop replaced 93-year-old Cardinal Kazimierz Swiatek, a survivor of the Soviet gulag system.

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The largely foreign-born (especially Polish) Catholic clergy still faces a lot of red tape over entry visas. The ministry in charge of religious affairs enforces a quota system that limits the number of foreign priests allowed into the country; by the same token, any priest who moves to a another parish within Belarus must get a new visa. The net result has been that a growing number of Catholic (but also Protestant) clergy have been denied the right to enter the country. The chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Belarus, Mgr Aleksandr Kaszkiewicz, bishop of Grodno, wrote a letter dated 5th December 2006 (Vatican Radio, 14th December 2006) to protest against the authorities’ refusal to renew the visa of some of Polish priests and women religious. In the same statement he also urged the faithful to take part in a week of prayers to be held in the cathedral and to sign a protest against the government decision. During the aforementioned roundtable with religious leaders, Deputy Prime Minister Kosinets however made it clear that the Belarus authorities do not want foreign missionaries. “We are in favour of clergy who have Belarusian nationality,” he said, because “it is not possible to conduct religious activities without speaking Belarusian or Russian, or understanding how people think, or knowing their customs and traditions. Indeed, in the Catholic Church most priests are foreign-born (190 out of 381). In the country there are two Catholic seminaries, in Grodno and Pinsk, which currently train about 165 people altogether. Therefore, we can expect that over the next seven years it will be possible to have a Belarusian priest in each parish that now has a foreign one.” On 7th December 2007 the Forum 18 News Service reported that a Polish priest, Grzegorz Chudek, was told to quit Trinity Parish Church in Rechytsa, where he had carried out his ministry, and leave the country (perhaps because a few months earlier in an interview with a Polish paper he had criticised the situation in Belarus). This decision provoked a response with more than 700 parish’s members signing an appeal to President Lukashenko on the priest’s behalf. Orthodox The Orthodox Church in Belarus is an Exarchate of the Moscow Patriarchate and enjoys a privileged position in the country by virtue of the 2002 law. Altogether it has 1,265 parish churches and represents more than 70 percent of the population (of 10,360,000). Although some members of the Orthodox Church have signed the petition calling for the revision of the law because of its discriminatory nature, the official Orthodox Church failed to join the initiative. Instead in a statement issued on 27th April 2007, Metropolitan Filaret (Kirill Vakhromeev) urged the faithful to stay away from the campaign against the law. The prelate also warned the main Orthodox prorevision activist, Fr Aleksandr Shramko (from Minsk’s Protection of the Holy Virgin

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Parish), against acting in his capacity as a priest, but did not suspend him a divinis (Forum 18 News Service, 16th May 2007). Conversely, Minsk’s Diocesan Council was forced to issue a statement on behalf of Metropolitan Filaret protesting over the publication by Soviet Belarus of an article prepared by the Orthodox Church that was heavily edited and altered without the knowledge and consent of its authors (Blagovest-info.ru, 1st February 2007). In another odd incident Belarusian KGB agents raided a prayer and Biblical fellowship meeting held in a flat in the city of Gomel that was attended by a group of 15 Orthodox believers loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate (Forum 18 News Service, 6th June 2007). The group is part of a religious movement founded in Moscow by Fr Georgij Kochetkov, a well-known spiritual father and open-minded theologian who runs the St Filaret Orthodox Christian Institute, which operates under a license issued in 2004 by the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of Religious Education and Catechisation. Other religious groups The Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church was registered with the authorities on 14th December 2006 (Forum 18 News Service, 17th December 2006). Since 2003 the government has outlawed the activities of unregistered religious communities, enforcing strict measures against those organisations that had their registration application turned down under the 2002 Religious Freedom Law. Under this law any type of group prayer or recreational activity can be prosecuted. Communities accused of breaking the law and engaging in illegal religious activities are subject to fines. Pentecostal Christians, New Life Charismatic groups and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad all had to pay fines worth € 8,000 (US$ 12,000) in 2005 and 2006. Such groups also face major obstacles in trying to use and maintain their places of worship. For example the facility used by Minsk’s New Life Charismatic community was seized at the end of 2006 with no end in sight to the legal wrangling over the right to use (Forum 18 News Service, 27th September 2007). Pastor Antoni Bokun, a Pentecostal clergyman from Minsk’s Saint John the Baptist community, was sentenced to three days in prison (Forum 18 News Service, 5th June 2007) for celebrating an illegal religious service. Just before that he was heavily fined (€ 215 or US$ 320) on related charges. In response some 7,000 people from various Churches across Belarus took part in a prayer meeting on 3rd June which had to be held in an open-air venue as no single place of worship could contain them all. Pastor Bokun is the third person jailed in post-Soviet Belarus for engaging in so-called ‘illegal’ religious activities. In March 2006 Baptist Pastor Georgi Vjazovskij and layman Sergei Shavcov also spent ten days behind bars for organising religious events without a permit.

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BELGIUM

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AREA 30,528 kmq POPULATION 10,540,000 REFUGEES 17,575 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 88.3% Non religious 7.5% Muslims 3.6% Others 0.6%

Baptized Catholics 7,705,000

BELGIUM

Article 6.b. of the Constitution of 1831 recognises “the rights and freedoms of ideological and philosophical minorities” and Article 14 guarantees “freedom of worship, and its public exercise” without restrictions (Article 15) on participation in religious practices or respecting religious days of rest. Article 16 forbids the State from intervening in the nomination or appointment of the minsters of any religion, or preventing them from corresponding with their superiors and publishing their documents. As far as education is concerned, this must be “neutral in character” which “basically implies respect for the philosophical, ideological or religious views of parents and students”, while state schools must provide, “the choice, throughout the period of compulsory education, between instruction in one of the recognised religions and in non-denominational ethics”. Such State recognition, which includes access to public funding, covers the following churches: the Catholic Church, the Protestant Church (EPUB – United Protestant Church of Belgium), the Jewish Community, the Anglican Church, the Greek-Russian Orthodox Church, the Islamic Community and a philosophical non-denominational community represented by the Conseil central des communautés philosophiques non confessionnelles de laiques (CCL – Central Council of secular non-denominational philosophical communities). In 2007 the government expressed a favourable opinion with regard to recognition of the Buddhist community. In March 2007 eight Hindu communities founded the Belgian Hindu Forum so as to obtain official recognition for Hinduism in Belgium. In a memorandum dated 2nd March 2007 Paul Courard, the Minister for Internal Affairs and Public Administration for the Wallonia Region, stated that with the exception of a degree of indulgence towards works of art, “all images, reproductions and objects in the properties of municipalities, provinces and public social and inter-communal activity centres, must refrain from portraying religious symbols”, with the stated intention of “not offending the persuasions of our fellow citizens, or of those of members of staff working in these institutions”. There is a significant increase in the activities of the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposing Racism (CEOOR), the

BELGIUM

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department answering directly to the Prime Minister’s office, created in 1993 and better known as the Anti-Racism Centre, which received numerous reports of religiousbased discrimination. Equally, there seems to be a decrease in the influence exercised by the Parliamentary commission of enquiry for investigating sects and their institutional offshoots, set up in compliance with the law of 2nd June 1998, although the harassment of new religious movements continues and they are the object of detailed investigations which are injurious to human rights. Judaism Numerous acts of violence have been reported by the Jewish community against their representatives, their places of worship and their symbols. The highest level of antiSemitic incidents, which seem mainly attributable to Muslim immigrants, was reached during the Israel-Lebanese conflict in the summer of 2006. In this climate, on 24th July 2006 the national monument to the Jewish martyrs of Belgium, in the district of Anderlecht in Brussels, was attacked when a number of vandals entered and removed the ashes of victims of the Auschwitz concentration camp, destroying the urn that contained them and destroying documents and commemorative ornaments. Islam A continuing object of tension within the Islamic community, estimated at about 400,000 immigrants from various Muslim countries, is the authority given to school headmasters and the principals of educational institutions to forbid the use of the Islamic veil in state schools. This same provision is applied by various public administrations. Sources Willy Fautré, A Historical Trial in Brussels, Human Rights Without Frontiers International, 11th February 2006 Willy Fautré, State Security and Surveillance of Minority Religions, Human Rights Without Frontiers International, 15th February 2006 Willy Fautré, Report of the Work of the Parliamentary “Sect” Working Group, Human Rights Without Frontiers International, 3rd April 2006 Decision by the State Council dated 23rd October 2007 on the Chantal Pommée case, http://www.raadvst-consetat.be/arresten/175000/800/175886dep.pdf Asma Hanif, Religion in Europe: Muslims in the EU capital – identity vs integration, Religioscope, 8th January 2008, http://religion.info/english/articles/article_359.shtml

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BELIZE

Article 11 of the 1981 Constitution sets out in detail the rights to religious freedom, including public profession of one’s faith both individually and in association with others, freedom to provide religious instruction and own schools, and freedom to change one’s religion. These rights are also respected in practice and there are no reports of events conflicting with constitutional legislation. The majority of the population is Christian and predominantly Catholic. There are small minorities of followers of other nonChristian religions, but there are no reports of oppressive events or behaviour addressed at them.

AREA 22,965 kmq POPULATION 293,000 REFUGEES 358 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 90.8% Baha’i 2.9% Hindus 2.3% Others 4%

Baptized Catholics

BELIZE

222,000

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BENIN

BENIN

AREA 112,622 kmq POPULATION 7,650,000 REFUGEES 7,621 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Ethnoreligionists 51.5% Affiliated Christians 28% Muslims 20% Others 0.5%

Baptized Catholics 2,038,000

Religious freedom is established in the Constitution and the government generally respects this right when implementing its policies, trying also to protect it from both private and governmental abuse and contributing to the free practice of religion. In particular, the generally friendly relationships between different religious groups have contributed to ther real development of religious freedom. According to a survey carried out in 2002, 27 percent of the population follow the Catholic faith, 24 percent are Muslims and 18 percent of the inhabitants practice the indigenous voodoo religion, which originated in this part of Africa. Other religious groups are also present in this country, among them the Celestial Christians, Methodists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Pentecostals, Seventh Day Adventists and Mormons. Muslims are in particular present in the north and the south-east of the country, while Christians have mainly settled in the South and in particular in the economic capital, Cotonou. Nearly all Muslims belong to the Sunni branch. The few Shiites present have mainly emigrated from the Middle East. Many Christians and Muslims also practise the rituals of the indigenous religions. It is not unusual in Benin to find within one and the same family, members practising Christianity, Islam, and traditional native religions, or even a combination of the various beliefs. This religious syncretism within families and communities has allowed the spread of an attitude of religious tolerance, at all levels of society and in all regions of the country. In November 2006 thousands of people gathered on a beach in Benin to celebrate voodoo ritual sacrifices, once forbidden in this country. The participants had also come from Brazil and the United States where centuries ago slaves brought the practises of the cult with them. The place where they met was the Oiudah beach, to the west of the commercial capital Cotonou. Those wishing to establish a religious group are obliged to register with the Ministry of the Interior. During the period covered by this report there were no reports of groups having encountered problems or having been refused authorisation. In compliance with Article 2 of the Constitution, which establishes a secular Sate, state school are not authorised to provide religious instruction. However, religious groups are authorised

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to set up private schools. National holidays include the Christian celebrations of Easter Monday, the Ascension, Pentecost, the Assumption, All Saints, Christmas, the Islamic day of Ramadan, Tabaski, the birth of the Prophet Mohammed, and the celebration of the native religion. The State provides televised coverage of religious festivities and other special events, including the lives of important religious leaders. In January 2007 the fortnightly Catholic magazine La Croix du Bénin celebrated 60 years of uninterrupted publication. This magazine, the oldest newspaper in francophone Africa, was founded in 1947 in what was then French Dahomey, by the missionary Jean Louis Caer at the request of Bishop Louis Parisot. The objective was to provide a means of communication to guide and help Christians, and the local elite, to explore questions of faith in greater depth; however, as the current editor, Father André Quenun points out, La Croix du Bénin does not only address strictly religious issues, but also issues of current economic, political and social relevance, though obviously still within a Christian context. The paper has always remained faithful to this editorial line, even during the difficult years of the Marxist-Leninist regime that governed the country between 1974 and 1990; as a result it is now one of the most authoritative newspapers in the region. During the past 60 years, albeit with ups and downs, La Croix du Bénin never ceased publication. Father Quenum reports that among the projects currently being considered there is also one involving the creation, together with other Catholic media, of an African news network that covers the life of the local churches. In September 2007, speaking to the bishops of Benin visiting Castel Gandolfo, Pope Benedict XVI said that “In order to avoid the development of any kind of intolerance and to prevent all forms of violence, it is necessary to pursue sincere dialogue, founded on an ever greater mutual understanding”. In his speech Pope Benedict also reminded the bishops that the Islamic-Christian dialogue must take place “especially through respectful human relations, through an agreement on the values of life and through mutual cooperation in all that furthers the common good”, and on this subject His Holiness observed that “Such dialogue also requires that competent people be trained to help spread knowledge and understanding of the religious values that we share and to respect differences.” All this is reality now in Benin, so much so that the Pope expressed his satisfaction at the “atmosphere of mutual understanding that characterises relations between Christians and Muslims in Benin”. Sources ACN News PeaceReporter, 11th January 2006 Vatican Radio, 24th January 2007 La Repubblica, 20th September 2007

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BHUTAN

BHUTAN

AREA 47,000 kmq POPULATION 2,451,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Buddhists 74% Hindus 20.5% Ethnoreligionists 3.8% Affiliated Christians 0.5% Others 1.2%

Baptized Catholics 1,000

Although the law provides for religious freedom, the government effectively limits this right for religions other than the State religion, Buddhism. In particular, non-Buddhist missionaries are not allowed into the country, they are virtually denied the right to build their own places of worships and religious proselytising is outlawed – all this despite the fact that the draft Constitution adopted in August 2005 declares that “Every Bhutanese citizen shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion” as well as the right to public and peacefull assembly. Informed by the rules of Mahayana Buddhism, all Bhutanese nationals must respect the dress code of the predominantly Buddhist Ngalop ethnic group, whether in public buildings, monasteries, schools or during official ceremonies. In the mountain kingdom Buddhist monks enjoy a privileged status. They receive public funds, are the only ones eligible to rule on religious matters, and have reserved seats in parliament as well as on the king’s Royal Advisory Council. In 2005 a decision was made to rely on Buddhist principles as the basis for the country’s family law, irrespective of the religion of those concerned. The main Buddhist feast days are statutory holidays. One of the main Hindu feast days is also set aside as public day. In schools only Drukpa Kagyupa or Ningmapa Buddhism are taught. In the state schools a daily Buddhist prayer is recited. The government also pays for the construction of Buddhist temples and monasteries. Hindus, who are strong in the south of the country, are allowed to have their own temples and perform their own ceremonies and rituals, but they have not been allowed to build new temples for years. Buddhist cultural hegemony manifests itself at all levels of public life. On 20th February 2006 the new satellite TV service started broadcasting, ostensibly as a national TV network, with news and other programmes beamed into every home. But, as Kamala Chetri told AsiaNews, the ten hours in which the Bhutan Broadcasting Service (BBS) is on the air “are literally packed with news about the royal family and Buddhist monasteries. The entire service smacks of Buddhist preaching. We

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Catholics Celebrating Mass or praying in public is banned in the country. Priests are denied entry visas. Celebrating Mass in private homes is possible but since priests are not allowed into the country, that right is virtually impossible to exercise. There is only one Christian church in the country and applications to build other places of worship are turned down. Fr Alex Gurung, secretary of the Indian diocese of Darjeeling (which includes within its territory the small nation of Bhutan), told AsiaNews that Jesuit missionaries were the “architects of modern education in Bhutan”. But now Catholic priests have been shunned; “We are no longer welcome, because the authorities fear we may court the Buddhist people in order to convert them to Christianity. But their fears are unfounded. The Church does not aspire to convert everyone; her only mission is to serve all, regardless of religion.” Bishop Stephen Lepcha of Darjeeling confirms that “Indian priests are denied entry visas”. Officially the justification is the fear that Christians will evangelise the

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don’t get anything about Hindus, Muslims or other religions and cultures”. She adds that, because TV coverage is largely Buddhist in content, “the gap between the Buddhist majority and immigrant Hindus, Christians and Nepalese animists is bound to grow. It doesn’t really foster co-existence” (AsiaNews, 23rd February 2006). The expulsion from 1990 on of more than 100,000 Bhutanese of Nepali origin, mostly Hindus, is another example of this cultural hegemony. Either forcibly expelled or driven out by persecution, they are now living in refugee camps in Nepal. Bhutan’s government claims that they were almost all illegal immigrants and accuses them of having conspired against Bhutan’s culture and Buddhist religion. But the refugees maintain that they too are Bhutanese citizens, who have been denied this identity because of their Nepali origin. After a century of royalist government the country held its first democratic elections in 2008. In January voters elected the members of the Upper House and in the following months they did the same for the Lower House. This was a fundamental step on the road towards parliamentary democracy, a goal set by former King Jigme Singhye Wangchuck, who abdicated in December 2006 in favour of his 27-year-old son Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. After the election, the king will continue to be the head of state but power will thereafter be vested in parliament. Article 3 of the Constitution states that “Religious institutions and personalities shall remain above politics” and that Buddhism “promotes among other principles” the “values of peace, non-violence, compassion and tolerance.” At the same the constitutional charter says that religious figures are above politics, their main concern should be the spiritual sphere and they should not get involved in politics.

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Buddhist population, which is why Bishop Lepcha too was denied an entry visa. Still, Catholic groups and priests already in the country are actively involved in social, humanitarian and educational work. Other Christian communities On 7th January 2006 two Pentecostal Christians, Benjamin Budhu Mani Dungana and John Purna Bahadur, were arrested in the village of Nago, Paro district, accused of proselytising. According to the charges laid against them, the two had invited villagers to a debate about religion, claiming to be public officials, and during the debate had spoken against the country’s spiritual leader. In fact, Christian groups claimed, all they did was to show a videocassette about the life of Jesus in the home of a Buddhist family. The following June they were sentenced to three years in prison but were eventually released, after paying a fine, on 28th July 2006, because of international pressure.

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BOLIVIA

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AREA 1,098,581 kmq POPULATION 9,630,000 REFUGEES 632 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 94.1% Baha’i 3.2% Others 2.7%

Baptized Catholics 8,019,000

BOLIVIA

The Catholic Church greeted the new government of Evo Morales with hope (ZENIT, 15th January 2006) and her view was reflected in the pastoral message Construyamos una Bolivia para todos (Let us build a Bolivia for everyone). The Bolivian Bishops’ Conference and the representatives of the Anglican, Evangelical, Methodist and Episcopalian Churches appealed for the new Constitution to respect religious liberty. Soon afterwards Benecio Quispe, Minister of Public Instruction signed a document, together with the representatives of the Episcopal Conference, guaranteeing the teaching of religion in the schools and respect for religious liberty (Radio Giornale Vaticano, 18th July 2006). However, there was a confrontation in the educational field when the Minister for Education and Culture, Félix Patzi, announced that the teaching of religion as a school subject was to be replaced with lessons in the history of religion, which would also include indigenous Indian beliefs. He also accused the Church of having stood on the side of the ruling oligarchy for the past five centuries. In response, the bishops called for dialogue, underlining the necessity of living in a state that was pluralist, democratic and observed the rule of law, (Il Regno, 18/2006; Radio Giornale Vaticano, 26th July 2006). Despite this, there have been a succession of minor clashes between the Church, as the guarantor of liberty, and the authorities. The famous cross of San Francisco de Potosí was partly destroyed by dynamite (La República, 14th November 2006). Cardinal Julio Terrazas appealed for peace and dialogue between the various opposing political groups (Radio Giornale Vaticano, 15th November 2006; ZENIT, 28th November 2006). Finally, after a number of bitter attacks in the name of secularism on the part of the government, a new educational accord was reached which guarantees the teaching of religion in the primary and secondary schools. The agreement was signed by Cardinal Julio Terrazas and President Evo Morales in Santa Cruz de la Sierra (ZENIT, 6th December 2006). Nonetheless, the controversial approval of Morales’ proposed new Constitution in the Department of Oruro, voted in an irregular manner by government supporters only, has provoked a division of the country, since four other regions, headed by Santa Cruz de la Sierra, are campaigning for their own autonomy and for a decentralised government (L’Osservatore Romano, 10th-11th December 2007).

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BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

AREA 51,197 kmq POPULATION 3,860,000 REFUGEES 7,367 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 131,600

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 60% Affiliated Christians 35% Non religious 5%

Baptized Catholics 468,000

In its preamble, and in Article 2 para. 3, the 1995 Constitution of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina establishes the right to religious freedom, which is generally respected. In practice however, most frequently in mixed ethnic areas, there are serious instances of discrimination against the members of certain groups. Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox Serbs all report many cases of aggression and religious intolerance. In the context of the traditional religious groupings, the number of practising believers is relatively few, but there are however some areas in which religion is practised more intensely, for example in the Croatian Catholic communities in their particular ethnic enclaves in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Catholics in Bosnia are a minority; they are in the difficult position, fighting for surviving in an environment which is becoming more and more regulated by the Islam, i.e. in the MuslimCroat Federation or where there are unwelcome, i.e. in the Serbian Republic. Above all for many Muslims in Bosnia, religion is at the same time a mark of their ethnic identity, even if their actual religious practice is confined to the occasional visit to the mosque and to a handful of important occasions (births, marriages and deaths). Eight Muftis operate in the country, based in the larger cities such as Sarajevo, Tuzla, Mostar and Banja Luka. During 2006, Parliament was unable to reach agreement on the draft law establishing public holidays (religious and national). Local authorities usually acknowledge as public holidays those days considered as such by the members of the most numerous religious group in the area. The law on religious freedom governs permissions for religious groups and establish the right to freedom of religion and conscience in Bosnia. A unified register has also been created for all religions at the Ministry of Justice, while the Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees is working on documenting all violations of religious freedom. According to current legislation, any group of at least three hundred adult members can build a new church or organise a religious community by presenting a written request to the Ministry of Justice, which must decide on approval within

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thirty days of receiving the request. Should a request be rejected, an appeal may be submitted to the Council of Ministers. Separatist pressure is often supported by religious elements; for example, in the month of June 2007, the Serbian Orthodox Bishop of Trebinje Grigorije called for a referendum seeking the independence from the Bosnian state of the Republika Srpska, the Serb-ruled entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina. During 2006 the local authorities resolved upon various ways of assigning and promoting financial support for the main religious communities, which usually tend to receive most of their funding in those areas in which their members are most numerous. Parents have the right to enrol their children in private schools for religious reasons. Many towns and cities have faith-based schools, whether Islamic, Catholic or Serbian Orthodox. But the European Schools of the Catholic Church have the aim to build reconciliation and tolerance between the national groups and religions in Bosnia. The four largest religious communities in the country have for some time been requesting the return of, or compensation for, the properties they owned that were confiscated or nationalised by the communist regime. The State Commission for restitution is working on drafting a national and unitary law on this issue. For the moment, in the absence of such a ruling, the decisions fall to the various local authorities. On 19th April 2007, after six years work, the Holy See and the Bosnian government signed a Concordat governing the legal status of the Catholic Church in Bosnia. The treaty was signed by Archbishop Alessandro d’Errico, the apostolic nuncio in Sarajevo, representing the Holy See and for Bosnia and Herzegovina by Mr. Ivo Miro Jovíc, the Croatian member of the country’s collegial Presidency. This event was reported by L’Osservatore Romano on 28th April. The agreement acknowledges the respective independence of the two parties, but also their willingness to cooperate. In this way the legal framework has been established for relations between the State and the Holy See. The judicial system continues to a great extent to be an obstacle to the defence of religious freedom for the minorities. For example, the police rarely arrest those responsible for vandalism against religious buildings or for attacks on the ministers of the various churches or communities. At a local level, the authorities sometimes impose restrictions on religious rites and ceremonies. For example, in the Serb-dominated municipality of Bratunac, the Serbian population has repeatedly denied local Muslims permission to build a cemetery or a memorial on the land opposite and surrounding the city mosque. Sadly, Bratunac is also notorious for the 1992 massacre of 600 people, most of them Muslims and including also the local imam. In the course of the year 2007 the number of attacks on religious symbols, buildings and religious ministers has also increased. The Catholic Church, the Serbian Orthodox

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Church, the Protestant and the Muslim communities are all equally the object of aggression and vandalism. The leaders of the main Religions continue to meet within the Interreligious Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina, within which they work together to lay the foundations for resolving both the substantial and the occasional conflicts. The Catholic and Orthodox churches in particular meet regularly to discuss common issues and ideas, which it is hoped will lead them to an ever-increasing closeness. During the week of ecumenical dialogue in April 2007, the leader of the Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cardinal Vinko Puljic, presided at a religious service in the Orthodox cathedral of Sarajevo, while Metropolitan Nikolai, the leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held a service in the Catholic cathedral of this same city. And similarly Catholic Bishop, Ratko Peric of Mostar met with the Mufti of Mostar, Seid Effendi Smajkic.

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BOTSWANA

Article 11 of the Constitution of 1996 guarantees full religious freedom. The Constitution only restricts freedom on grounds of national defence, public security, public order, public morality or public health. Any suspension of this right by the government must, however, be shown to be “reasonably justifiable in a democratic society”. Religious education is provided within schools. However, the Constitution forbids compulsory religious instruction, compulsory attendance at religious ceremonies, as well as any obligation to swear any oath that is in conflict with one’s personal convictions. There is no State religion. All organisations, including religious groups, must register with the Ministry of Labour and Internal Affairs. Between July 2006 and May 2007, 69 new groups registered successfully. There are no problems with regard to coexistence between the various denominations.

AREA 581,730 kmq POPULATION 1,881,000 REFUGEES 2,465 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 46.3% Ethnoreligionists 38.8% Others 14.9%

Baptized Catholics 85,000

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Sources University of Botswana, www.thuto.org/ubh/bw/society/ www.afrobarometer.org/resultsbycountry.html

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BRAZIL

BRAZIL

AREA 8,514,215 kmq POPULATION 186,770,000 REFUGEES 20,783 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 91.4% Ethnoreligionists 4.9% Others 3.7%

Baptized Catholics 157,816,000

Article 5 of the Brazilian Constitution sanctions and safeguards religious freedom. Moreover, the penal code, approved in December 1998, criminalised certain offences against religious feelings and respect for the dead. There is no State religion and there is, likewise, no obligation to register, instead all the religious groupings are free to organise their own activities. Relations between the Catholic Church and the State have been governed since 1945 by a Concordat. In practice, there have been no reports of violations of the right to religious freedom on the part of the authorities. The problem of abortion Starting with the note issued on 23rd February 2005 by the standing committee of the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference (CNBB), the Catholic Church has fought an intensive campaign against the government’s proposed bill for the liberalisation of abortion. Since the visit by Pope Benedict XVI in May 2007, this Bill has currently been removed from the agenda of the Brazilian Congress. Indeed, the problem of massive and aggressive “secularist” mobilisation by a handful of political groupings and likewise by governments and institutions, was also denounced by the special council for America of the general secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, in October 2007 (as reported by the ACI Prensa Agency on 16th October 2007). These attacks seem to be directed especially against the Catholic Church, not only in Brazil but throughout Latin America. Those attending the meeting of the council pointed to “the production and trafficking of drugs, the violence and political corruption, the promotion of a series of laws – on abortion and euthanasia – contrary to all ethical norms”. The bishops went on to point out the spread of a political ideology “of a neo-Marxist tendency” that was creating “imbalances in international relations and among the domestic institutions within these countries, while aiming to sideline the Catholic Church and no longer treat it as a partner in the social dialogue”. The spread of violence A widespread climate of violence, springing from a variety of motives, has created difficult conditions for priests and pastoral

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workers, a fact exemplified by the murder of Father Bruno Baldacci, an Italian priest who worked in the diocese of Sao Salvador da Bahia. He was murdered in his own home, in Victoria da Conquista, in the state of Bahia, as reported by the ZENIT news agency on 31st March 2006. For their part, the bishops of the Catholic Church in Brazil have likewise expressed their concern at the increased violence in various regions of the country, in a message entitled “Justice and peace will embrace” (Fides, 3rd July 2006). “We deplore that in this sad situation the human rights of so many people have not been not respected”, state the bishops in this document, specifically referring to recent outbreaks of violence and aggression in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and in the states of Espirito Santo, Pará Bahia, and Maranhao. According to the bishops, the situation had deteriorated above all because of “a lack of adequate policies and the absence of an appropriate use of power”. The continuous slanders and death threats made “against Church personnel, bishops, priests and religious, and against the leaders of popular movements working in the Altamira and Santaerm regions and elsewhere”, were creating “a climate of tension and fear in this peaceful and hard- working country”. Faced with this situation, the Brazilian bishops issued an appeal to the authorities to implement the necessary measures and guarantee the defence of the rights of all the people.

BRAZIL

Sources Fides ACI Prensa ZENIT Popoli e missioni www.cnbb.org.br

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BRUNEI DARUSSALAM

BRUNEI DARUSSALAM

AREA 5,765 kmq POPULATION 361,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 64.4% Ethnoreligionists 11.2% Buddhists 9.1% Affiliated Christians 7.7% Others 7.6%

Under the Constitution of 1959 Salafi Islam is the State religion. Religious freedom is recognised but the law restricts the practice of religions other than Salafi Islam. Proselytism is not allowed for non-Muslim religions and importing any religious material is prohibited. Articles and images of other faiths are censored in the press. Non-Salafi religious groups must register and provide the names of all their members. Participation in unregistered groups is punishable with time in prison. Whether religious in nature or not, every public meeting involving five or more people must be authorised. The use of private homes for religious meetings is banned. Christian schools are allowed but not the teaching of Christianity. Conversely, courses in the Islamic religion are compulsory for all students. Muslims and non-Muslims are not allowed to marry and any non-Muslim man who wants to marry a Muslim woman must convert. Muslims who want to change religion must obtain a public authorisation but social pressures are such that it is virtually impossible to do. In general the government prevents non-Muslim clerics from entering the country and does not allow the construction or repair of non-Muslim religious building. However, in 2006 and 2007 it did allow the renovation of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church and it often allows repairs in Christian churches and schools for “security reasons”.

Baptized Catholics 22,000

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BULGARIA

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AREA 110,912 kmq POPULATION 7,680,000 REFUGEES 4,836 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 81% Muslims 11.9% Non religious 7% Others 0.1%

Baptized Catholics 73,000

BULGARIA

The Constitution dated 1991 decrees the right to freedom of religion, in particular in Article 6. Although the Constitution does not establish a State religion, Article 13 describes the Orthodox Church as the country’s “traditional religion”. The government allocates specific financial aid for this religion, and also extends such assistance to a few other religious groups historically present in the country, such as Muslims, Catholics and Jews. The Law forbids public religious practice for members of nonregistered groups. A disputed law dating back to 2002 transferred responsibility for registration to the Municipal Court of Sofia, which manages and updates of the register for religious denominations, as well as for political parties. However, the institution formally responsible for registration remains the Board of the Council of Ministers for Religious Denominations, whose role remains ambiguous. There are no restrictions to the freedom of activity for registered groups; there are two freely operating Orthodox seminaries, one Jewish school, three Islamic schools and one Islamic university, a Muslim cultural centre, one seminary for the various Protestant Christian denominations and a university theological faculty. The Bible, the Koran and other religious texts in Bulgarian are either imported or published directly in the country with no restrictions, and religious newspapers are also published regularly. About the restitution of property confiscated during the communist period: Orthodox, Catholics, Muslims, Jews and a number of Protestant denominations have deplored the fact that much of their property has not yet been returned to them. The Catholic Church, for example, has calculated that only 60 percent of its possessions have been returned. On 30th March 2007, Vatican Radio reported on a meeting held at the end of the month in Sofia between the leaders of all the religions present in Bulgaria. This initiative was promoted by the Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and supported (among others) by the Catholic Church represented by Byzantine-rite Bishop Christo Proykov of Sofia, who is president of the Bulgarian Episcopal Conference, and by the apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza. At the end of the meeting a

BULGARIA

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common statement was released, signed by all the participants, condemning the exploitation of religion in the interests of violence and hatred. Bulgarian Orthodox Metropolitan Dometian of Vidin stated that this was the first of a series of meetings, and the head of state Georgj Parvanov also expressed his appreciation for this initiative. The Bulgarian Grand Mufti’s office has reported numerous cases of the profanation of mosques; for example, on 3rd May 2007 some pigs’ heads were hung outside two mosques in Silistra. His office has expressed concern at the fact that those responsible for such actions are rarely punished by the courts. The extremist political party Ataka has launched a campaign aimed at silencing the loudspeakers used for calling the faithful to prayers at the mosque in Sofia, claiming that the high volume of these announcements is disturbing residents in the city’s central area. At the request of the Mayor of Sofia, the Grand Mufti has promised that the volume will be lowered, but only if it is proven that these are in excess of the noise levels permitted by the law. On 19th September 2007, Vatican Radio reported on the words of the apostolic nuncio in Bulgaria, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, at the end of a conference on the Catholic Church’s role in the Balkans – the “Crossroads of Europe” – held at the Diplomatic Institute at the Foreign Ministry in Sofia. The nuncio observed that “in recent years relations between Bulgaria and the Church, and the Holy See in particular, have made significant progress – especially after the Pope’s visit in May 2002”. Ambassador Milan Milanov emphasised that “in Sofia we have the Catholic cathedral, the synagogue and the mosque all close together, as a symbol of this positive spirit that Bulgaria wishes to have with regard to religion”.

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BURKINA FASO

Sources ACN News; Fides; MISNA

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AREA 274,200 kmq POPULATION 14,126,000 REFUGEES 535 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 48.6% Ethnoreligionists 34.1% Affiliated Christians 16.7% Others 0.6%

Baptized Catholics 1,734,000

BURKINA FASO

The Constitution acknowledges religious freedom and the government protects the citizens’ right to profess their religion and contributes to its free practice. The country is a secular state and hence no particular religion is favoured or enjoys particular subsidies. In its most recent census (1996) the government estimated that about 60 percent of the population follows the Islamic faith and that most of the members of this group belong to the Sunni branch. About 24 percent of the inhabitants follow traditional indigenous religions, while 17 percent belong to the Roman Catholic Church. Statistics on religion are to be considered extremely approximate however, since the practice of the indigenous religions is widespread at various levels, both among Christians and Muslims. Most Muslims live in the northern, eastern and western parts of the country as well as along the country’s borders, while Christians live mainly in the interior. All organisations, whether religious or not, must register with the Ministry for Territorial Administration so as to obtain juridical status. According to Article 45 of the Constitution, nonregistration involves payment of a fine. However, during the period covered by this report, the government had never denied anyone registration. Although there are no reports of abuse or discrimination as far as religion and its practice are concerned, at times however members of certain communities, especially rural ones, force old women, whom they accuse of witchcraft, to leave the villages. The Catholic Church has funded a special centre, the Centre Delwende, which gives refuge to these women, as well as to vagrants. The ministry for social action and solidarity, together with various other non-governmental and religious organisations, has maintained other similar places of refuge, among other places in the capital Ouagadougou. A number of Muslims continue to view the law against female genital mutilation, approved by the government in 1996, as an act of discrimination against their religion, and therefore this procedure against women cannot be considered as totally abolished.

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BURUNDI

BURUNDI

AREA 27,834 kmq POPULATION 7,546,000 REFUGEES 24,483 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 100,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 91.7% Ethnoreligionists 6.7% Others 1.6%

Baptized Catholics 5,078,000

The 2005 Constitution confirms the right to religious freedom, as already established in the previous Constitution. Religious groups must register with the Ministry of the Interior and have head offices in this country. Groups that have not registered have their offices and places of worship closed down and are forbidden from all activities. Should they violate these provisions, those held legally responsible can be sentenced to between six months and five years in prison. The new Constitution has for the first time acknowledged as national holidays not only a number of Christian festivals, but also Islamic ones such as Eid al-Fitr (celebrating the end of Ramadan) and Eid al-Adha (for the end of the Haji). Hopes for peace were not fully satisfied when the Constitution assigned the available seats in parliament on the basis of ethnic criteria – satisfying requests from the Tutsis for a greater public role (the Tutsis, representing 14 percent of the population, getting 40 percent of the seats, while the Hutus, at 85 percent of the population, get about 60 percent) – and when, in September 2006, the last rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), had signed a provisional peace agreement with the government. But hostilities recommenced in July 2007 and the FNL continued to kill people and loot villages and small towns, as in the province of Burbanza in the northeast of the country, obliging thousands of people to abandon their homes to escape the constant incursions. The country is experiencing difficulties in moving beyond the civil war that started in 1993 between the two main ethnic groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis, and resulted in over 300,000 deaths. Democratic elections were held, but abuse by the army and the police continue – torture and apparent extrajudicial executions have occurred, as well as incidents of corruption and the arrest of political opponents. Catholics On the evening of 4th February 2006, the 59-year-old Jesuit Father Elie Koma was killed in the capital city of Bujumbura. He was in a car driving past a bar on the main road, where a group of armed men had shot an officer in the Burundi National Defence Forces, Major Ruguraguza, and his wife. It is thought that Father Koma was killed so as to eliminate a potential witness to

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the crime. The murderers initially stopped his car by shooting at the tyres, then they killed him with five shots in his back (Fides). The priest was responsible for the new church built in Kamenge, one of the poorest districts in the capital and was greatly respected for his apostolate as the director of spiritual retreats. The circumstances surounding the murder on 29th December 2003 of the Apostolic Nuncio, the Irish Archbishop Michael Aidan Courtney, have not yet been clarified. He was shot in an ambush in Minago. The priest was a great promoter of peace in the civil war that devastated this country and the current peace agreement is considered to be in large part the result of his efforts. On the evening of 31st December 2007, a 31 year-old French aid worker, Agnes Dury, was killed. She was a psychologist working for Action Contre la Faim. In the Ruyigi region, a man fired a machine gun at the car in which the young woman was travelling with a colleague (who was seriously wounded) and two local assistants. As a result, the agency decided to suspend operations in this country.

BURUNDI

Sources Fides MISNA

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CAMBODIA

CAMBODIA

AREA 181,035 kmq POPULATION 14,287,000 REFUGEES 179 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Buddhists 84.7% Traditional chinese religions 4.7% Ethnoreligionists 4.4% Muslims 2.3% Affiliated Christians 1.1% Others 2.8%

Baptized Catholics 24,000

Article 43 of the Constitution of 1993 guarantees religious freedom and forbids all forms of discrimination on the basis of religious belief. At the same time though, it recognises Buddhism as the State religion. Every religious group must register, including Buddhist groups, in order to be able to conduct their activities or construct their places of worship, but failure to register is not penalised. Missionary groups can freely operate, although a directive issued on 26th June 2007 bans “door-to-door” proselytism, the distribution of Christian literature outside churches and other practices considered to be intrusive, like the use of loudspeakers. The same regulation also bans the “making use of money or material incentives” to bring about conversions, a rule that does not apply to Buddhists. According to Agence France Presse the regulation is directed first and foremost at Evangelical Christians who are often accused of offering food, clothes and free English lessons in order to persuade people to convert. Moreover, special permission is also required for the construction of churches. State authorisation is also required for places of worship and religious schools, and new places of worship must be built at least two kilometres away from the nearest existing one, however this stipulation is not required for the administrative offices of these religious groups. The repression and forced repatriation of the Montagnards has continued. Most members of this ethnic minority are Christian, having emigrated here from Vietnam’s highlands to avoid persecution by the Vietnamese authorities, who have accused them of “secession” and “public disorder”; seized their lands; and singled them out because of their religion. In the end though, their fate has been much the same on both sides of the border. The Cambodian authorities have often returned them to Vietnam where they risk police reprisals. Human Rights Watch has denounced the use of violence, the beatings with truncheons and use of electric shocks to “persuade” them to go home. Forced repatriation has been carried out in spite of an agreement with the United Nations which would allow them to apply for settlement in a third country, or at least assure a repatriation process that is “orderly and safe” and “in accordance with national and international law.”

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Catholics The Child Jesus Catholic Church was officially opened in Boeung Tum Pun, Phnom Penh, on 6th January 2008, the feast of Epiphany. It is the first church to be built and consecrated since the Khmer Rouge era, when millions of people were exterminated or deported.

Buddhists In the lead-up to the 2007 municipal elections and the 2008 parliamentary elections, the state reaffirmed the right of Buddhist monks to vote, contrary to the wishes of many Buddhist religious leaders who believe that monks should not vote, since they believe that going to polling stations could lead some into temptation. Buddhist monks number around 58,000 out of a population of some 14 million people and enjoy great influence. By contrast, the Cambodian authorities have persecuted the ethnic Khmer Krom Buddhist monks who fled to Cambodia from southern Vietnam to escape persecution in that country. Their practice has been to repatriate these monks, even though they suffer abuse and are put into prison back home. In one instance, on 17th December 2007, police attacked and beat up 47 Khmer Krom Buddhist monks in order to stop them from submitting a petition to the Vietnamese Embassy in Phnom Penh protesting against the arrest of Buddhist monks in Vietnam. Human Rights Watch reported that the protest was peaceful, despite claims by the authorities that protesters were “fake monks who instigated the violence.” In June 2007 monk Tim Sakhorn was sent back to Vietnam where he was imprisoned, charged with undermining national unity by handing out pamphlets about the Khmer Krom group and protecting other monks who had fled the country. In the same month the Ministry of Cults and Religion issued a directive banning Khmer Krom monks from taking part in any public demonstration. On 27th February 2007 a monk who had led protests in front of the Vietnamese Embassy in the Cambodian capital was found dead – his throat had been cut.

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CAMBODIA

Other Christians On 28th April 2006 about 300 Buddhists from the village of Boeng Krum Leu, some 30 kilometres from Phnom Penh, tore down a Protestant church under construction. Local sources said that it was being built at “only” 700 metres from a pagoda, something that was seen as a provocation. The 20 to 30 Christians in the village did not file any lawsuit or demand compensation. Eventually the parties reached a compromise.

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CAMEROON

CAMEROON

AREA 475,442 kmq POPULATION 17,173,000 REFUGEES 60,137 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 54.2% Ethnoreligionists 23.7% Muslims 21.2% Others 0.9%

Baptized Catholics 4,699,000

Freedom of religion and the the secular character of the state are guaranteed in the Preamble to the 1976 Constitution, as amended in 1996. The country is generally characterised by a high degree of religious tolerance. Islamic centres and Christian churches coexist in the national territory and it is only in the northern provinces that there have been reports of tensions between ethnic groups; tensions which involve both religious and tribal issues. Religious groups must register with the Ministry for Territorial Authority (MINATD). Operating without authorisation is considered illegal; however, there are no specific penalties or sanctions. For bureaucratic reasons, registration can take a number of years. In spite of the liberalisation of radio and television broadcasting, implemented in line with a decree of 2000, freedom of the media remains rather fragile, due to the government’s slowness in providing authorisation. Consequently, many radio stations operate without a licence. One of these is Radio Veritas, which still has only a temporary permit. Witchcraft is a criminal offence as established by the Penal Code. On 28th February 2006, Christians and Muslims cooperated in opposing violence. Christian, Muslim and civil organisations joined together for a vast national campaign aimed at alerting the population to the need to oppose violence. This campaign was supported by the Catholic Episcopal Conference’s national Justice and Peace commission, by the Council of Protestant Churches in Cameroon (CEPCA), the Ecumenical Service for Peace (SEP), the Cameroon High Islamic Council (CSIC) and also by a secular NGO. This initiative was part of the activities included in the “Easter Week”, organised every year by the Christian churches of Cameroon during Lent. The theme chosen for 2006 was in fact “the traditional authorities as the driving force in the struggle against violence and for building up peace in Cameroon”. The week began with a forum, from 24th-26th February in Ebolowa, in southern Cameroon. Three hundred village chiefs participated, and spoke of the role of the traditional leaders in promoting a culture of non-violence. Another subject of intensive discussion was that of violence against women. Sources APIC/Le Messager, 28th February 2006; Vatican Radio

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CANADA

Québec asking questions… questions of Canada! In 2007 the government of the province of Québec established a “Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences”. Between September and December this commission held forums in all the major cities of the province and heard the views of numerous different groups and individuals, including that of the Assembly of Québec Catholic Bishops. This assembly called for religion not to be confined to the private sphere. “This is a right that is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To refuse this in the name of a strict or radical secularism would be to take a step backwards in a society that respects the rule of law”, the assembly’s statement emphasises. The bishops were reacting to a number of different statements from groups and individuals, demanding that the Churches and the religions should have no say in the public sphere on the major social issues. The commission is due to report on 31th March 2008. Also in Québec, but being closely watched by many Catholic parents throughout Canada, is the obligatory introduction (from primary school age onwards) of a new Ethics and Religious Culture Program as from September 2008. Many Catholic parents are protesting at the lack of liberty and they fear that this course will relativise the religious instruction given in the parishes or at home. Parents are therefore demanding the right of choice for every school to offer religious instruction corresponding to the religious majority of the school concerned. They are supported in their efforts by the Archbishop of Québec and Primate of Canada, Cardinal Marc Ouellet. The Archbishop of Montréal, Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte is also

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AREA 9,970,610 kmq POPULATION 39,980,000 REFUGEES 175,741 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 79.5% Non religious 9.2% Others 11.3%

Baptized Catholics 14,238,000

CANADA

A brief summary In practice religious freedom is respected and the various different faiths, of whatever kind, are free to teach their beliefs and to exercise them in practice. This freedom is not challenged, except by a few minority groups of a more secularist nature who would like to see the religions relegated to the strictly private sphere, in other words to be allowed no say on the great social issues such as marriage, poverty or abortion.

CANADA

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due to give his comments in March, after having examined the contents of the course. Catholic private schools will be obliged to introduce courses in ethics. However, the law covering this new course will not prevent them from establishing faith-based activities outside normal school hours. Prayers in the town hall? Another issue that has attracted notice is that of prayer in the town halls before meetings. Some towns have decided to abolish this time of prayer, replacing it with a time of personal silence. Others have retained it however. Some individuals are currently taking action against the municipal councils before the Québec Commission of Human Rights, on the grounds of discrimination.

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CAPE VERDE

Source MISNA

AREA 4,033 kmq POPULATION 489,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 95.1% Muslims 2.8% Others 2.1%

Baptized Catholics 453,000

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CAPE VERDE

The Constitution establishes religious freedom, and the government generally respects this right trying at all levels to protect it and not tolerating any forms of abuse. The Penal Code, in force since 2004, lays down that that violations of religious freedom are crimes punishable with sentences ranging from 3 months to 3 years imprisonment. There is no State religion; on the contrary, the Constitution establishes a clear separation between State and Church, and forbids the State from imposing any religious beliefs. However, since the Catholic religion is professed by 85 percent of the population (on the basis of a rather approximate census carried out by local churches), the Catholic Church enjoys a privileged status in the county’s life. For example, the government provides the Catholic Church with free TV time for religious functions. All associations, both religious and secular, must register with the Ministry for Justice so as to obtain juridical status. Registration is compulsory under the Constitution and the laws regulating associations. There are no particular incentives for registration and there are no sanctions for non-compliance. The only disadvantage being that non-registered groups cannot request government or private loans and benefits, which registered associations enjoy.

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CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

AREA 622,984 kmq POPULATION 4,013,000 REFUGEES 7,535 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 197,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 67.8% Muslims 15.6% Ethnoreligionists 15.4% Others 1.2%

Baptized Catholics 889,000

The 1994 Constitution does not explicitly mention religious freedom; however, Article 8 guarantees freedom of worship and forbids all forms of religious extremism and intolerance. Witchcraft and the practice of magic are defined crimes under the Penal Code, however there have been numerous cases of abuse in this country against people accused of witchcraft. As Bishop Pietro Marzinkowski of Alindao diocese has testified, the “battle against witchcraft” is one of the greatest problems for the Church in the Central African Republic. In the bishop’s words, there is in the minds of so many local people “no natural explanation for death, disease or natural disasters”. According to Bishop Marzinkowski, many people are looking for a scapegoat who, they believe, has caused these misfortunes through witchcraft. Anyone can be accused of witchcraft, even on the slightest of pretexts or simply out of personal malice. He also emphasised the fact that such incidents occur even among Christians, since in many of these people the Christian faith is not yet sufficiently deeply-rooted, which means that it is very easy for them to fall back into “their traditional way of thinking”. In April 2005, the presidential elections marking the end of the transitional period were seen as the beginning of an era of renewal for this country. However, by 2006, the Central African Republic seemed to be on the brink of war again, because of the armed clashes in the north of the country and the desperate economic situation. In the space of only two weeks at the end of February 2006, about five thousand people were thought to have fled the north-west of the country in order to take refuge in Southern Chad, because of the clashes between the army and unidentified armed groups. Sources Afrobarometer Surveys PeaceReporter

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CHAD

Local conflicts Chad’s main problems, including those affecting the free practice of religion, are due to the situation of civil conflict in the country. Idriss Deby, who came to power in a coup in 1990, was reelected president of Chad on 3rd May 2006 in the first round of the presidential elections. Deby was able to run for a third time after a controversial amendment to the Constitution was adopted in 2005. The election was preceded by clashes between the rebels of the Front uni pour le changement (United Front for Change, or FUC) and government forces, even inside the capital N’Djamena. In March of the same year an assassination attempt against Deby was foiled, involving a plan to shoot down the presidential plane as it was returning from Equatorial Guinea. A month before the poll, the Bishops’ Conference of Chad appealed to the government and rebels to engage in a dialogue in the “general interest” of the country. The bishops called for a “ceasefire” and asked the government to postpone the election. In their appeal the prelates voiced their concern over the

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AREA 1,284,000 kmq POPULATION 9,643,000 REFUGEES 294,017 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 185,335

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 59.1% Affiliated Christians 22.8% Ethnoreligionists 17% Others 1.1%

Baptized Catholics 934,000

CHAD

The Constitution of 1996 (Article 1) declares Chad to be a secular state and affirms the separation of state and religion whilst guaranteeing religious freedom (Article 27). Through the Interior Ministry and the Department of Religious Affairs and Tradition, the government manages the practical aspects of religion and intervenes in case of disagreements. All religious groups must officially register with the Department of Religious Affairs. The World Association of Muslim Youth was banned in 2007 because it considers violence a precept of Islam, in clear violation of the country’s Constitution which prohibits associations and propaganda that threaten civil coexistence (Article 5). Religious education is banned in state schools but allowed in private institutions. Relations between the various religious groups are peaceful and the main religious leaders meet on a regular basis. Only in a few cases have there been tensions between the various different Muslim groups or between Christians and Muslims.

CHAD

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deteriorating political situation, pointing to the extensions of the presidential mandate through constitutional amendments, the changes to the Petroleum Law, the willingness to hold presidential elections despite protests by the political opposition and civil society, the overall lack of dialogue and the numerous desertions from the army, which had turned political movements into armed groups. In November 2006 the president declared a state of emergency in the capital and in the country’s eastern regions – a special measure taken after violent clashes had broken out between different ethnic groups, leading to hundreds of deaths. On that occasion the government accused Arab militias from Sudan of provoking clashes between Chadian citizens of Arab origin and members of other ethnic groups by means of their raids across the eastern Chad-Darfur border. In February 2007 a report by the AGI News Agency quoted the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as calling for an international force to be sent to eastern Chad to stop the violence against Sudanese refugees. In March 2007 the first negotiations in Libya between the rebels and the Deby government prompted the delegations of the armed anti-government movements to spell out their demands – these included the amendment of the Constitution, a national unity government and the appointment of a prime minister acceptable to all parties, or nominated by the opposition, to work with the president in governing the country. However, it was not until August 2007 that a final deal was reached that provides for fresh elections in 2009 and the creation in the interim of a 31-member electoral commission (15 appointed by the opposition, 15 by the majority and a chairman jointly selected). Sources PeaceReporter, 14th August 2007 AGI, 15th March 2006 AGI, 16th February 2007 PeaceReporter, 27th February 2006 Reuters, 13th November 2006 swissinfo, 1st April 2007

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CHILE

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AREA 756,626 kmq POPULATION 16,430,000 REFUGEES 1,376 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 89.2% Non religious 9.5% Others 1.3%

Baptized Catholics 12,166,000

CHILE

Religious freedom In Chile there is constitutional recognition for religious freedom as the fundamental right of every individual. According to the most recent population census of 2002, out of a total of 15,116,435 inhabitants some 11,226,309 were aged 15 or over. Of these, 10,294,319 described themselves as believers, while 931,990 indicated that they had no religion, i.e. were atheists or agnostics (8.3 percent). The majority of the inhabitants of Chile are Catholics (69.96 percent), followed by Evangelicals (a total 16.14 percent of the population, without distinction between established Protestant churches and the various new evangelical denominations), Jehovah’s Witnesses (1.06 percent), Mormons (0.92 percent), Jews (0.13 percent), Orthodox (0.06 percent), Muslims (0.03 percent) and around 4.39 percent of respondents who described themselves as belonging to another faith or creed. Since 2006, in preparation for the bicentenary of national independence, an annual National Bicentenary Survey (Encuesta Nacional Bicentenario), which includes aspects relating to religion, has been organised by the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in association with a respected polling agency. Thanks to this, it has been possible to establish, for example, that among those who declare themselves to be atheist or agnostics there are some who believe in God; that some Catholics believe in witchcraft and that among Evangelicals there are some who believe in the Virgin Mary. The associative dimension of religious freedom is expressed both in the recognition of the constitutional status of the Catholic Church as a juridical person under the civil law, as also in the freedom of other organisations to establish themselves either according to the civil law or under the 1999 law on religious organisations. As of the present time, some 1,400 bodies have opted for the latter, which recognizes their legal status under civil law, and by virtue of which they can benefit, among other things, from: various fiscal exemptions; protection of their ministers of religion; and facilities for providing religious assistance in prisons, hospitals and the armed forces. Religious education is provided in all state or state-subsidised educational establishments, for those pupils who request it.

CHILE

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The Catholic Church plays an important role in the public domain and this is reflected in various ways: in the civil recognition of her religious festivals; in the celebration of an ecumenical Te Deum to commemorate National Independence; the participation of members of the episcopate on government advisory committees; an Armed Forces Bishop, established under an accord between the Chilean government and the Holy See; diplomatic relations with the Holy See, dating back almost 200 years, under which the Apostolic Nuncio is recognized as the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps; the former presidential palace and seat of government (the Palacio de La Moneda) has its own Catholic chapel and permanent chaplain; and the many public religious festivals of ancient date, such as the procession of the Señor de Mayo, which has been held uninterruptedly in the capital since 1647. The overall situation. Christians and other communities The National Congress has approved a range of legal texts which recognize and safeguard religious liberty. For example it has amended the labour laws to facilitate opportunities for rest days for those working in the commercial sector at Christmas time and other festivals; with the prior agreement of the Church authorities it has replaced the civil holiday on the feast of Corpus Christi with another on the feast of Our Lady of Carmel, who is the Patroness of the Republic; it has authorised the erection of monuments in various parts of the country in honour of the memory of two deceased Catholic bishops (one of whom is currently a candidate for possible canonisation); and it has granted Chilean nationality to a Lutheran bishop. The government has a nominated a female pastor as chaplain to Evangelicals working in the government offices and their families. Moreover, it has declared a National Bible Day (Día Nacional de la Biblia) in response to requests by Protestant and Evangelical organisations and it has authorised collections on behalf of various religious organisations or their evangelistic initiatives as a means of contributing to their financial support. A new legislative proposal has been announced that would amend the existing law on the juridical status of religious organisations; it is hoped that this would strengthen a weakness in the present law by preventing the establishment of sects which attack religious freedom or seek the enrichment of their leaders. Insidious persecution and discrimination against Catholics With regard to the right to life, the government has sought to facilitate general access by the population to pharmaceutical products which it regards as contraceptives but which, according to its opponents – notably the Chilean episcopate – have been shown on the basis of scientific evidence to be potentially abortifacient. The latest measure has consisted in incorporating these in a general government “reproductive-health”

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measure, which allows these tablets even to be given to minors without the knowledge or consent of their parents. This top-level government decree has been challenged by a group of parliamentarians and is now awaiting judgment as to its constitutionality by the Constitutional Court. Various members of the governing coalition have submitted bills to Parliament for the legalisation of certain forms of abortion and of homosexual unions. The former have not been accepted for discussion and the latter have not so far reached debate in the National Congress. A group of parliamentary deputies from a number of different political parties has established a Parliamentary Front for Life (Frente Parlamentario por la Vida), which opposes all legislative initiatives that constitute an attack on life. Currently under discussion in Parliament is a proposed law which would “establish measures against discrimination” and which seeks to incorporate under a definition of ‘arbitrary discrimination’ all distinctions based on sexual orientation or gender and to invoke legal penalties for this. Another cause for concern has been the publication of articles in the press revealing the exchanges made during a fake confession, while another incident involved photomontages depicting the faces of senior Church figures. During the year 2007 considerable controversy was caused by the showing of the satirical cartoon “Popetown” (PapaVilla) by one particular cable TV channel. The national television council (Consejo Nacional de TV) decided by a majority vote that this did not constitute an affront to the Catholic faith. This same TV council however admonished another television channel for having impugned the honour of an evangelical pastor in the making of an investigative programme. Although only isolated instances, some of the sentences passed by national courts have involved imposing acts of worship (e.g. attendance at Sunday Mass) as a punishment on those found guilty of illegal activities. This is a matter of concern, since it presupposes that the civil courts have jurisdiction over individual consciences, thereby damaging the essence of traditional freedom of worship. Faced with a situation involving a religious education teacher who was a lesbian, the courts acknowledged the right of religious authorities to decide as to the moral suitability of teachers of religion (as required by the relevant state laws) of whatever confession, in conformity with the requirements of the denomination concerned.

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CHINA

CHINA

AREA 9,560,175 kmq POPULATION 1,330,297,000 REFUGEES 301,078 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Non religious 50.3% Traditional chinese religions 28.5% Buddhists 8.4% Affiliated Christians 7.1% Others 5.7%

Baptized Catholics CHINA: 8,000,000* *estimated HONG KONG: 349,000 MACAO: 28,000 TAIWAN: 304,000

The Party and the various religions 2008 is the year of the Beijing Olympic Games. From 8th-24th August 2008 millions of people from all over the world will visit China, watch the Olympics and be able to observe daily life in the country. With the whole world watching, China is trying to appear as efficient, modern, welcoming and open as possible. Advertising in China portrays the Olympic Games as the summit of China’s modernisation, and the country as “equal to all the others”. That is why its leadership is careful not to cause tensions, criticism, or conflict, not least in regard to religion. Religious freedom at the Olympic Games These Olympic Games are seen by many of the world’s religious communities (Protestants, Tibetan Buddhists Falun Gong, etc.), as an opportunity for testing the level of religious freedom enjoyed in China. Hence many people have, for some time, been preparing to use the period of the Olympics to evangelise the population, to distribute books and teaching material about their faith and meet Chinese members of their communities. Chinese reaction to this pressure has been immediate and the state at once issued directives for welcoming foreign athletes and tourists. Statements by the managing group for Beijing’s Olympic Committee have emphasised that it is forbidden to “import religious propaganda material”. In response to criticism from the international community, which saw this as a total ban, the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry replied that “foreigners are permitted to bring in religious objects or material, including printed, audio and video material for their personal use”. He added: “The right to religious freedom is protected by the Chinese Constitution and by the law.” (Xinhua News Agency, 8th November 2007) This means that during the Olympics nothing will change as far as the usual rules on religious activities are concerned. The application of these rules means that it will be forbidden to bring in texts of the Falun Gong, which China defines as an outlawed “evil cult”; also banned is the distribution of Bibles or religious books, and any activity in support of Tibet and the Dalai Lama,

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The Politburo and the growth of religions It does however remain a fact, that the Party is devoting more and more attention to the religions, to their development and influence within society. On 18th December 2007, in a plenary session of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the subject of religion was formally discussed for the first time in the history of the People’s Republic, and without the usual Marxist-Leninist clichés about the “opium of the people”. A short announcement by the Xinhua Agency (19th December 2007) reported that Hu Jintao, the secretary general of the Party and President of the Republic, had personally intervened with a keynote address, emphasising the positive role played by religion in creating a “harmonious society” (one of his favourite slogans for portraying a country in which there is universal wellbeing, where the gap between rich and poor is lessened and where all strive for a development respectful of the environment). Confidential sources at AsiaNews observe that the decision to discuss the religions and their contribution was dictated above all by two elements: a) The fear that China might experience the same events as Myanmar, a country that entertains good relations with China, where the summer protests of 2007 – for democracy, against the high cost of living and against the military junta – were started precisely by Buddhist monks (Buddhism is the most widespread religion in China) and led to clashes between the army and the people. One should bear in mind that in China at least 300 demonstrations or clashes with the police occur every day, over the cost of living, the expropriation of people’s land and homes, problems linked to pollution, etc. b) The great rebirth of religion that is happening within Chinese society and even within the Party. The impression is that this plenary session of the Politburo was held in order to prepare to tackle any possible alliances between the religious communities and the disaffected with Chinese society, and to find a way to tame these religious forces. Such a

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or meetings with Christians of the underground communities may be subject to prosecution. In short, all free and unsupervised links between the Chinese communities and foreigners are banned. Any such relations have to be regulated – and registered – by their respective Patriotic Associations. The official Beijing Olympic Games website (www.beijing2008.cn) only contains instructions not to bring in “dangerous materials” – blood, infected animals and materials “detrimental to Chinese policies”. But a note then specifies: “It is recommended that you do not bring in more than one Bible to China on any given visit.” (see http://en.beijing2008.cn/22/69/article212026922.shtml).

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strategy has been rendered still more urgent by the discovery that the Party is no longer capable of directly controlling the religious lives of the Chinese people. According to the Protestant Forum 18 News Service (quoted by AsiaNews, 15th December 2006) it is precisely the Party’s determination to control all religious activities – through the registration of personnel and places of worship by the State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA) and through their supervision by the Patriotic Associations – that is pushing many believers to swell the numbers of the non-registered or underground communities. At a deeper level, the religions are developing in an unexpected manner. Research by two Professors, Tong Shijun and Liu Zhongyu, from Shanghai’s Normal University, has shown that there are at least 300 million believers in China, more than triple the number estimated a few years ago by the government (see People’s Daily and AsiaNews, 7th February 2007). Their findings emphasise that the religion that has grown the most is Christianity, with 12 percent of believers, or 40 million people claiming to be followers of Christ. In 2005 Beijing had estimated that there were 16 million Christians, while at the end of the Nineties – again according to government data – there were a little over 10 million. According to Liu, the rural areas are the most affected by this phenomenon, although “poverty is not the motivation inspiring the new believers, since most of them come from the coastal regions, which are wealthy and developed”. The average age of believers is also lower: about 2/3 of those interviewed were aged between 16 and 35, while only 9.6 percent were 55 years old or older. The reasons for this religious reawakening are also interesting. Some 24.1 percent of those interviewed answered that religion “shows the true path of life”, while 28 percent, believed that it “helps cure diseases, avoid misfortunes and lead to a better life”. These data confirm the many testimonies of Christian bishops, who speak of a “great thirst for God” among the Chinese people, stifled by decades of Marxist materialism and centuries of Confucian materialism. The point is that this new religious revival has also affected the Party. According to data published by Epoch Times (12th November 2005), at least 20 out of the 60 million Party members believe in some form of religion. Secret statistics drawn-up by the Party’s Disciplinary Committee, and sent to the West, show that the number of Party members involved in religious activities in the cities is around 12 million, at least 5 million of them on a regular basis. In rural areas there are 8 million party members, of whom at least 4 million participate in religious activities regularly. In some cases all levels of the Party are involved; indeed, in no small number of cases even the entire local leadership. In order to avoid problems with the national leadership, some middle and higher-ranking Party members have even converted a room in their homes into an underground house church.

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Discriminatory support for some religions Aware of its loss of credibility, the Party is using some religions in order to maintain its power, and discriminating against others. Those that are helped, financed and supported are Confucianism (a moral doctrine rather than a religion), Buddhism, and Taoism. Since 2002 the government has allocated at least 10 billion dollars to reviving the teachings of Confucius through the so-called “Confucius Institutes” in China and throughout the world. The desire is to show a face well-known to world culture, in response to the crisis of moral and spiritual values within the country. The Party’s interest is also attracted by the fact that Confucius’ philosophy – so disdained by Mao Zedong – preaches above all filial piety, obedience to authoritiy, self-sacrifice for the clan; all important qualities in today’s individualistic China as it tries to escape from the Party’s control (see AsiaNews, 7th July 2006).

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Among these “religions” there are also various “unscientific beliefs”. A study by the China National School of Administration, conducted at the end of 2006, showed that 28 percent of the Communist Party’s “atheist” officials believed in physiognomy (the art of determining a person’s character according to the forms and features of the face); 18 percent resorted to the ancient philosophy of Zhou Gong for interpreting dreams, 13.7 percent relied on astrology, 6 percent used the Taoist I Ching to read the future, and that only a minority, albeit a sizeable one of 47 percent, stated that they did not believe in such “superstitions”. This is a further sign of the mistrust the Chinese have towards the Party and its ideology. Wang Changjiang, a professor at the Party’s central school, says that these “superstitious” practices are emerging because the communist “revolutionary theories” have proved inadequate in explaining everyday reality (see AsiaNews, 24th May 2007). Over four years ago, in an attempt to counter this religious surge within its own ranks, the CCP launched a campaign for spreading atheism via radio, television, internet, and university seminars. In 2006 it also funded a 20-million-Euro campaign to revitalise Marxism. Some Party members however remain convinced that the religions can contribute to social harmony, stability and development. Hence their growth should not be checked, they say, and party members should be allowed to participate in religious activities. One can envisage that the Chinese leadership is divided as to how to deal with the religions. On the one hand it exploits them; on the other, it controls them so that they do not become a direct challenge to its power. Those who seek to escape this control – the faithful of the underground communities – are arrested, their communities dispersed and their churches destroyed. The charge against them is never “religious activity”, but “disturbing social order”.

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In mid April 2007, the government allocated 1 million dollars for a conference held in two different locations, Xian and Hong Kong, to sponsor the study of the Tao Te Ching, the basic text of Taoism. The conference was attended by Liu Yandong, from the Party Central Committee; Xu Jialu, vice-president of the People’s National Assembly and Ye Xiaowen, director of the State Administration of Religious Affairs. According to observers, this sponsorship arose from various motives, including filling the religious void left by the crisis of communism, countering the spread of Catholics and Protestants; promoting a “specifically national” and non “foreign” religion; spreading a creed that makes non-action within society its ideal, and promoting China’s image abroad (see South China Morning Post, 30th April 2007) From 13th-16th April 2006, the government sponsored the Conference of the World Buddhist Forum. Interviewed by Xinhua, Ye Xiaowen stated: “Buddhism can make a ‘distinctive contribution’ [to a harmonious society] because its pursuit of harmony is closer to the Chinese outlook […] As a responsible country, China has a distinctive thinking and forward-looking policy in promoting world harmony. Religious power is one of the social forces China can draw support from” (see AsiaNews, 11th April 2006). The arrest of religious activists fighting for human rights China’s great fear is that of an alliance between religious activism and social and political activism, as happened in Myanmar, and as has happened on many occasions in the history of the Chinese Empire. To deter this possibility, Beijing misses no opportunity – funerals of personalities, Party congresses, People’s National Assembly – to assert its control over hundreds of dissidents, among them also Christians (of which denomination, we do not know). Among them we should remember the lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who in December 2006 was sentenced to 3 years in prison, on charges of “subversive activities against the State”. The court that sentenced him said it had obtained a full “confession”. As evidence of his “subversive” activities, the judges quoted the nine articles signed by this lawyer and published on various websites; in particular the three open letters to President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, in which he had requested greater religious freedom and less corruption. Once a model lawyer for the Communist Party, Gao has over the years become a human rights activist, defending Christians, the Uighur, members of the Falun Gong, peasant farmers and other victims of injustice (see AsiaNews, 5th January 2007). Another important personality is Hua Huiqi, the leader of a Christian house church and a human rights activist who is fighting the expropriation of homes in Beijing, and

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The Catholic Church The key note of 2007 was set by a Pastoral Letter from Pope Benedict XVI addressed to all the faithful of the Catholic Church in China, written on 27th May and made public on 30th June. In it the Pontiff analyses the history and the current situation of the Chinese Church, reaffirming that there is only one Church, because underground Catholics (not recognised by the government) and official Catholics (recognised by the government) are in union with the Holy See. Simultaneously he very respectfully calls on the country’s political authorities to guarantee the Church real religious freedom, allowing her the space to bear witness within Chinese society and permitting the Holy See to have the final say on episcopal appointments, as has also been requested by UN and European documents [letter, note (43)].This need had become even more urgent after 2006, when the Patriotic Association (PA) and the Ministry for Religious Affairs had insisted on ordaining 3 bishops without permission from the Holy See and threatening to ordain others. The letter describes the influence of the PA in the life of the Church as “irreconcilable with Catholic doctrine” [letter, No.7 and note (36)], since its real objective is the creation of a church independent from the Pope. The Pope’s letter came a few months after a meeting in the Vatican on the Church in China (19th-20th January), which brought together members of the Roman Curia with bishops and cardinals from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao. The ambivalence shown by the government on religious issues (see above…), was evident in this case too. AsiaNews sources (9th October 2007) revealed that a number of highly regarded figures within the Chinese foreign ministry judged this letter to be “a good document, well translated, the work of experts, capable of providing an opportunity for dialogue”. But the Department for Religious Affairs (DRA), the PA and the United Front took a different view. According to Western diplomats the secretary general of the PA, Antonio Liu Bainian, judges the letter to be a “bad document”, “badly translated into Chinese”, and “dangerous from a political point of view”. Hence he blocked all spreading of this letter, had it removed from Chinese Catholic websites and blocked Vatican websites and those of other on-line agencies publishing it. To mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the PA (August 1957), the United Front, the DRA and the PA organised conferences and seminars in various different regions of the country, inviting priests, nuns and bishops. The subject was the moderni-

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helping many people from the provinces to present petitions to the government. The last time he was released from prison was in July 2007, after receiving a 6 months detention for “obstructing justice”. Placed under close surveillance, on 8th October 2007 he was beaten up so badly that he was unconscious when taken to hospital (AsiaNews, 12th October 2007).

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sation of the Church (financing, reorganising, seminaries), but also the Papal Letter. At these events Liu Bainian violently attacked the papal document, describing it as a new attempt at “imperialism” and at the “colonisation” of the Church in China, similar to what had happened in the past with the colonial powers. In the mind of Liu Bainian, this demand by the Pope for religious freedom and independence in appointing bishops was associated with the experience of the “concessions” to foreign powers – the territorial areas removed from the control of the central government and conquered by force by the Western powers in the 19th Century (ibid). In the district of Qingxiu, near Nanning (Guangxi, southwest China), the police impounded and destroyed copies of a parish news bulletin that contained passages from this papal document. The Nanning branch of the DRA launched a campaign against Vatican “penetration” into the life of the Church and imposed political brainwashing sessions on the Catholic priests to make them “acknowledge” their error in having published and distributed the Pope’s Letter to Chinese Catholics (ibid). Obstruction of episcopal ordinations; arrests and violence against the underground Church This ambivalent and ambiguous approach was also evident in relation to a number of episcopal ordinations during 2007. On 8th September in Beijing, on 30th November in Yichang (Hubei) and on 4th December in Canton (Guangdong) bishops were ordained for these important dioceses. On 8th September in Guizhou and on 21st December in Ningxia, 2 coadjutor bishops were likewise ordained. All these bishops – as publicly announced by the Vatican – were ordained with the approval of the Holy See. Their ordinations were delayed by months, however – the one in Canton for over a year – by obstacles posed by the PA, which attempted to include among the ordaining bishops some who were not in communion with the Holy See. On one hand the central government seems to endorse a degree of influence by the Bishop of Rome in the selection of candidates for the episcopate; on the other, it seems unable to neutralise the presence of the PA, which continues to obstruct ordinations. And yet the PA is a government agency. In spite of timid conciliatory signs between China and the Vatican, the prevailing line appears to be one of total control over the Catholic Church, as witnessed by the constant arrests of priests and bishops of the unofficial Church, but even including kidnappings of official bishops. On 14th November, Father Wang Zhong, from the diocese of Xiwanzi (Hebei) was sentenced to 3 years in prison for having organised a celebration for the consecration of a church in Guyuan. A report of the trial sent to AsiaNews (22th November 2007) emphasises that the construction of this church had been quite legal and that permits had

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been obtained from the Department for Religious Affairs. But the priest is an underground priest, not registered with the PA. Father Wang was arrested on 24th July 2007. After being arrested, he was imprisoned in total isolation and not allowed to receive visitors. He was not permitted to appoint a lawyer for the trial, nor was it possible for him to prepare his defence. The diocese of Xiwanzi is a diocese of the underground Church, with 15,000 faithful and situated about 260 km north of Beijing, almost on the border with Inner Mongolia. For some months now police in this area, urged on by the PA, have settled on a campaign against the priests and bishops of the unofficial Church. Coadjutor Bishop Yao Liang, has vanished, in fact, after being arrested by police on 30th July 2006. There are also 20 lay Catholics and 2 priests in prison.

The orphanage run by nuns of the underground Church in the village of Wuqiu, in Jinzhou (Hebei) – which takes in hundreds of abandoned and often handicapped children – has for years been harried by the local government. It forbids donations and has warned the nuns and priests that they must not have any contacts with the outside world, and has even warned local people and friends not to visit the orphanage. A video camera has been set up outside the entrance, and the sisters have been interrogated at length by the police. In recent months, a number of volunteers who had gone to help and bring gifts, were stopped by and fined the police. The nuns belong to the diocese of Zhengding, whose bishop, Monsignor Giulio Jia Zhiguo, continues to be arrested on a regular basis since he refuses to join the PA. According to analysts, pressure on this orphanage is a form of indirect pressure on him and the contacts he has with other countries (see South China Morning Post, 17th December 2007). Bishops have died in detention and under torture The most tragic case was the death of Monsignor John Han Dingxian, underground Bishop of Yongnian. After being held in isolation for two years, the bishop, who had spent at least 35 years of his life in prison, died in hospital last 9th September. His

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On 25th November Father Zeng Zhongliang, rector of the seminary in the diocese of Yujiang (Jiangxi, Central China), was arrested together with one of his seminarians, Wang Bin, while they were visiting the southern province of Guangdong. The two men are currently being held in a prison in Yujiang. They were arrested just a few days after a meeting with all the priests in their diocese, organised by Father Zeng himself in the town of Fuzhou. At the meeting, the priest had acted as the representative of the bishop of the diocese – Monsignor Tommaso Zeng Jingmu, 85 years old and his uncle – who had for some time been under house arrest in the episcopal residency (see AsiaNews, 27th November 2007).

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relatives were summoned only a few hours before he died. Just a few hours after his death, at 11 p.m., early the next morning his body was cremated and buried in a public cemetery, without his relatives, his faithful and his priests being permitted to see him, say goodbye to him or bless him. According to a number of Catholics in this diocese, the police wished to “hide the evidence”, perhaps of torture. In the past, similar cases have occurred of bishops who died in prison, for example Bishop Giovanni Gao Kexian in 2005, Bishop Giuseppe Fan Xueyan in April 1992 and Bishop Liu Defen, underground bishop of Anguo (Hebei), also in 1992. China has often been condemned by the international community for the practice of torture among police circles. Manfred Nowak, chief investigator for the UN Agency on torture, confirmed this in one of his reports in 2006, which speaks of “the widespread use of torture throughout China”, and demands the “immediate release of all those imprisoned for having exercised the right to freedom of religion or speech”. In China there are laws forbidding torture but they are often ignored. In 2004 the Ministry for Public Security passed a law making policemen responsible for the death of those in custody. The fact remains that even those released from prison shows signs that their health has suffered. Bishops and priests have often returned from prison or isolation suffering from sickness or consumption, caused by the violence inflicted in prison; Bishop Joseph Fan Zhongliang from Shanghai, 87 years old, is sick and still lives under supervision; Bishop James Lin Xili, 86 years old, from Wenzhou (Zhejiang), is physically deeply scarred and after spending 3 years in prison, has been kept in isolation since 2002. Two priests from Wenzhou, Father Shao Zhumin and Father Jiang Sunian, both released during the summer of 2007, now have to undergo medical treatment for heart, respiratory and hearing problems, all due to violence inflicted on them in prison. Detentions and disappearances A number of underground and official bishops are still detained in isolation; some have not been heard of for years: 1) Bishop James Su Zhimin (diocese of Baoding, Hebei), 74 years old, was arrested and then vanished in 1996. In November 2003 he was seen in the hospital at Baoding, closely watched by police, where he was treated for heart and eye problems. A few days later he vanished again. 2) Bishop Cosma Shi Enxiang (diocese of Yixian, Hebei), 85 years old, was arrested on 13th April 2001. Bishop Shi was ordained in 1982. He had been in prison for 30 years. He had been arrested on the last occasion in December 1990 and then released in 1993. After that he lived in forced isolation until his most recent arrest.

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3) Bishop Martin Wu Qinjing, official Bishop of Zhouzhi (Shaanxi), 39 years old; he has been held by the police and the PA since 17th March 2007. It is likely that he is being kept in forced isolation in Lintong or Xian, where he is obliged to attend “study sessions”. All contact with his faithful and his priests is forbidden. Bishop Wu Qinjing was ordained in 2005 by the now deceased Archbishop Anthony Li Duan of Xian. Although recognised by the Holy See, the PA has not accepted him. According to this controlling organisation, which wants to create a church that is independent from Rome, Monsignor Wu’s ordination was illegal, since it took place under the control of “foreign powers”.

Properties confiscated and never returned There is not only ideological persecution. There is also financial persecution. Amid the uncontrolled development that has characterised this country in recent decades, one means of obtaining wealth is through property speculation. This is why many of the properties owned by the Catholic Church are confiscated, sold and illicitly used by the Department for Religious Affairs and the Patriotic Association. The Holy Spirit Study Centre in Hong Kong, has calculated that local officials, protected by their position within the Communist Party, are pocketing the proceeds of such property dealings to a value of some 130 billion yuan (about € 13 billion). Of all this the Church receives only a few crumbs, although it needs a great deal more to use for its mission. Already during the 1980s the Central Government had passed laws for the return to their legitimate owners of properties previously confiscated (particularly during the Cultural Revolution), but no local officials observe these directives. Such confiscation for sale to developers seems to be the underlying reason for the ban on pilgrimages to the shrine of Our Lady of Carmel in Tianjiajing (Henan) and the resulting confiscation of the sanctuary area. The traditional annual pilgrimage, which began in 1905 and was stopped only during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), regularly attracts between 40 and 50 thousand people every year. But in May 2007 the provincial government for Henan forbade all pilgrimages, while the government of the city of Anyang (the diocese in which the sanctuary is situated) revoked the permits it had granted to the sanctuary and for the pilgrimages, defining these as “illegal

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Among more recent arrests was that of Father Joseph Lu Genjun, administrator of the diocese of Baoding (Hebei), aged 47. He spent 3 years in a work camp. Arrested in August 2004, then released, he was arrested again on 18th February 2006 and is still held at an unknown location, without any trial and on no specific charges. He was arrested together with Father Paul Huo Junlong, aged 52 and likewise an administrator of the diocese of Baoding. Currently, there are at least 11 priests under arrest (see AsiaNews, 18th October 2007).

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religious activities”. At the same time the authorities banned the Church from using the shrine area and requisitioned the entire compound. They also threatened to blow up the entire area, including the Stations of the Cross and the Lourdes grotto, built at the beginning of the 20th century. The sanctuary had previously been extensively damaged by the Japanese during World War II and again during the Cultural Revolution by the Red Guards. (see AsiaNews, 12th November 2007). Protestants The central government fears that during the Beijing Olympic Games there could be clashes or demonstrations with religious overtones that might escape police control. Among the groups most suspect as potential troublemakers are the Protestant Christians – and for two different reasons, one external and one internal. The external reason is that for the past two years thousands of Protestants in Brazil and the United States have been preparing to thoroughly evangelise the country, taking advantage of the greater ease with which China will provide entry visas during the Olympics. The spokeswoman for the (state sponsored) China Christian Council, Pastor Cao Shengjie, has warned all foreign missionaries to “respect the rules of the country”, according to which it is forbidden to engage in any evangelising work without a permit. Foreigners are forbidden from organising any kind of religious activity (AsiaNews, 30th May 2007). This in fact contravenes one of the basic tenets of religious freedom, namely the freedom to meet with others of the same faith but of different nationality. The internal reason is that among Christians, the Protestants are the most complex and least controllable group. According to official statistics, there are 16 million Chinese Protestants. All these denominations are merged into the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, or TSPM, which ensures their obedience to the Party – just as the Patriotic Association does for Catholics. But thanks to a widespread evangelisation, financed by powerful groups based in the USA, Korea and Australia, the Protestant population has increased to over 50 million (some optimistic estimates claim even 80 million). This imbalance between recognised and non-recognised (underground) Christians, has resulted in a tough response from the government, which demands either the absorption of the underground communities into the TSPM or their elimination. In this the government is contravening a UN directive which defines as discriminatory the distinction between “legal” (because recognised by the State) and “illegal” (because not recognised) religious activities. The campaign to destroy the underground Protestant communities A secret document drafted by the Chinese Communist Party in Hubei, was translated and published in full last 13th November by the China Aid Association, an organisation

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based in the United States that deals with religious persecution in China (see: Secret Document Reveals Chinese Government’s Campaign against Unregistered Churches in www.chinaaid.org). The document is dated 24th July 2007 and originates from the Duodao district in the municipality of Jingmen (Hubei). The editor has deleted the document’s serial number to prevent identification of its source, for the document was in fact printed in numbered copies. It also states that the contents must be kept secret and “must not be revealed to anyone” outside. The text speaks only of the “normalisation” campaign conducted locally in Jingmen from 15th June to 30th November. It does however reveal that this campaign was based on documents drafted by the central and provincial governments, following a meeting of the government’s National Christian Working Seminar (known as “Conference 601”) convened on 1st June 2007, with the participation of “leading comrades in the central government”, the United Front and the Religious Affairs bureau. This means that the campaign was being followed at a national level. The campaign’s objective was to “fight against infiltration activities by hostile overseas forces under the guise of Christianity and safeguard the stability in our society and in the religious arena.” Cooperation between the “religious affairs departments” and “public security agencies” should result in “good work in assuming control over non-authorised locations and the meetings of missionaries”. In practice this means absorbing all the underground communities into the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the only expression of Protestant Christianity allowed and controlled by the government. This document acknowledges the existence of “illegal meeting places involving many people” and proposes a “normalisation of Christian activities” through a “standardisation of the registration system” for “Christian places”, “Christian activities”, and “pastors”. This method is intended to ensure the “education of the majority”, to “isolate and eliminate small minorities”, and provide a “patient and detailed ideological education”. To achieve this result, the document advises starting with a widespread “investigation” of “meeting places, participants, locations and their styles”; verifying “whether there is infiltration of foreign powers or underground missionary work, involving feudal superstition or heresies”. This investigation should include “the contents of sermons, the personal lives of missionaries and their personal profiles, their sources of income, financial situation, working methods, the most important members and the ordinary people participating”. “Normalisation” is to be achieved by “registering meeting places, replacing private locations with churches, unifying various different locations by persuading people to close them down and abolishing them”.

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“For those who refuse to modify their behaviour or to stop their activities”, the public security agencies are asked to “work with departments in charge of religious affairs and resolutely stop their activities”. As far as religious policies are concerned, the document does not introduce any novelties; it follows the line of the regulations on religious activities, promulgated in 1994 by Premier Li Peng, the “butcher of Tiananmen”, updated and reviewed in 2005. Once again it emphasises the distinction between “normal” and “illegal” religious activities, whereby “normality” is assured by submission to state control. This goes against the UN Charter of Human Rights. In 1994, UN envoy Abdelfattah Amor, drafted a report on religious intolerance in China. It condemns the distinction made by the Chinese government between “normal religious activities” and “abnormal or illegal activities”. According to Abdelfattah Amor, this distinction discriminates against the lives of believers and must be eliminated from legislation and practice. What is happening in various parts of China is the result of this campaign. According to the China Aid Association, in the course of 2007, the government arrested 1958 people, pastors and believers of the non-official Protestant churches. According to this organisation, in 2007, with the Olympic Games approaching, the persecution of Protestants has increased, with a total of 60 incidents reported – an increase of 30.4 percent compared to 2006. Violence According to the China Aid Association (25th December), on Christmas eve 2007, the police in Hubei arrested a group of orphans and Christian aid workers. The officers locked the children in a hotel, and “persuaded” the owner of the land on which the orphanage stood to evict the tenants. The Protestant pastor taking care of the orphans, Ming Xuan Zhang, is no longer able to find land or rental properties because the police have warned the population not to help him. Pastor Zhang plays an extremely important role in the non-official Chinese house churches. Known affectionately as “Bike”, this Protestant leader has been arrested 12 times. In November 2006, US President George W. Bush asked to meet him during his official visit to China. Permission was not granted because Zhang had “disappeared”: the Hubei police had in fact arrested him and kept him hidden for the duration of the President’s visit. On 5th December 2007, a group of policemen and members of the religious affairs department of the province raided a house church in Kunming (Yunnan) arresting all those present. After inspecting the building, the police officers burned hundreds of religious books (including a number of Bibles), as well as the ID papers of 3 Christians. The police then forced the owner of the land on which the house church stood to evict his tenants.

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Arrests and concentration camps The China Aid Association reports that on 7th December 2007 the Shandong Police arrested 270 non-official Protestants leaders for having taken part in “an illegal religious meeting” in the Hedeng district, near the city of Linyi. At the moment, about 150 Christians are still detained in a state prison. The pastors had met to study the Bible together, when 50 police officers – coming from 12 different towns in the province – entered the room where the meeting was being held. They blindfolded and handcuffed them in groups of two and then drove them to the local prison, where they were interrogated. The police arrived in armoured cars and allowed no one to leave the area. The

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According to Chinese penal law, the police are obliged to provide official documents every time something is confiscated; these are needed during the trial, so as to establish the size and value of individual pieces of evidence. However, officers in Kunming did not follow this procedure. On 23rd January 2008 a female member of the church went to the district Police Offices to request compensation for the books that had been burned. The police beat her so badly that she was taken to hospital unconscious. A communist official in Baoding (Hebei), who had become a Christian, lost her job and her position within the Party because on 1st January 2008, she had hosted and participated in a session on Biblical studies inside the communist school she herself managed. The meeting had been attended by 50 Christians – among them lawyers, professors, authors, journalists and artists – who were all taken away and interrogated. Geng Sude, a 55 year old Protestant, confirmed that in February 2008 the Party Committee had removed her from her job as deputy head of the local communist school and dismissed her. She told Reuters that “I do not understand the Party’s decision; I said nothing against the government or against China and I have not broken the law”. On 7th February 2007, local police from Shanghuang Township, Suyang City, Jiangsu Province, entered the home of Tan Jianwei, a 36 year old Protestant Christian, who had hosted a non-official prayer meeting. They were accompanied by officials from Suyang Religious Bureau and the National Security Protection Squad under Suyang Police Bureau. Armed, the group entered the apartment with no warrant; the policemen demanded to see ID papers of all those present and took everyone’s photograph. A number of Christians refused to show their papers and were beaten. After confiscating a number of Bibles – without issuing a receipt as required by Chinese law – the policemen took three people away for questioning. At the police station the three were obliged to sign a document in which they promised not to hold any religious services in Tan’s house. Should this promise be broken, the police threatened, there would be “very serious consequences”.

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120 Christians released had to pay a 300 yuan fine (about € 30) as an “interrogation tax”. After disappearing for over two months, 9 Protestants leaders “reappeared” in October 2007 in Chinese labour camps. Among them was 42-year-old Mrs. Li Mei, who had been tied to a hospital bed and forced to undergo an emergency hysterectomy, made necessary by the torture she had suffered in prison. The Christians had been arrested on 15th July during a service held in a private home. They were sentenced on 6th August. According to the judges of the administrative court of Enshizhou, in Hebei, the Christians were guilty of “crimes against the State, organised during the meetings of an evil cult”. No one informed their relatives of their arrest or punishment. Sentenced to “re-education through labour”, these Protestants were taken a number of laogai (forced labour camps) in the province. The document detailing the charges states that: “The evidence of their guilt consists in the fact that they had sung Christian hymns in rural villages, had screened a film about Jesus in a home for the elderly and had prayed with their diabolical cult, asking the recovery of an elderly sick man”. In June 2007, the Shandong authorities sentenced two evangelical house church leaders to one year of “re-education through labour”. Zhang Geming and Sun Qingwen were accused of “using a diabolical cult to obstruct the law”. Their sentence was to be served in a camp in Jining. Both missionaries were from Henan. The police arrested them on 15th June together with four other leaders, who were released on 1st July after paying a fine of 10,000 yuan (about € 1,000) each. Two Christians from Shanxi will also soon be sentenced to hard labour. Their names are Zhou Jieming and Niu Wenbin, imprisoned on 10th June 2007 on suspicion of “using a diabolical cult to obstruct the law”. The men were arrested while distributing Bibles in the countryside of Jiaocheng together with 12 other local Christian leaders. Of those arrested, four were released that same day, while six others were kept in prison for 6 days without any charges being brought against them. The death penalty In mid November 2006 the leaders of the Protestant Three Grades of Servants Church, were sentenced to death and executed with no evidence against them. The 3 Christians – Xu Shuangfu (60 years old), Li Maoxing (55) and Wang Jun (36) – were killed in a prison in Heilongjiang; the authorities only informed their relatives after the execution so that they could collect the ashes. The lawyers of these three men were not summoned either, although they had presented a second appeal after losing the first one on 18th October 2006. In July 2006, the Shuangyashan People’s Intermediate Court, in the eastern province of Heilongjiang, sentenced the three men to death for murder; during the course of the

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trial the police also charged 14 other people. Of these, Zhang Min (35 years old), Zhu Lixin (37) and Ben Zhonghai were also sentenced to death, but the executions were suspended. The judge then sentenced the other 11 to between 3 and 15 years in prison. According to the prosecution, Xu Shuangfu – the leader of this Protestant group, which has over 500,000 members all over the country – had, together with other members of his group, killed 20 members of another rival group called Eastern Lightning and had stolen 32 million yuan (about € 3.2 million). The members of Eastern Lightning call themselves Christians, but many Protestant communities regard them as a “sect, made up of criminals”. The group’s founder, Mrs. Zheng, claims to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, and many of her followers are involved in dubious activities. According to Xu’s defence lawyers, the evidence presented by the government did not in any way prove their client’s guilt and the “confessions” were obtained through torture, a practice that the Chinese government itself has described as “widespread” in its prisons. (China Aid Association).

The Orthodox Church In China, the Russian Orthodox community suffers discrimination because it is not acknowledged as one of the 5 official religions (Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestant Christianity, Catholic Christianity). On several occasions throughout 2007, the Patriarch of Moscow has criticised the Beijing government for not granting the Chinese Orthodox Church full freedom and acknowledgement (AsiaNews, 12th April 2007). The Greek-Orthodox metropolitan in Hong Kong, Nikitas Lulias, has also criticised the Chinese authorities for the same reasons (AsiaNews, 10th July 2007).

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Expulsions Between April and June 2007, China expelled over 100 alleged missionaries from the United States, South Korea, Singapore, Canada, Australia and Israel. The code name of the operation was “Typhoon No. 5” and its aim was to “pre-empt the missionary activities of foreign Christians ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in August 2008”. The expulsions took place above all in Beijing and in the Xinjiang, Tibet and Shandong Regions. Sixty people were deported from Xinjiang alone, some aged only between 15 and 18. In May at least 15 Christian couples, mainly Americans, were deported from Beijing. On 31st May one Israeli and one American were arrested in Linyi (Shandong) for having taken part in a prayer session with 70 leaders of house churches. In Beijing on 1st July three American Christians were arrested and forced to leave the country without even being allowed to contact their embassy. According to some activists, these deportations are part of the “clean-up before the Beijing Olympic Games” (China Aid Association)

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According to data provided by the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for Relations with foreign Churches, there are about 13,000 Orthodox believers in China, of whom 400 live in the capital. The Russian Orthodox Church has been present in China for about 300 years. The first communities consisted of Russian emigrants and were mainly situated in the north of the country. Still today most of the Orthodox faithful are of Russian descent. These communities are situated in four parts of the country: in Heilongjiang Province, in Harbin, where there is also a parish dedicated to the Protective Mantle of Our Lady; in Inner Mongolia (in Labdarin); in Xinjiang (in Kulj and Urumqi). In 1957 they were granted full autonomy by the Russian Orthodox Church. The Cultural Revolution however totally eliminated the presence of bishops and priests. Even today the faithful have no priests and on Sundays they meet occasionally to pray. However, there are 13 Chinese Orthodox students studying at the Sretenskaya Academy of Theology in Moscow and at the Saint Petersburg Academy. The last Chinese Orthodox priest, Alexander Du Lifu, died in Beijing in 2003 aged 80. According to information from the Moscow Patriarchate, since he had no church, Father Du “gave private spiritual direction”. At times he was allowed to celebrate the Liturgy in the Russian Embassy in Beijing. For his funeral the Moscow Patriarchate obtained permission to use the Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (the Nantang). The Jewish community The Jewish community in China is discriminated against because it is not recognised as one of the official religions. Many buildings belonging to the Jewish faithful were confiscated in the days of Mao Ze Dong. The Israeli Chief Rabbi asked the Chinese government to allow worshippers to return to the Shanghai Ohel Rachel synagogue, but he received no reply (see South China Morning Post, 13th June 2006). The Ohel Rachel synagogue, completed in 1920, can host up to 700 believers; during the early Thirties Shanghai hosted about one thousand Sephardic Jews and over 5,000 Ashkenazi Jews, who were joined by about 30,000 exiles fleeing the deportations of the Nazi period. After 1949, the City’s Office for Education expropriated the synagogue, transforming it into a conference centre, and during the Cultural Revolution it was used for industrial production. After Mao’s purges it was restored and intended to house a museum of the Jewish presence during the war. It is currently closed to the public, but the community is permitted to visit it on holidays. In 2003 the government gave permission for the restoration and modernisation of Hongkou, the ancient Jewish quarter in Shanghai, but forbade the building of synagogues. There are several thousand Jews in China. They are tolerated as long as they worship with discretion and without involving the Chinese (see AsiaNews, 30th December 2003).

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Uighur Muslims Internally, China continues to implement repressive and colonising policies towards the Uighur Muslims, who are of Turkish origin (there are about 8 million concentrated in the Xinjiang region). These policies are aimed at controlling autonomy movements and infiltration by fundamentalists from Pakistan and Afghanistan. According to one daily newspaper in Xinjiang, in 2005 China arrested 18,227 Uighurs on the charge of “threatening national security”. Hundreds were also sentenced to death. In January 2007 the police attacked a training camp and killed 18 Uighur Muslims, saying that they were terrorists, but without providing any proof. A long report by Forum 18 News Service (September 2006) speaks of widespread tight controls aimed mainly at imams and young people. Every Friday morning, the holy day for Muslims, the imams have to go to the local religious affairs office to explain the text of the sermons they are about to give, and to receive “general indications”. Each religious group must be registered with the national religious committee and the appointment of all leaders must be approved by the authorities. These leaders attend periodic meetings at which state officials tell them the religious policies to be followed. The faithful are usually forbidden from holding public positions of authority and from teaching in schools. Children are not permitted to receive religious instruction. Those under the age of 18 are not allowed to attend places of worship, because the young must “complete their education and develop a personality so as to make an informed choice when deciding whether to be a believer or an atheist”. During Ramadan, the month of fasting, the school authorities still force Muslim students and teachers to eat their lunch. There are reports of places of worship, or buildings used for this purpose by the Islamic communities, being expropriated or destroyed.

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Islam In 2007, the Chinese government’s tolerance towards the 21 million Muslims was simply a “marketing ploy”; since 2007 was the year of the Pig (according to Chinese astrology), the Politburo’s Permanent Committee issued an order to “avoid all images of pigs” in advertising and in TV programmes, “to protect harmony between different religions and ethnic groups”. In order to fully understand the reason for this directive, one must bear in mind that only a few months earlier the international Islamic world had been roused by the scandal of the cartoons about Mohammed and the speech of Pope Benedict XVI in Regensburg. The decision to forbid images of pigs was also an economic-political move, an attempt to portray China’s great respect for the Islamic world, both at home and abroad. China buys large amounts of oil from Muslim countries in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa and therefore hoped that this provision would be appreciated by the Islamic world.

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Around three years ago, during the rebuilding of an area around the Idha mosque – the principal mosque in Kashgar – the authorities demolished numerous small restaurants and teahouses used by Muslims after prayers. In Urumqi, the old mosque was demolished and rebuilt as part of a shopping centre, sandwiched between a shop selling fried chicken and a Carrefour supermarket. Worshippers now say that “sometimes we can’t even hear the prayers, because of the music and songs in the nearby shops”. Islamic movements such as Sufism and Wahabism are forbidden, for fear that they may assume political characteristics, and the writings of authors who follow these creeds are also banned. According to Forum 18 News Service, the religious persecution in the Xinjiang region is applied above all for economic reasons and is aimed ultimately at destroying identity of the Uighur people in order to exploit the wealth of this region, which is rich in oil and natural gas. This is why Beijing has for years encouraged the migration to this region of millions of Han Chinese, who now make up at least 50 percent of the 20 million or so inhabitants. They have taken control of local commerce and positions of power, while the Uighurs (42 percent) are mainly farmers. Rebiya Kadeer and her children The fate of the Uighurs and the persecution against them is typified by the story of the Kadeer family. Rebiya Kadeer, aged 59, fled to the United States in 2005. A member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, she had been arrested in 1999 and accused of having provided information about the situation in the Xinjiang, which China described as “material containing state secrets”, outside the country. While abroad, Kadeer had also denounced the situation of the labour camps and the use of torture in Chinese prisons. For this China accused her of connivance with “known terrorist groups” (see AsiaNews, 13th September 2006). On 17th April 2007, one of her sons, Ablikim Abdiriyim, was sentenced to 9 years in prison by the court in Urumqi. According to the prosecution, Ablikim had published secessionist articles on the internet, instigating people to act against the government and “distorting” the situation concerning human rights and ethnic policies in China. He was also deprived of his political rights for three years; in China political rights include freedom of speech and permission to take part in demonstrations and protests. Amnesty International reported that Ablikim has fallen ill as a result of the beatings he suffered in prison and has been denied any medical care. According to Mrs. Kadeer, her son “has not even been allowed to appoint a lawyer or to defend himself, and his trial was held behind closed doors”. In September, another of her sons, Alim Abdiriyim, was sentenced to a 7 year prison term for tax evasion. A third son was arrested for tax evasion but only sentenced to

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pay a fine, and one of her daughters has been under house arrest for months (see AsiaNews, 18th April 2007).

Tibetan Buddhism Ever since the invasion of Tibet in 1950, Beijing has tried to subjugate the population there and its political and spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959. Under pressure from the international community, China has also held talks with emissaries from the Dalai Lama regarding his possible return to Tibet, but the conclusion has always been that the Tibetan Buddhist leader “wished to divide the homeland” in preparation for the independence of the Himalayan region. In realty the Dalai Lama many years ago abandoned any idea of independence and continues to propose a form of semi-autonomy for Tibet, similar to that enjoyed by Hong Kong (one country; two systems). Beijing is also concerned that the Tibetan community abroad may have plans to enter China in force to publicise the Tibetan cause, using the opportunity provided by the Olympic Games. At least 30 exiled Tibetan athletes have asked the International

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Hui Muslims The Hui – Chinese who have converted to Islam – number about 15 million, mainly in the Ningxia region of Central China, in Shaanxi , Qinghai and Beijing. The government has always been very tactful in dealing with them, even to the extent of sponsoring Muslim pilgrimages to Mecca. In recent years however a number of Hui revolts have been reported, caused by the social and economic imbalances that characterise contemporary China and which seem to favour the Chinese Han ethnic group. Among the Hui there is also an increase in Islamic extremism, due to the influence of the pilgrimages and to the encounter of the Hui Chinese version with the more extremist Pakistani and Saudi Koranic teachers. Since 2006, in an attempt to control this influence, China has put pressure on Saudi Arabia to grant visas for the pilgrimage only to those Chinese citizens who apply to the Saudi Consulate in Beijing and only to those in possession of a permit from the Islamic Patriotic Association. This new rule also applies both to the Uighurs and to the Hui and has reduced by many thousands the number of those taking part in the Haj. The Chinese government remains worried that even among the usually “quiet” Hui, there is a growing extremism that risks creating social tension. In many Hui areas, once famous for their liberal Islam (where there are also mosques run by female preachers), one increasingly sees mass participation in prayers, veiled women, and a constantly increasing number of young people wishing to study Arabic and the Koran (see South China Morning Post, 4th October 2006).

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Olympic Committee for permission to take part in the Olympics showing the Tibetan flag; but this request has been rejected. Although the Dalai Lama increasingly restricts his status to spiritual matters, Beijing always emphasises his political importance, criticising anyone abroad who supports him (United States, Germany, Australia, Canada, etc.). When the possibility of a visit by the Dalai Lama to the Vatican was aired last 13th December, Beijing threatened “serious consequences” for the Holy See (see AsiaNews, 2th November 2007) Inside the country, China condemns anyone having links to him. Possession of photographs or taped speeches by the Dalai Lama is considered a crime against national security. Controlled reincarnations Simultaneously, Beijing – in principle an atheist government – is seeking to control Tibetan ceremonies and rituals so that the Buddhist traditions can be made subject to the Party. In preparation for the successor to the Dalai Lama, Beijing has laid down that as from 1st September 2007, all reincarnations of the lama, including that of the Dalai Lama, must be approved by the government. In 1995 Beijing had already intervened in a heavy-handed manner in the Buddhist rituals and traditions, in order to assert its policies. That year, the Dalai Lama had acknowledged a 6 year old boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama. But China, in order to oppose the Dalai Lama’s influence, had kidnapped the child and his family and – using a method that Beijing claims to be more efficacious and more realistic – chose a different child, Gyaincain Norbu. To this day, Norbu remains a central figurehead of the Chinese government’s policies on Tibet, while Nyima has now been kept in isolation for 12 years. Sometime between November and December 2007, according to official reports, two elderly monks – Gyaltsen Tsepa Lobsang and Yangpa Locho, both 71 years old – were said to have “hanged themselves” in the monastery of Tashilhunpo, the official headquarters of the Panchen Lama and previously the scene of one of the most violent anti-Chinese demonstrations ever seen in Tibet. According to a number of local lamas, the government and the abbots of the monastery had always humiliated and ostracised the two monks, whom they saw as “guilty” of having educated the instigators of this revolt (which took place in the early 1990s) and above all the individuals responsible for the recognition of the 11th Panchen Lama (later kidnapped by the communist authorities). They were both strenuous supporters of the Dalai Lama, whose successor they would have been bound to acknowledge.

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Arrests In mid October 2007, the Chinese police violently put down a demonstration by Tibetan Buddhist monks, who were celebrating the fact that the US Congress had awarded the Dalai Lama its Gold Medal. The police arrested a great many monks in Tibet’s capital city Lhasa, while clashes with the security forces occurred near the monasteries of Drepung and Nechung, which were sealed off in order to keep the thousands of monks in the city inside and far away from the public. The police began this repressive action when they noticed that the monks were painting the walls of the buildings white, a ritual expressing “joy and purification”. News of these arrests did not travel fast, because the authorities had

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Young people subjected to torture and forced labour Every year, in order to escape this cultural and religious genocide, somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 Tibetans attempt to flee the country and escape to India, passing through Nepal and paying smugglers to help them illegally cross the border. It is in fact impossible to obtain an official permit from the Chinese authorities. In India, the Tibetans are free to maintain their own culture and above all they can meet their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who lives in Dharamsala together with the Tibetan government in exile. At least half of those who venture to undertake this dangerous journey are children; their parents want them to attend schools that will keep alive their Tibetan identity, something that is impossible in China. 15-year-old Jamyang Samten fled from Tibet, crossed Nepal and on 29th January 2007 reached the refugee centre for Tibetans in Dharamsala. There he related his story. On 30th September 2006, 75 young Tibetans wishing to travel to India, after a long journey on foot, had attempted to cross the border with Nepal at the Nangpa Pass, at an altitude of 5,800 metres. The Chinese police had opened fire on them, killing Kelsang Namtso, a 17-year-old nun, and a young man of 23. (This incident was also brought to public attention by Western tourists, who had managed to film the shooting.) Later, 41 of these young people had managed to escape to Nepal and then to India, while 32 others were captured by the police. Jamyang was one of these. After the shooting, his group – all under the age of 20 – managed to hide in the snow for three days, until they ran out of food. When they emerged, the police caught them, loaded them onto a truck and took them to an army barracks. For three days those aged 15 and over were interrogated and often beaten. They were all taken to the prison in Shigatse, Tibet’s second largest city, and again interrogated and beaten, while chained to a wall. For 48 days they were made to dig ditches and build fences. Jamyang was then released and returned home. But his desire to see the Dalai Lama was so great that he once again risked the journey to India. Paying Nepalese guides, he managed to cross the border into Nepal, and from there travel on to India (see AsiaNews, 31st January 2007).

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ordered all Tibet’s internet lines to be disconnected on 17th October, the day on which the medal was awarded. According to Beijing, the United States “made a serious mistake” in honouring the Buddhist leader, whom they described as a “dangerous fomenter of independence” (AsiaNews, 23rd October 2007). On 1st August, during celebrations for the 80th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army, in Lithang, in the Sichuan region, Ronggay A’drak, a 52 year old Tibetan nomad from Youru in the province of Kardze, managed to reach the stage and shout slogans in favour of Tibet’s independence and the return of the Dalai Lama. He was immediately overpowered and arrested by police, but over 200 Tibetans staged a sitdown in front of the prison. According to the Chinese Xinhua news agency, all ended well and the crowds dispersed. But according to Radio Free Asia, the 200 Tibetans were also arrested. Around the middle of 2006, according to information from the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), the People’s Intermediate Court in Lhasa sentenced Tibetan monk Sonam Gyalpo to 12 years imprisonment for “endangering state security”. His family appealed against the sentence. Forty-four year old Sonam had been arrested at the end of August 2005 during the celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the creation of the “Tibetan Autonomous Region” (TAR). The secret police claimed to have found 4 videos in Sonam’s house containing teachings by the Dalai Lama, political documents and paintings of the Buddhist spiritual leader, who has been in exile since 1959. After the search, the officers tricked him into meeting them at a side exit of the Potala Palace in Lhasa (the Dalai Lama’s former winter residence) and then drove him away in an unmarked car. Nothing was heard of him for months. Previously a monk at the Drepung monastery, Sonam was one of the 21 monks who in 1987 had staged a public demonstration in Lhasa, for which he was charged with being a “counter-revolutionary” and sentenced to 3 years in the prison at Drapchi. He was arrested again in 1993 and imprisoned for a year. He is now in a prison in Qushui, west of Lhasa. The TCHRD has protested that Sonam has not broken any law and has appealed to the United Nations working group against arbitrary detention, hoping that this body will intervene over this illegal incarceration. Economic persecution One of the reasons why China pays no attention to Tibet’s demands for independence is the wealth of natural resources in the mountains of this region. Hence, in addition to religious persecution there is persecution dictated by economic reasons, which has resulted in a real cultural genocide of the Tibetan people.

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At the end of May 2007 hundreds of Tibetans organised a revolt to protest against the exploitation of the holy Yala Mountain. During this protest, held outside the premises of a mining company, many Tibetans who live in Bamei – in Sichuan province – vented their defiance of the government and destroyed numerous cars. Yala Mountain is situated in the Tagong prairie and is one of the nine mountains considered holy by Tibetans. According to the inhabitants of Bamei, this mountain is now being exploited for the extraction of lead and zinc. The government immediately attempted to quell this revolt and the Bamei authorities later announced that it had been crushed. According to one Tibetan, a number of people were killed, but this news has not been confirmed. However, eight citizens from Bamei, who presented a petition to the government of Sichuan, have since vanished without trace. The luxuriant grassland amid which this mountain is set extends to the west of Sichuan. For Tibetans this is the Kham region, one of Tibet’s traditional cultural provinces that spans the border with the Tibet Autonomous Region (AsiaNews, 12th June 2007). In the name of Tibet’s industrial development, the Chinese authorities are forcing the leaders of the nomadic tribes here to move to the cities so as to “clean up” the land and use it for industrial development; in this way these peoples are being uprooted from their ancestral lands and reduced to poverty. According to Human Rights Watch, the tribal leaders are being forced to slaughter their entire flocks of yaks, sheep and goats and then move to urban areas; in exchange, the Beijing authorities pay them a minimal compensation for the destruction of the local economy. Hundreds of thousands of people are affected by these policies. According to one deportee, “the Chinese are destroying our communities, they do not allow us to live in our own land and they are annihilating our lifestyle”. According to Beijing, this operation – which also affects the bordering provinces of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai – is part of an attempt to develop the west of the country which is poor and backward. The Qinghai-Lhasa railway, opened on 1st July 2006, causing protests from Tibetans, who regard it a means for consolidating Chinese control. Beijing has always answered that it only wishes to bring prosperity and development to this region. Now Beijing seems to be very actively increasing transport towards Tibet and is building new roads to connect with the railroad, as shown by satellite images on Google. The railway is also being extended from Lhasa to the western Shigatse and beyond. According to experts, there are oil and gas fields in the far west of this region and the Yulong copper fields are the second largest in the country. Activists however complain that in the meantime the situation in Tibet has not improved at all, and funds for education and health are lower than in the rest of China.

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Matt Whitticase of the Free Tibet Campaign observes that “China never even intended that the railway would be of any use to the Tibetans”. This particular NGO estimates that Tibet contains about 40 percent of China’s mineral resources, including oil, coal, uranium, gold and copper. Their exploitation brings no advantages to the people of Tibet, however, but rather to the Han Chinese who have been encouraged by Beijing to migrate here and who for some time now have been the dominant class in the region.

HONG KONG The issue of religious freedom and its social, educational and political consequences is greatly debated in the Territory, thanks to a strenuous defender of this right, in the person of Cardinal Joseph Zen, the Catholic Bishop of Hong Kong. Within this former colony he is defending freedom of speech and education, and democracy, rousing the cultural and political world from the temptation to remain supine in the face of China and allow this country to destroy the formula for coexistence between Hong Kong and the Chinese system, as summarised by the formula of Deng Xiaoping: “One nation, two systems”. With regard to China he has become the spokesman for the striving for full religious freedom for the Church and for the religions in the motherland. Ever since his nomination as a cardinal, on 22nd February 2006, and again on receiving his cardinal’s hat (24th March 2006) he defined his cardinal’s purple as “red” – not “for my own blood, but for the blood and the tears of the countless nameless heroes of the official and underground Church who have suffered for remaining faithful to the Church”. In this way he linked his own mission to that of the Chinese Church. In his regard also, the policy of Beijing is ambivalent. According to Antonio Liu Bainian, secretary general of the Patriotic Association, Monsignor Zen’s cardinalate is “a hostile act towards China”, whereas according to Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, it is a positive factor. In an interview with the South China Morning Post he said: “Hong Kong is a Chinese province and it inhabitants are our compatriots. China is happy with the achievements of these compatriots” (see AsiaNews, 9th March 2006) On 30th July 2006, on the Asian Youth Day organised in Hong Kong, the cardinal condemned the fact that 4 Chinese provinces had refused mission for young Catholics to attend this event, which brought together 1,000 young people from all over the continent (AsiaNews, 31st July 2006). Speaking out on the 10th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to China on 1st July 1997, against those who chose, a priori to exalt Hong Kong’s return to the

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motherland, he showed, figures in hand, that there are now many more poor people in the territory than before this event. He called on the Chinese government to do more to guarantee the support of the population – now oppressed by an alliance between China and the wealthy capitalists in Hong Kong – and exhorted his fellow Catholics to take care of the poor (AsiaNews, 19th June 2007). Another battle being fought by Cardinal Zen is for freedom of education. In 2004 the education department passed a law establishing the creation of an internal School Management Committee (SMC) with a legal status that is distinct from that of the educational institutions, or Sponsoring Bodies, (SBs). The government claims that this allows for greater transparency and better democracy, whereas to those running the schools it is only a manoeuvre for interfering with internal management and for removing any real freedom in educational organisation. The law requires all this to be implemented by 2012. In the meantime however, economic aid and other benefits are being offered to those who adapt immediately. The diocese of Hong Kong has decided to appeal to the courts, alleging that this law is “discriminatory and racist”. At the present time the diocese and the Catholic congregations present in the Territory run 221 schools, both primary and secondary (AsiaNews, 11th December 2006). In all these battles Cardinal Zen is openly supported by the other Anglican and Orthodox Christian communities. The other religious communities (Buddhists, Taoists and Confucians) prefer instead to keep a low profile. One sign of this “competition” between traditional (and pro-Beijing) Chinese religions and Christians, is apparent in the proposal of the Chinese Ministry for Religious Affairs to make Hong Kong accept the festival in honour of Confucius on 28th September and to make room for it in the calendar by abolishing one of the Christian public holidays at Easter (see AsiaNews, 23rd April 2007).

All the religious communities in Taiwan enjoy full religious freedom. The Vatican’s diplomatic relations with Taiwan are often cited and criticised by the People’s Republic of China as one of the obstacles to improved diplomatic relations between Beijing and the Holy See. The other “obstacle” is the alleged “interference in China’s affairs under the pretext of religion”. In other words, it is about who should nominate bishops. Leading figures in the Church and in politics know well that the second is the real obstacle.

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In 2007 the Russian Orthodox Church also opened up relations with Taiwan, in the hope of arousing Beijing’s interest and securing the acknowledgment of Orthodoxy as one of the official religions. On 4th April 2007 a meeting was held in Moscow between Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, Secretary of the Russian-Orthodox Patriarchate’s foreign religious affairs department, and Angela Siu, Taiwan’s representative in Moscow. This meeting was described as “constructive” on the www.orthodoxytoday.org website. The two delegations discussed the best way of developing relations between the public and social organisations in Taiwan and the pastoral care of the Orthodox faithful living on the island. They also discussed a possible visit to Taipei by a delegation of the Russian-Orthodox Church, but no details for such a meeting were fixed.

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COLOMBIA

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AREA 1,138,914 kmq POPULATION 46,770,000 REFUGEES 168 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 1,976,970

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 96.7% Others 3.3%

Baptized Catholics 41,019,000

COLOMBIA

In article 19, the Constitution of Colombia guarantees complete religious freedom for all denominations. But the situation in Colombia has been marked by the constant violence of the guerrilla movements, FARC and ELN, and various drug trafficking groups; and as a consequence of this, freedom of worship is seriously impaired. The Catholic Church has endeavoured to act as a bridge, by facilitating dialogue between the authorities and the guerrilla movements, in the hope of securing an end to the fighting (Radio Giornale Vaticano, 28th January 2006). In February four Colombian bishops negotiated with the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional) on the island of Cuba in the hope of establishing a peace process and putting an end to four decades of violence in Colombia (ZENIT, 13th February 2006). In December, Archbishop Luís Augusto Castro Quiroga of Tunja, the president of the Colombian Bishops’ Conference, issued a communique outlining the willingness of the Catholic Church to support any type of process that might lead to peace and reconciliation in the country (ACI Prensa, 8th November 2006; Fides, 18th December 2006). However, the climate of violence has put priests in a difficult situation. In May the FARC finally handed over the remains of Father Javier Francisco Montoya, who had been kidnapped in December 2004 and was later murdered by the guerrillas. This Colombian priest had exercised his ministry among the Afro-Colombian people of the Chocó region. This was by no means an exceptional incident, and the Church in Colombia is still trying to find out what happened to Father César Darío Peña, the parish priest of Raudal de Valdivia, who was also kidnapped by the FARC in 2004 (ZENIT, 3rd May 2006). Meanwhile, on 4th July 2006 the murdered body of the Franciscan Brother Luis Alfonso Moreno was discovered in Santa Marta. Then on 22nd August, Father Alejandro Montoya, the parish priest of Bonam, was murdered as well, while in February 2007 the Italian missionary, Father Mario Bianco died after being severely beaten by thieves – a beating which this 90-year-old priest was unable to survive (www.domund.org/secciones/documentosmisioneros/documentosmisioneros.htm, 17th December 2007). However, such violence has not been directed solely against Catholic priests. In July 2007 two Pentecostalist pastors, Hum-

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berto Mendez and Joel Cruz García were murdered by the FARC in their church (ICN News, 12th July 2007). Nonetheless, the Catholic Church in Colombia did in some cases manage, through her mediation, to obtain the release of the hostages taken by the guerrillas, as was the case with the German, Lothar Hintze (ACI Prensa, 6th April 2006). Sources Noticias Globales ACI Prensa www.domund.org ICN News ZENIT

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COMOROS

Christians In May 2006 a woman and four men were arrested and accused of seeking to “convert Muslims” because they had organised a Christian debate in a private home in the village of Ndruani. They were reported by the villagers themselves. They were

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AREA 2,235 kmq POPULATION 835,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 98% Affiliated Christians 1.2% Others 0.8%

Baptized Catholics 6,000

COMOROS

The Constitution acknowledges religious freedom, but the government continues to restrict this right. In particular, the law punishes any proselytising activities by non-Islamic groups with imprisonment and a fine, although there do not appear to be restrictions for celebrating the liturgy in private. There is one Protestant church and two Catholic churches, but these can only be attended by foreigners. Furthermore, there is widespread social discrimination against Christians practically at all levels. The accusation of “evangelising Muslims” often results in social discrimination that can at times lead to threats, as well as the expulsion of individual Christians or entire families from schools and villages. Citizens who have converted are treated far worse that foreign Christians and can be imprisoned if they practise their faith in public. Foreigners are simply deported. Religious groups do not require state authorisation, but any public practice of their faith by non-Islamic groups can be considered proselytism. The Koran is taught and explained in state schools from the age of four, but it is not a compulsory subject for children of other faiths. The distribution of religious literature, clothes or symbols of non-Islamic faiths is forbidden. In 2006 the international Protestant Church in Moroni received permission to hand out parcels of toys for children, but was then ordered to stop because a child’s Bible and a number of necklaces with crucifixes were found. On 1st April one of the people involved in the organisation was arrested and kept in prison for one night, while a number of homes were searched. The Minister of the Interior and for Education threatened to deport this person from the country, and the local authorities who had permitted the distribution of the gifts were fined. Also in 2006 the organisation Who will follow me? set up by the Church in Moroni, was not permitted to distribute T-shirts with the association’s name printed on them in the local language.

COMOROS

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sentenced to three months in prison, with only the woman obtaining a suspended sentence. They were all released on 6th July 2006, following an amnesty decreed by President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi for the Anniversary of Independence.

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CONGO, BRAZZAVILLE

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AREA 342,000 kmq POPULATION 4,392,000 REFUGEES 38,472 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 7,800

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 91.2% Ethnoreligionists 4.8% Muslims 1.3% Others 2.7%

Baptized Catholics 2,464,000

CONGO, BRAZZAVILLE

Religious freedom is acknowledged and respected. All institutions are required to register and request state approval, including religious groups. State schools keep education separate from religion, but private schools are permitted. The Church runs 34 kindergartens with 2,452 pupils; 93 primary schools with 22,636 students; 37 middle and higher schools with 4,010 students; 2 hospitals, 16 health centres, one leprosy treatment centre and 7 centres for the chronically ill and for invalids. In December 2006, Brice Mackosso, Permanent Secretary of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission and Christian Mounzeo, President of Rencontre pour la Paix et les Droits de l’Homme were arrested and accused of deceit and abuse of good faith. The two men were coordinating the international campaign entitled “Publish What You Pay”, started in 2002 to encourage oil companies to publish the amounts paid to states in exchange for oil and gas exploitation rights. The Congo Catholic Episcopal Conference spoke out against these arrests, inviting the authorities to “respect judicial procedures guaranteeing a fair and impartial hearing; to guarantee in all circumstances physical and psychological integrity for Brice Mackosso and Christian Mounzeo; to prevent all forms of retaliation against them, both individually and in association with other defenders of human rights”. These two human rights activists had already been arrested on 7th April 2006 in Pointe Noire (the “capital” of the local oil industry) and accused of having made illegal use of the funds of an association. On 28th April they were released provisionally, but on 13th November the police arrested them again. The judge however acknowledged the illegality of this arrest and the two activists were once again released, only to be rearrested. They were eventually given a oneyear suspended sentence.

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CONGO, DEM. REP. OF THE

CONGO, DEM. REP. OF THE

AREA 2,344,858 kmq POPULATION 60,679,000 REFUGEES 177,390 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 1,364,578

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 95.4% Ethnoreligionists 2.4% Muslims 1.1% Others 1.1%

Baptized Catholics 32,105,000

The Constitution, approved by a referendum in December 2005 and in force since February 2006, acknowledges religious freedom, and the authorities respect this. Violent attacks on religious groups and individual believers appear to be the consequence of active guerrilla warfare, above all in the east of the country, with frequent violence inflicted on the population both by guerrillas and by regular soldiers. Archbishop Francois-Xavier Maroy of Bukavu has reported that two villages in Southern Kivu were attacked on the night of 26th-27th May 2007. Eighteen people were killed, dozens injured and at least18 others were kidnapped. This happened while the army was present in the area, but it did not intervene. Bishops and priests in the country have repeatedly drawn attention to both the gravity of the situation and the need to reach a genuinely peaceful settlement. They are faced with a situation that involves “abominable acts of violence against the civilian population”. Reports from civilians and refugees describe serious crimes, such as murder, torched homes, kidnappings, seizure of possessions, robbery, rape, etc. “There have even been reports of cases of cannibalism” (see Bishops’ statement of November 2005). Sadly, neither the peace signed in 2003 nor the 2006 presidential elections has stopped the guerrilla warfare. On the contrary, in March 2008 the superiors of the religious congregations in the province of Katanga even reported that “sexual violence has become a terrible weapon for destroying and decimating an entire people.” It is estimated that since 1996 over three million people have been killed, mostly civilians. Between the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006, the army destroyed entire areas in the provinces of Katanga, Ituri and Kivu, killing, kidnapping and torturing hundreds of civilians suspected of being in contact with the rebels. In Ituri, soldiers killed over 60 civilians and burned down homes, schools, churches and health centres. On 23rd January 2006 they fired shots in a church on the village of Nyata, killing at least seven people. In September 2007 the human rights group called Voix des sans voix (Voice of the Voiceless), reported the arrest of ten people, among them the priest, Father Roger Masirika, vicar

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Religious organisations must register with the government and present a statute. However, non-registered groups also operate freely. Religious instruction is permitted in state schools and religious groups are allowed their own schools. In October 2007 the Minister of Information “forbade broadcasting” by 22 television and 16 private radio stations, among them Radio Elykia, the country’s most important Catholic radio, reasons given for this included stations not holding licences, paying taxes or because of other formal irregularities. The Congolese Federation of Radio Stations for the Community observed that the Ministry was asking 5,000 dollars for registration and another 2,500 dollars for a licence; amounts that many radio stations operating in remote areas and serving the local populations, cannot afford. Many of the stations closed down are owned by groups linked to Senator Jean-Pierre Bemba, one of the current president’s opponents. On 22nd May 2006 plainclothes police officers from the special branch attacked the TV studios of Christian television station Radio Tele Message de Vie, destroying all the equipment. The station had just broadcast a sermon by Minister Fernando Kutino, criticising a number of politicians. In March 2008, in the Bas-Congo province, there were violent clashes between the police and followers of the Bundu dia Kongo movement (the “Kingdom of Congo” in the Kikongo language), a religious sect that is very influential in this area and hostile to any symbols used by the state authorities. Each party accused the other of having started the violence, in which 22 of the group’s followers were killed. This group, which has secessionist objectives and is also represented in parliament, is suspected of being responsible for a great deal of violence. In January 2007 other clashes between this group and the police resulted in over 100 people being killed. Catholics In August 2006, nine people attacked the parish church in Kizu, near Tshela, Bas-Congo province, and killed a Catholic priest, while a second priest managed to escape to the nearby forest. According to the Angola Press Agency, the attackers might have been members of the anti-Christian sect Muene. At the beginning of March 2007, Father Richard Bimeriki, parish priest in Jomba (Rutshuru) was attacked inside his parish by a group of soldiers, probably followers of the rebel general Laurent Nkunda. After asking for food and water, they shot him a number of times. He was taken to Kigali (Ruanda) for surgery and died there on 7th April. He was in charge of the only hospital in the area, the Bugusa Centre in Jomba,

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in the parish of Chimpunda in the archdiocese of Bukavu, accused of anti-state activities. This was in fact – according to the source – a settling of scores within the army.

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which serves over 40,000 people but was looted during clashes between the Congolese army and Nkunda’s rebels. During the night of 27th-28th October 2007, in Himbi (Northern Kivu), unknown individuals attempted to shoot the Bishop of Goma, Monsignor Faustin Ngabu, who was unhurt, while the gunmen instead shot one of his relatives. Witchcraft Brutal practices against children and the elderly accused of witchcraft continue. The presumed “witches and magicians” are often locked in small locations for days without food and harshly treated in an attempt at exorcism. Sometimes they are even killed. In Zongo for example, in the province of Equateur, in September 2006, a father threw his five-month-old son into a river, killing him, because he suspected the child of being responsible for witchcraft. Around the same time and for the same reason, a group of people in the provincial capital of Mbandaka threw a fifteen-year-old boy into the river and killed him. The government prosecutes such crimes and in both cases those responsible were arrested.

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COSTA RICA

The current Constitution in force in Costa Rica dates back to 1949, but has often been amended, the last time being as recently as 1996. Article 75 states that the “Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Religion” is the State religion, but also specifies that the state does not forbid the free profession of other faiths. Appeals concerning the Catholic Church’s status have periodically been presented to the Constitutional Court, but for the moment they have all been rejected. The Law protects the religious rights of all citizens, and should they be violated there is adequate jurisdiction for ensuring they are protected. There are no reports concerning the violation of these rights.

AREA 51,100 kmq POPULATION 4,350,000 REFUGEES 17,190 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

Affiliated Christians 96.6% Others 3.4%

Baptized Catholics 3,713,000

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RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

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CROATIA

CROATIA

AREA 56,538 kmq POPULATION 4,518,000 REFUGEES 1,642 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 2,900

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 95.2% Non religious 2.4% Muslims 2.3% Others 0.1%

Baptized Catholics 3,910,000

The Constitution of 1990, in particular in Articles 40 and 41, decrees the right to religious freedom. There is no State religion, but the Catholic Church has close relations with the state, unlike those of any other other religious confession. This is partly based on a Concordat between the government and the Holy See, which governs the recognition of Catholic marriages, the teaching of the Catechism in state schools, and the military chaplaincies. However, in addition to the Catholic Church, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Muslim community and other minor Christian denominations also receive financial state aid. The 2002 Law on the legal status of the religious communities governs their positions and their rights, including tax benefits and the issue of religious instruction in schools. The issue of the restitution of property owned by religious communities which was confiscated under the communist Yugoslav regime (1945-1990) remains unresolved today, although the 1998 Concordat with the Catholic Church decreed that property must be returned or, when that is not possible, compensation be paid. On this same issue there are by contrast no specific agreements between the government and non-Catholic groups. Anti-Semitic episodes have generally been rare and the government has worked hard at eradicating such attitudes – which were strong in the past – among the population, this has been helped by regular participation in the annual Remembrance Day for the Shoah. In March 2007, Bishop Antun Skvorcevic of Pozega was the first Catholic bishop to visit the Jewish Memorial Museum, which is located in the Jasenovac concentration camp; he was accompanied by a delegation of ninety priests and deacons. While there he also announced a plan for an ecumenical prayer initiative in the camp, together with representatives of the various religious communities in the country. In February 2007, the Islamic community of Zagreb hosted the Grand Mufti of Bosnia, Mustafa Ceric, who issued a statement on behalf of European Muslims, which attracted positive coverage from the Croatian media. The speech called on Muslims to accept European democratic standards and principles and at

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CROATIA

the same time appealed to the countries of the European Union to follow a corresponding path of acceptance of the Muslim religion. In March 2007 a city plan was approved for Rijeka that also includes the building of a mosque, and in Osijek too – in the east of the country, near the border with Serbia – there is a plan for the construction of a mosque, but it has been blocked by administrative procedures for redrafting the map of public land. On 8th December, 2007 ACN News reported the comments of Archbishop Ivan Prenda of Zadar, given during a visit to the international headquarters of ACN, who recalled the importance of moral principles in politics. He also emphasised how, eleven years after the end of the war in the Balkans, relations between the State and the Catholic Church were good and how the government was seriously working at establishing real democracy in this country, thanks also to a close collaboration with the Church in the fields of culture, education and society. In February 2007, immediately after it had been returned to the Serbian Orthodox Church, the tower of the Saint Archangel Monastery in Kistanje was repeatedly damaged, while the monastery received a threatening letter attacking ethnic Serbians. The enclosure wall around the Serbian Orthodox cemetery in Biljane Donje was also knocked down. Already earlier, in January 2007, vandals had broken into the church of the Holy Trinity, stealing the relics from the altar and damaging a valuable prayer book.

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CUBA

CUBA

AREA 110,861 kmq POPULATION 11,320,000 REFUGEES 615 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 44.5% Non religious 36.9% Ethnoreligionists 17.9% Others 0.7%

Baptized Catholics 6,754,000

Cuba is the only communist country on the American continent and preserves the character typical of totalitarian regimes restricting various rights and liberties, including religious activity. Indeed, the Constitution of 1976 proclaims the atheism of the Cuban state. Nonetheless, the visit by the late Pope John Paul II 10 years ago (21st-25th January 1998) raised hopes of greater openess in matters of religion, and a degree of thawing in realtions between Church and state. In this new context one might note the visit by Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, to various countries of the Caribbean (including Cuba) in order to present the Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church. Following the direction marked out by Benedict XVI in his first encyclical Deus Caritas est, it points out that the Church must not seek to take the place of the State, but should still ceaslessly strive for justice. The visit was an amicable one and the Cuban President, Fidel Castro, expressed words of friendship towards Pope Benedict XVI and even suggested inviting him to visit the island. Nonetheless, the continuing restrictions on religious liberty contribute to the small numbers of young people among the Catholic faithful: even among those who practise their faith, the levels of adherence to moral issues, such as opposition to abortion and divorce or the issue of marrying in church, are not followed by half of the population. In order to tackle this problem, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference has drawn up a global pastoral plan which aims to identify new areas in society where the Gospel can be brought to families, young people, couples, elderly people, abandoned children, country people and single-parent mothers. However, there are only 339 priests to carry out this work – 155 diocesan priests, 126 religious, plus 646 religious sisters and 61 permanent deacons to help them – a small army for such a big campaign. But the limits of any kind of religious activity are clearly set. The evangelical pastor, Carlos Lamelas, was imprisoned for 40 days, charged with having assisted an illegal emigration. During Holy Week 2006 some bishops was permitted to relay the 12-minute Holy Week message via radio – the first time in 46 years of communist government that such a thing has happened. For his part, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the Archbishop

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of Havana stated that he would pray that God might enlighten the government of Raul Castro during his temporary rule while his brother Fidel was ill, and expressed a willingness to do everything possible for the peace and mutual harmony of the Cuban people. These efforts to promote good relations have meant that it was possible to celebrate, on 69 separate occasions, public processions and Masses at the shrine of Our Lady of Charity of Cobre, who appeared to three fishermen in the 17th Century. Permission to celebrate this was first given in 1997, a short time before the visit to the island by Pope John Paul II. Meanwhile, there have been attempts to amend the legal framework of the government by taking advantage of the openings it offers. It is possible to propose a new law to the National Assembly, provided this is backed by a sufficient number of signatures. The Reverend Ibrahin Pina has sponsored a proposed Law on Religion and is campaigning to gain votes and support for this law on religious worship and the religious associations, which would help to eliminate restrictions on religious liberty. On the Catholic side, the struggle is for education. The magazine Vitral, published by the diocese of Pinar del Río, is striving with its meagre resources to persuade people of the need to educate the educators and so to guarantee a pluralist education, that is not identified with a particular ideology. Additionally, at the international level, the 31st ordinary assembly of CELAM was held for the first time in Cuba: Cuban vice presidents, Carlos Lage and Esteban Lazo, were in attendance. Advantage was taken of the occasion to enable the support groups who represent the family members of political prisoners to request the mediation of the bishops in the release of their relatives. One of these dissidents, Oswaldo Payá, spoke of the need for an amnesty for political prisoners and for a new electoral law. Nonetheless, for those who are openly dissident, events similar to that which occurred to Juan Carlos González Leiva, the executive secretary of the Consejo de Relatores de Derechos Humanos in Cuba and President of the Fundación Cubana de Derechos Humanos (Cuban human rights foundation), are by no means uncommon. He was arrested in the Sala Penal of the Amalia Simoni provincial hospital in Camagüey and physically maltreated by the state security police. González Leiva had organised a campaign of prayer and fasting by political prisoners in an attempt to end government violence. In response to this initiative the police began an attack on the parish of Palma Soriano, where a group of the faithful had met to pray the Holy Rosary for political prisoners. The authorities accused them of engaging in “counterrevolutionary activity”. However, the increased international interest is prompting some changes among the authorities. For example, after 200 police and communist militants had attacked 20 or so dissidents outside the entrance to the presbytery of Santa Teresita, the parish priest and the archbishop of Santiago later received an apology. Meanwhile, the velvetgloved treatment of international visitors still prompts declarations such as that by the

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president of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, Rick Ufford Chase, who spoke during a service in the first ever Presbyterian church in Havana and denied that there was any “lack of religious liberty” on the island . Sources ACN News, 12th April 2006 ANSA, 6th August 2006 ACI Prensa Compass Direct News, 2nd March 2006 La Jornada (México), 21st February 2006 La Nueva Cuba, 8th December 2006 Radio Giornale Vaticano Vatican Radio, 6th September 2007 ZENIT “LA IGLESIA CATOLICA EN CUBA”. Editato por la oficina de prensa Verdad y Esperanza de la Comision Central Preparatoria para la visita del Papa (1998).

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CYPRUS

These provisions however are only valid in the southern part of the island, which is Greek and Christian, internationally acknowledged and part of the European Union since 1st May 2004. The northern part of Cyprus, militarily occupied by Turkey in 1974, has been governed since 1983 as a self-proclaimed independent Turkish Republic, acknowledged however only by Turkey. In this part of the island Turkish occupation has caused deaths, destruction and the forced displacement of populations. About 20,000 Greek Cypriots, Orthodox Christian believers living in the north, were obliged to flee to the southern part of the island. And vice versa, the Muslim Turkish Cypriots living in the south, moved to the north. There is currently a wall, known as the “Green Line”, guarded by UN troops, dividing the two parts of the island as cutting through the capital city Nicosia. In April 2004 the UN held a referendum on a plan for the confederation of these two states, but this was rejected by the Greek Cypriots in the south. In the meantime, the islamisation of the northern part of the island has resulted in the destruction of all that was Christian.

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AREA 9,251 kmq POPULATION 791,000 REFUGEES 1,194 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 210,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 94.1% Non religious 4.7% Others 1.2%

Baptized Catholics 17,000

CYPRUS

Already in its preamble, the Constitution of the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus indicates a marked division of the population into two distinct national, linguistic and religious communities, the Greek and the Turkish, and all citizens must belong to one or the other. Consequently, those professing the Greek Orthodox faith naturally belong to the Greek community, just as the Muslims belong to the Turkish one. Since tertium non datur, even those who do not belong to either group are however obliged to publicly choose one of them. On condition that there are no obstacles to security, health and public order or to the very rights guaranteed by the Constitution, Article 18 guarantees freedom of thought, conscience and religion, to profess and manifest their faith in every social situation. The right to change religion or belief is specifically protected, but forced conversions are forbidden, as are all impediments to conversion. All religions are free and equal in the eyes of the law – provided that their rituals and doctrines are not secret – and enjoy full administrative autonomy.

CYPRUS

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Many churches, not only Eastern Orthodox but also Maronite and Armenian, have been transformed by the occupying forces into army warehouses, stables, nightclubs and even mosques. There still seems to be no solution for rectifying the damage inflicted on the artistic, cultural and religious heritage, in spite of the appeal addressed to the European institutions by the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Nova Justiniana and All Cyprus, His Beatitude Chrysostomos II, seeking permission to restore – with funds provided by the local church – the five hundred Christian churches in Turkishoccuppied territory and at risk of collapse. Meanwhile, the Turks themselves claim that they have restored five Orthodox places of worship. There are signs of hope however in certain important gestures of openness by eminent Islamic figures, such as the Great Imam of Egypt, Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi, who on 27th July 2007 offered Chrysostomos II his support for protecting Christian churches and promised to extend this appeal to the whole Muslim world. In the meantime, the Cypriot government has stated that it has spent about € 130,000 in 2006 on the preservation of 17 mosques and Islamic places of worship in its territory, and has set aside about € 350,000 in 2007 for the same purpose. The Orthodox Church On 13th August 2007 the Archbishop of Nova Justiniana and All Cyprus, His Beatitude Chrysostomos II protested that the celebration of Mass in the Monastery of Saint Barnabas in Famagosta, in territory occupied by the Turkish Army, had been forcibly prevented. According to his note, “when the Archimandrite Monsignor Gabriele arrived at the monastery, which has been turned by the Turks into a museum and to which Christians can only gain admittance by paying an entrance fee, a group of selfproclaimed ‘Turkish Cypriot police’, actually irregular militiamen, intervened and ordered the ceremony to be stopped”. “When Monsignor Gabriele protested, the militiamen removed the faithful using force and while the priest persisted in finished the Mass they drowned out his voice with insults and curses against the Christian faith. All those present had their names taken by the so-called policemen”, the communiqué continues. Ankara’s decision not to allow the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Cyprus Chrysostomos II to visit the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I from 17th-21st August has contributed to embitter the conflict between the Greek Orthodox and the Turkish Cypriot Muslim communities. Chrysostomos finally specified that “there are no divergences between the Greek Orthodox and their Turkish Cypriot Muslim brothers” and that the real problem consists in “interference from Ankara, blocking all attempts addressed at integrating the two communities with reciprocal respect”. Hope for a better atmosphere in interreligious dialogue has resulted from a meeting on 21st February 2007, the first in 33 years, between Chrysostomos II and the

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Minister for Religious Affairs in the self-proclaimed Turkish Cypriot republic, Ahmet Yonluer. In the self-proclaimed Turkish Cypriot republic, which describes itself as “secular” following the Turkish model, the Constitution formally guarantees religious freedom, but the authorities only grant Christian priests limited permission to celebrate Mass and obstruct the faithful in their visits to churches and monasteries.

CYPRUS

Sources The restoration of Churches can reconcile Cyprus, ZENIT, 19th June 2007 The Great Imam of Egypt defends the Christian Churches threatened by the Turkish army in Cyprus, ZENIT, 27th July 2007 Cyprus: anti Christian violence by Turkish militiamen, ZENIT, 16th August 2007

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CZECH REPUBLIC

CZECH REPUBLIC

AREA 78,866 kmq POPULATION 10,291,000 REFUGEES 2,037 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 63% Non religious 36.9% Others 0.1%

Baptized Catholics 3,289,000

The right to religious freedom is enshrined in the Constitution of 1992, which in Article 3 also includes the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms approved also in 1992 by the Federal Assembly. All religious groups must register with the Ministry of Culture, in order to obtain state subsidies among other things. In April 2007, the Czech Muslim community presented a series of requests to the Ministry of Culture for permission to teach the Islamic religion in state schools, to establish their own private schools, celebrate Islamic marriages and to appoint people for religious activity in military barracks and in prisons. During the month of February 2007, the Czech Supreme Court overturned a previous ruling by the High Court in Prague in September 2006, which had ordered that the Prague Castle and the Saint Vitus’ Cathedral, expropriated by the communist regime, should be returned to the Catholic Church. On 9th March 2007, the Vatican Radio focused on the central issue: as the Archbishop of Prague, Cardinal Miloslav Vlk had emphasised, the arguments used to support this decision were not legal but rather political and therefore this would not prevent the Church responding, it was even prepared to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg. In a broadcast of 4th April 2007, the Radio Giornale Vaticano announced a provisional agreement regarding the controversy over the Cathedral’s ownership; the President of the Republic’s Office had in fact decided that “the Cathedral’s administration would henceforth be assured by the Metropolitan Chapter, together with the Administration of the Prague Castle”. On 31st January 2007, this same source broadcast the Czech bishops’ response to the accusations of collaboration with the communist regime, accusations levelled at a number of Czech priests. In a note the bishops stated that “the Church was above all the victim and has been persecuted”. Furthermore, the document emphasises, the Church was one of the first to address this issue, even to the extent of obliging even a number of important figures to resign. On 4th November 2007 L’Osservatore Romano reported that progress had been made in the dialogue between the State and the Catholic Church with regard to Church properties confiscat-

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CZECH REPUBLIC

ed by the communist regime. The Czech Episcopal Conference is negotiating compensation equivalent to three billion Euros to be paid in instalments for about seventy years. On 15th November 2007, the Radio Giornale Vaticano reported that the Czech Constitutional Court had refused a proposal to amend Act 495/2005, which imposes restrictions on churches and religious communities when founding charitable institutions or schools on their properties; all these institutions are therefore still required by law to follow long and complex legal procedures. According to the bishops, this is a serious injustice and therefore they are ready even to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

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DENMARK

DENMARK

AREA 43,094 kmq POPULATION 5,363,000 REFUGEES 26,788 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 91.6% Non religious 6.9% Others 1.5%

Baptized Catholics 37,000

The 1953 Danish Constitution states that “The Evangelical Lutheran Church shall be the Established Church of Denmark, and as such shall be supported by the State” and adds that the King must be a member of this Church. However, Article 68 states that “No one shall be liable to make personal contributions to any denomination other than the one to which he adheres”. Furthermore, Article 67 guarantees citizens the right “to form congregations for the worship of God in a manner according with their convictions, provided that nothing contrary to good morals or public order shall be taught or done”. Moreover, Article 70 establishes that “No person shall by reason of his creed or descent be deprived of access to the full enjoyment of civic and political rights, nor shall he escape compliance with any common civic duty for such reasons”, while Article 71 states that “Personal liberty shall be inviolable. No Danish subject shall […] be deprived of his liberty because of his political or religious convictions or because of his descent.” The Catholic Church, the Jewish community, the Islamic community, the Methodist Church, the Baptist community and the Russian Orthodox Church are recognised, along with another hundred or so denominations, by the Religious Affairs Ministry, which accords them various rights, such as celebrating marriages with civil validity and providing their ministers with resident permits. According to a Draft Bill currently being studied by Parliament, foreign missionaries will in future be asked to sit a Danish language test; this will be added to the provisions of the socalled “Law on Imams” of 2004, which restricts the entry visas granted for religious reasons, in proportion to the actual number of the faithful. Islam A number of other provisions have likewise been introduced for safeguarding social peace, a peace severely tested by the publication of the twelve satirical cartoons on Mohammed in a number of Danish daily newspapers in 2005. In treading the thin line that separates respect for the religious sentiments of Mus-

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Also to be seen as in line with the need to promote peaceful coexistence are the new acceptance criteria for refugees from the UN refugee camps. In accordance with international agreements, Denmark continues to welcome 500 people every year. However, in 2006 and 2007 the authorities decided to choose the provenance of those to be considered for political and humanitarian asylum. Whereas in 2001 and 2002, 84 percent of refugees came from Islamic countries, now 89 percent are “infidels” from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bhutan and Burma. The remaining 11 percent still come from Iraq, Sudan and other countries with a Muslim majority. The reason was explained by the deputy director of the Danish foreign services, Eva Singer: “In recent years we have been taking refuges from Burma and from Congo. We have done this because the UNHCR (UN High Commission for Refugees) believes that there is a need for us to do so. But also because the communes here have had good

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lims from freedom of opinion and expression and of the press, Denmark has faced a severe boycott by the Islamic world, which has continued with varying degrees of intensity since 2006. However, the sentenced passed on 26th October 2006 by the courts in Århus, acquitting Carsten Juste, the chief editor, and Flemming Rose, the editor of the cultural pages of the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten of the charge of slander, prompted harsh reactions from representatives of Danish Muslim organisations and from the Islamic world. In their summing up, the judges state that “naturally one cannot exclude the fact that the cartoons might offend the honour of some Muslims, but there is no basis for believing that these cartoons were intended as an offensive means, or that the objective was to propound an opinion likely to bring discredit upon Muslims in the eyes of the citizens”. Even the most controversial cartoons, in which Mohammed is portrayed as a suicide bomber, holding a bomb and wearing a turban, or as the advocate of the oppression of women, could not therefore, in the view of the court, be considered as an insult or a mockery. The tension and misunderstanding that opposed the majority of the Danes to the Islamic fundamentalist minority, also caused a severe split within the immigrant community, in particular among those of Muslim culture. Among the moderates, an important contribution to reconciliation was made by the Danish MP Naser Khader, who is of Syrian and Palestinian origin. He had decidedly distanced himself from the protests during the demonstrations of 2006, attracting criticism from the most radical organisations, and even some death threats, for having attempted to promote dialogue and put an end to the crisis. The violence, which reached its peak with the attacks on Danish embassies in many Islamic countries, was followed later in Denmark by the desecration of 25 Muslim tombs in the cemetery of Esbjerg in February 2006.

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experiences with the Burmese and the Congolese. Both these nationalities integrate well in Denmark”. Sources Naser Khader, Declaration by the newly founded “Moderate Moslem”-Network, 4th February 2006 http://www.khader.dk/flx/in_english/declaration_by_the_newly_founded_ moderate_moslem_network Pernille Ammitzbøll and Lorenzo Vidino, After the Danish Cartoon Controversy, Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2007, http://www.meforum.org/article/1437

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DJIBOUTI

Catholics On 28th October 2007, Father Sandro De Petris, the Vicar General of the Djibouti diocese (the whole diocese has three priests for 7,000 believers), was arrested, initially on no specific charge but later accused of paedophilia. The Bishop, Giorgio Bertin immediately declared that he was “completely certain of Father Sandro’s innocence” and wondered if perhaps he may have “upset someone” (Fides). This was also, he added, because “the accusation comes from Port Ouvert, an organisation that in 1995 did the same with the French Judge, Borrel” (in fact the judge had discovered evidence of corruption, money laundering, and arms trafficking. His body was found in Djibouti and his death labelled as suicide. The French have reopened this case, however, and are treating it as murder). The Bishop has spoken of revenge and a “conspiracy”. “Those belonging to Port Ouvert were evicted from the Caritas building when Father Sandro was the director” (Corriere della Sera) and this resulted in a “court case that lasted ten years and was only recently settled”. The priest only appeared in court for the first time on 29th December. Other sources speak of a press campaign orchestrated by the daily newspaper La Nation (the only newspaper allowed by the government) against “paedophile France” and the Church, which is accused of organising a “paedophile network” (see Avvenire, 10th January 2008).

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AREA 23,200 kmq POPULATION 760,000 REFUGEES 6,651 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 94.1% Affiliated Christians 4.5% Others 1.4%

Baptized Catholics 7,000

DJIBOUTI

Islam is the State religion, but the Constitution acknowledges the freedom to profess any faith. Although it is not forbidden, proselytism by non-Islamic faiths is discouraged. All religious organisations must register every two years and state in a detailed manner the objectives of all their activities. Religious groups are not restricted in any way from providing health care and education. Religion is not taught in state schools. For everything concerning family and inheritance law, the Islamic courts have been replaced with Family Courts that apply the Family Code, a mixture of civil and Islamic provisions. Family Court judges only have jurisdiction over Muslims. Others are tried in civil courts. Furthermore, Muslim women are not allowed to marry non-Muslims.

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At the end of February 2008 the priest was placed under house arrest for health reasons while awaiting a trial that was due to start in the next few weeks. During this time the charges have changed on a number of occasions, from paedophilia to distributing child pornography, to the corruption of minors, etc.

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DOMINICA

The small Republic of Dominica (“Commonwealth of Dominica”), in the archipelagos of the Lesser Antilles, guarantees full religious freedom, specifying this in detail in Article 9 of the 1978 Constitution. The population is almost entirely Christian and the majority follows the Catholic faith. All religious organisations must register so as to obtain tax benefits and authorisations for places of worship and schools. State schools curricula include Christian religious instruction, but non-Christians are not obliged to attend. There have been no reports concerning violations of religious freedom.

AREA 751 kmq POPULATION 74,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Baptized Catholics 42,000

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Affiliated Christians 94.8% Spiritists 2.7% Others 2.5%

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

AREA 48,511 kmq POPULATION 9,420,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 95.2% Others 4.8%

Baptized Catholics 8,305,000

The Constitution of the Dominican Republic, that dates from 2002, establishes freedom of worship, and generally the government respects this right. No acts involving religious discrimination have been reported for 2006 and 2007. Most people in this country belong to the Catholic Church. Traditional Protestants, Evangelical Christians (in particular the Assemblies of God, the Church of God, the Baptists and the Pentecostals), Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) have organised themselves in small but active groups. As far as other religious minorities are concerned, there are approximately three hundred Jews within the territory of the republic, but of these only a few practise their religion. Most of them live in Santo Domingo, where the largest synagogue is found. As far as the presence of Muslims is concerned, government sources have identified groups with approximately between 5,000 and 10,000 members, mainly students. There are also small groups of Hindus and Buddhists. It is worth observing that many among the Catholics also practice a sort of religion that mingles Catholicism, so-called santeria (a syncretic mixture of Afro-Caribbean pagan beliefs and Christianity), brujeria (a Hispanic form of folk magic) and voodoo rituals. It is extremely difficult to quantify the number of followers, since these rituals are practised in secret. In February 2007, as reported by Vatican Radio, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of this Caribbean country drafted a document which it sent to the Committee for Constitutional Reform, emphasising the need to clearly include the concept of the Christian roots in the new Constitution. “It is necessary to clearly define, without alibis or misunderstanding, the Dominican identity”, the bishops wrote, emphasising that “in this identity of ours, the religious element must be included, the Christian faith that has inspired national sovereignty and that has moreover historically shaped the outlook of the Dominican people”. The bishops’ letter further called for a precise and clear definition of “freedom of religion for all Christian and other denominations” along with the guarantee of “the right to worship”.

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ECUADOR

In Chapter II of the 1998 Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador, which looks at civil rights, Article 23.11 guarantees freedom of conscience and religion, expressed both privately and in public, individually or as an association. There is no religious instruction in state schools, however, the subject is taught in private schools. The country is mainly a Catholic one, but small minorities belonging to other Christian denominations or other religions are free to exercise their activities. There are no reports of violations of the freedom guaranteed by the Constitution.

AREA 283,561 kmq POPULATION 13,410,000 REFUGEES 264,907 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 97.6% Others 2.4%

12,233,000

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Baptized Catholics

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EGYPT

EGYPT

AREA 1,001,449 kmq POPULATION 75,510,000 REFUGEES 97,556 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 84.4% Affiliated Christians 15.1% Others 0.5%

Baptized Catholics 197,000

Egypt is the Middle Eastern country with the largest number of Christians. They mainly belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church while others belong to ultra-minority communities such as the Coptic Catholics, Armenians, Greek-Orthodox, Chaldeans, Maronites and Latins. According to the Coptic Orthodox Church’s registry of baptisms, there are 12 million followers of this faith, or 17 percent of a total population of 73 million inhabitants. The government, however, minimises these figures, assessing the percentage of Copts at just 2-3 percent. 10 percent is generally considered as correct. In principle, Egyptian Christians enjoy the same rights as their Muslim compatriots. Implicit discrimination is however established on the basis of the 1971 Constitution, amended in 1980 and currently in force. The Constitution in fact states that “Islam is the Religion of the State. Arabic is its official language, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Shari‘a)” (Article 2). The same text however guarantees the equality of all citizens in the eyes of the law: “All citizens are equal before the law. They have equal public rights and duties without discrimination due to sex, ethnic origin, language, religion or creed” (Article 40). Further, “The State shall guarantee the freedom of belief and the freedom of practising religious rights” (Article 46). In reality, things are rather different, and this is already visible at the institutional level. For example, during the last legislative elections held in 2005, only one Copt was elected out of 444 members of Parliament. The President of the Republic, Hosni Mubarak, to whom the law gives the right to appoint ten members of parliament, chose five Copts, among them one Catholic (for the first time!); however the degree to which they are really representative is obviously scarcely very credible. Christians are normally permitted to stand for legislative elections, although there is no quota reserved for them in parliament. However they often abstain from voting (levels of participation are said to be around 12 percent among the Coptic population), since everything possible appears to be done to dissuade them from participating in the country’s political life. “We feel like foreigners in our own country”, they often say. It should be added that it is compulsory for a person’s religion

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to be stated on their ID from the age of 16, which results in discrimination in many different fields. Hence Christians are excluded from various appointments or professions, for example as ministers with full powers, sensitive appointments within the army, rectors of faculties, lawyers or doctors in certain specialisations. They actually represent only 1.5 percent of civil servants. Even in the villages of the south, where 90 percent of Christians live, the mayor cannot be a Copt. There is also discrimination in the educational sector. In the best government schools, for example, a Christian cannot be first in his course or in his class. Furthermore, no Copt is permitted to teach Arabic, even if it is his mother tongue, except in the lower grades where reading is taught without using the Koran. In 2007, in a report entitled Equality at work: Tackling the challenge, the UN’s International Labour Office deplored these discriminations: “One of the most resilient forms of discrimination is that targeting Copts in Egypt, who are denied equal access to education and equal opportunities in recruitment and promotion.” Mention must also be made of an account by Reporters sans frontières (RSF), dated 14th August 2007, in which the authorities of the governorship of Qena have been accused of persecuting Hala Helmy Botros, a Copt woman who writes under the pseudonym Hala El-Masry, and has reported the persecution against her community on a number of Internet websites. According to RSF, she was forbidden from leaving the region (L’Eglise dans le Monde, No. 136, 4° tr. 2007). Also, Abdel Karim Nabil Soliman, a Muslim studying at the El Azhar University in Cairo, was expelled from this university and put in prison for having written on the Internet that the university “defends radical ideas and tries to repress freedom of thought” (AsiaNews, 15th March 2007). It should be noted that Christians are not allowed to attend this university, in spite of the fact that El Azhar is a partner of the Holy See within the context of a committee for interreligious dialogue. As far as legal rights are concerned, Christians do not have their own courts of law. The leaders of all the Christian communities have drafted common rules on this issue that are used as guidelines by the civil courts, where judges may be Muslims. These rules cannot contravene the provisions of the Shari‘a, however. For example, Christian women, just like Muslim women, cannot inherit on an equal basis with their brothers because the Koran does not accord them equality in this area (4, 11). Furthermore, the Copts are subjected to humiliating situations in the religious sphere. Hence, although children attending state schools are not obliged to learn the Koran, they nonetheless have to read long passages from it during Arab language courses, since the Holy Book of Islam is considered as the basis of this language and in these schools there are no classes teaching the Bible or providing Christian religious instruction. The school libraries do not contain any Christian books at all. Finally, the history books do not mention the first six centuries of the modern era, moving directly from

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the era of the Pharaohs to the Islamic conquest, which is presented as“liberation” from the Roman occupation. It should moreover be noted that there are also many books in circulation that are insulting to Christians, even at the Cairo Book Fair. Christians are also obliged to face obstacles in practising their religion. Permits for building churches are extremely difficult to obtain, a problem that does not affect mosques. It is not uncommon, when Muslims learn that a request to build a church has been made, for them to quickly build a mosque close to the site involved, which effectively makes it impossible for a church to be built. It can happen that Muslims also resort to violence to prevent Christians from having appropriate places of worship. For example, in mid-May 2007, in the village of Bamha, 25 km south of Cairo, a group of Muslims, informed by their imam that the “infidels” were enlarging their church, a project for which they had obtained an official permit; they looted and set fire to homes and shops owned by Copts (Figaro Magazine, 2nd June 2007; France Catholique, 25th January 2008). From time to time Christians are also the targets of physical violence. The following is a list of incidents reported in 2006 and 2007: On 18th January 2006, in the village of El Odayssat, near Luxor, Muslims set fire to a house that Coptic Orthodox followers had been using since 1970 as a church, though without an official permit. One person, Kamaal Shaker, was killed and fourteen others injured. It should be noted that the 8,000 Copts in this village do not have any church of their own (Se Comprendre, No. 06/09, October 2006). During the night of 8th June 2007, in Zawyet Abdel-Qader, a city to the west of Alexandria, a number of Muslims attacked two Coptic Orthodox churches, looted shops owned by Christians and injured seven Christians. On 12th June there was another attack, this time against the Church of Our Lady, in Dekheila, also to the west of Alexandria. Very often, the slightest incident involving Christians is exploited by Muslims for denominational reasons. Thus, in June 2007, in the village of Saft Meydoum, in the governorship of Beni Souwef, the parents of a young Muslim girl, who had been knocked down by a Copt on a bicycle, attacked the home of the Christian family, throwing stones at it (France Catholique, 25th January 2008). The most serious attacks on Christians took place in Alexandria on 14th April 2006. Two Muslims, armed with knives, attacked three churches just as the faithful had gathered to celebrate Maundy Thursday (according to the Coptic Orthodox calendar). They attacked the Church of Saint George, the Church of All Saints and the Church of the Blessed Virgin. Another attacker, 25-year-old Mahmoud Salaheddine Abdel-Razq, was arrested as he prepared to attack the faithful in a fourth church in another district of the city. These attacks caused the death of one Christian, Noshi Atta Girgis, and many others were wounded (ZENIT, 14th April 2006; La Croix, 21st April 2006; Le

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Figaro, 17th April and 2nd May 2006; Le Monde, 19th April 2006; Le Figaro Magazine, 20th May 2006; Oasis, No. 4, September 2006). “While the discrimination that makes the Christians in Egypt into second class citizens is continuous, the violent persecution tends to surface sporadically and in an erratic manner. It has however increased significantly over the last five years, in parallel with the islamisation of the police”, observes Marie-Gabrielle Leblanc. This same author also reports an intensification in the wave of kidnappings of very young Christian girls (14 years old), in order to force them to convert to Islam, marry them to a Muslim against their will and send them to the other end of the country, so their families will never find them again. Some have managed to flee and to tell what had happened to them. The police often tell the desperate parents that they know perfectly well where their daughters are but that they will never find them again, because they have voluntarily converted to Islam (Se Comprendre, No. 06/09, October 2006). The day after the attacks in Alexandria, during the funeral of the victim, a number of young Christians took to the streets and looted some shops to vent their rage. The Muslims reacted, and further clashes resulted, causing the death of one Muslim. These events reveal a change of mood within the Coptic community. What exasperates the Copts most is not the attacks against them, but the lack of any reaction by the authorities, and their habit of belittling the threats against them. In fact, as often happens, the Ministry for Internal Affairs has stated that the man who attacked the churches was “mentally unstable”. According to the Moroccan weekly Tel Quel (22nd April 2006), one of the people at the funeral of Noshi Girgis’ said: “We have always been peaceful, but if the state does not defend us, we will do it ourselves!” And Le Figaro of 17th April 2006 published the comments of a young Copt about the events in Alexandria: “We have remained silent for too long and are no longer prepared to ignore matters”. Generally speaking, the Christians want the government to acknowledge the existence of a “Coptic issue” and open a public debate on this subject. Hence there is one taboo that has been eliminated. Until now in fact, the Copts have suffered their fate with a kind of resignation. Father Jean-Jacques Pérennès, secretary general of the Dominican Institute of Oriental Studies in Cairo, explains this recent development as follows: “In reality, the recurrence of these incidents, together with real discrimination against the Copt minority in the political life of the country, helps to create a climate of unease, indeed of psychosis. Hence the mass protests in Alexandria after the recent incidents.” The same author also reports that a number of intellectual Muslims have dared to address the problem in the press, including even some of the Arab-language media. He quoted Mohamed Salmawy, editor in chief of Al-Ahram Hebdo (a French language magazine), who had had the courage to confront the government and religious lead-

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ers, including the rector of El Azhar University, over their responsibilities (Egypt at the Crossroads, Oasis, No. 4, September 2006). And Masri Feki, a French Muslim of Egyptian origin writes: “The Copts are attacked because they are not Muslims” (Se Comprendre, No. 06/09, October 2006). Two recent decisions, however, have contributed in mitigating the Copts’ bitterness. In December 2005, a Presidential Decree transferred to the local governors the authority to approve requests for church building or repair permits, thereby responding to one of the Copts’ longstanding demands. Currently, local governors are allowed thirty days for answering such requests and must justify any eventual refusal. On 1st January 2006, President Mubarak appointed a Copt as the governor of the province of Qena. He is General Magdi Ayoub Iskandar. No similar decision had been taken in the past thirty years. Another painful issue that deserves mention is that of conversion. Every year several thousand Copts seemingly become Muslims in order to escape their inferior status, or else to marry a Muslim woman, since the Koran forbids Muslim women from marrying Jews or Christians (2, 221). A few Christians, it seems, even succumb to the inducement of a financial reward in return for their “conversion”. In such cases can one really speak of genuine freedom of conscience? Furthermore, conversion from Islam to Christianity is impossible, in contradiction to the guarantees provided by the Constitution. Conversions and baptisms do take place but have to be kept secret, and this change in religion cannot be registered on a person’s identity documents. In January 2007, a Korean court granted political asylum to an Egyptian Muslim who had converted to Christianity in 2005 and had been obliged to flee his country to avoid the death threats he received from an Islamic group. Another man, Ahmed Hussein El Akkad, the former imam of a mosque in Cairo and an Islamic militant as well, converted to Christianity and was imprisoned in 2005 for no specific reason. In spite of the decision of a Cairo court, ordering his release, he was moved to a high security prison in the desert of the Wadi Natroun. He was finally released on 27th May 2007. Mohamed Hegazy’s case is a similar one. Converted at the age of 16, he waited until 2007 when he was 25 years old to ask for this change of religion to be registered officially, thereby taking an unprecedented initiative that was widely reported by the press at the time. The rector of El Azhar University, however, issued a fatwa (a religious decree) accusing him of apostasy and sentencing to death both the man and his wife, Zeinab, who had also become a Christian, taking the name Katrina. Constantly threatened, the young couple have lived in hiding ever since. The father of the bride told the Egyptian press: “I want the judges to make her divorce and I want her sent back to me, even dead”. In August 2007, two members of the Middle East Christian Organisation (MECA), Adel Fawzi and Peter Ezzat, were imprisoned on a charge of

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“attacking Islam” and “denominational sedition”. They are suspected of having actively contributed to Hegazy’s conversion. The Kadima Coptic Centre for Human Rights, which had supported Hegazay’s action had submitted a formal complaint on his behalf in the civil courts, after the officials at the civil registry had refused to write the word “Christian” on his new ID card. The centre later withdrew this complaint, however, in response to pressure from the Coptic Orthodox Church. The leaders of this church in fact feared that it might be accused of proselytism, but they also wanted to give priority to cases involving cradle Christians who were returning to Christianity after becoming Muslims and then regretting it, and also to cases involving the children of Muslim fathers, who are automatically registered as Muslims even when they are in fact Christians. Faced with the refusal by the administration to record their change of religion on their ID cards, a number of them submitted an appeal to the Cairo administrative court. Whereas in 2006 the presiding judge of this court had accepted the pleas presented by 30 people, the magistrate who succeeded him ruled in the opposite direction on the 45 cases presented to him. In a judgement given on 24th April 2007, he ruled them inadmissible, raising the spectre of apostasy, punishable by death. This was such a blow that the Copts declared 24th April “a day of national mourning”. Their lawyers appealed to the administrative Supreme Court, against which there is no further appeal, which admitted the legitimacy of their requests. On 9th February 2008, this court authorised twelve Copts who had converted to Islam and then returned to Christianity, to be acknowledged as ‘people who had rejoined their religion of origin’: “this is a historical sentence. A victory for freedom of religion in Egypt, in compliance with Article 46 of the Constitution. A principle has now been established; this should be enshrined in law”, said Dr. Ramsès El Najjar, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs. This judgement should now set a precedent for the 457 appeals still pending in various administrative courts in the country. However, according to the court, their ID cards should nevertheless still indicate that these people “have temporarily adopted Islam”, which, according to the spokesman for the Coptic Orthodox Patriarch, risks encouraging some Muslims to treat them as apostates, with all the consequences such an accusation would entail. Mounir Abdel Nour, secretary general of the Néo-Wafd, a secular and liberal political party, shares these fears: “It is a step forward, but it does not satisfy our aspirations. In Egypt, all the NGOs working for human rights, including the National Council for Human Rights, which is a government agency, have requested that a person’s religion should no longer be stated in their official papers” (La Croix, 11th February 2008). In this context, we should however also record the unprecedented position assumed by one Muslim dignitary. In fact it was the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Ali Gomaa, in an interview given to the Washington Post in July 2007 and also reported by the Egyptian

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press, who stated that an apostate, although guilty of a serious mistake, must answer to God and not to human beings. Finally, it should be noted that a judgement by the Egyptian Supreme Court in December 2006, denied Egyptian Baha’is the right to identify themselves as such on official documents, thereby depriving them of any civil status and consequently also of the right to enrol their children in schools, open a bank account, access the national health service, etc. (La Croix, 21st December 2006).

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EL SALVADOR

AREA 21,041 kmq POPULATION 7,002,000 REFUGEES 39 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 97.6% Others 2.4%

Baptized Catholics 5,593,000

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Article 25 of the Constitution of the Republic of El Salvador, passed in 1983 and then amended in 1991 and in 1996, guarantees total freedom for all religions. Article 26 acknowledges the juridical status of the Catholic Church and establishes that, in compliance with the law, other churches may also obtain this status. Ad hoc legislation provides legal status for all religious denominations requesting such status. Non-profit organisations and NGOs are treated in the same manner. In April 2007, Parliament amended the Penal Code, introducing the crime of the “offence to the religion of others and the destruction or damaging of objects of worship”. This law was introduced after a resounding event in 2006, when an individual calling himself the Anti-Christ, accompanied by a number of followers, insulted the Catholic Church and destroyed holy images outside the cathedral in the capital city.

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EQUATORIAL GUINEA

EQUATORIAL GUINEA

AREA 28,051 kmq POPULATION 535,000 REFUGEES 7,860 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 88.4% Muslims 4.1% Ethnoreligionists 2.1% Others 5.4%

Baptized Catholics 499,000

The Constitution of 1991 guarantees religious freedom (Art.13, f) and the government generally respects this provision. A decree of 1992 establishes that all religious groups must register by presenting a request to the Minster for Justice and Worship. This at times takes years, although the delays seem to be caused above all by bureaucratic problems. Non-registered groups are subject to fines, but these however are rarely imposed. The Catholic Church and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Equatorial Guinea are exempt from this obligation and for historical and social reasons also enjoy other privileges. However, President Theodore Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, in power since 1979, does not permit any opposition, and religious leaders are warned that they should not interfere in government business and told specifically that faith is only a spiritual matter. Public officials even check on sermons at religious functions so as to verify that they do not criticise the government, and occasionally they also attend religious services to supervise events. The objective, however, is not to exert control over religious activities, but to monitor any possible political activities. All activities, even religious or humanitarian, that take place outside places of worship, must be specifically authorised, but this does not usually obstruct activities and group meetings or proselytising activities. There are no reports of persecution. The Archbishop of Canterbury has protested against the detention of the Protestant Minister Bienvenido Samba Momesori, who has been in prison since 26th October 2003. Analysts however believe that this is due to political reasons that are not remotely linked to religion. Amnesty International reports that no reason has been given for his detention; it is said that he took part in peaceful protest initiatives against the government.

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ERITREA

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AREA 117,600 kmq POPULATION 4,595,000 REFUGEES 5,042 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 32,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 50.5% Muslims 44.7% Others 4.8%

Baptized Catholics 141,000

ERITREA

For some years now the government has systematically persecuted every single expression of faith, to the extent that since 2004 the American State Department has added Eritrea to the list of “countries of particular concern” with regard to religious freedom, a wording reserved only for those states that oppose this right with the greatest violence. In a 2002 decree, the government has officially recognised only Islam, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, and the Evangelical Church affiliated to the World Lutheran Federation. About 90 percent of the population belong to these denominations, while all other groups must register. The government requires these four groups to declare all their financial resources and possessions. All activities are forbidden to unregistered groups. Requests for registration must include a record of all properties, a list of members and personal information about the leaders. All facilities and structures not linked to the four main religious denominations have been suppressed. Furthermore, according to Human Rights Watch and other sources, from the time this decree came into force until the end of 2007, no requests for registration were approved. Moreover, thanks to such registration requests, the government knows everything about each group, even the properties owned and the names of the leaders and the faithful. Since 2002 a systematic persecution has begun against all nonauthorised religious activities, even on private property, and especially against Christian minorities and fundamentalist Muslim groups. There are however some regions in which the authorities are more tolerant and allow unauthorised groups to meet in private homes, while in other parts of the country this is strictly forbidden. Various sources indicate that there are no fewer than 2,000 people in prison for religious reasons (according to Compass Direct News, 95 percent of them are Christians, mostly from nonrecognised Evangelical groups). Since May 2002 these Evangelicals have been arrested because of their beliefs, and held for months and years with no formal charges or trials (in spite of the fact that the law forbids imprisonment for more than 30 days without charge), often in army prisons with extremely harsh living conditions and no medical assistance. According to

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Amnesty International and other sources, forced recantation is frequent, as is physical and psychological torture. A large number of prisoners are kept in underground cells or in steel containers that overheat under the sun and are freezing in winter. It is “normal” for the police to break into homes and arrest entire families because they have met to pray or privately celebrate a religious marriage. The repression has increased since the State’s President, Isaias Afewerki, declared on, 5th March 2004, that the government would no longer tolerate religious movements that tend towards “distancing [the citizens] from the unity of the Eritrean people and distorting the real meaning of religion”. The state of emergency, now in force for years, makes possible particularly restrictive provisions. Furthermore, since 2005 there has been an increase in police intervention as well as arrests and government interference against the four officially recognised religions. Religious groups are not permitted to publish magazines, not even of a purely religious content, and must have authorisation to print and distribute any documents. Catholics On 16th August 2007 the authorities ordered the Catholic Church to make over to the Ministry for Social Welfare and Labour, all her social services, such as schools, clinics, orphanages and educational centres for women. The excuse was based on a law dated 1995 stating that private social activities must have specific government authorisation, a provision that the government uses to justify a systematic interference in everything the Church does. This request was firmly opposed by the clergy and the hierarchy. The following day, 17th August, four bishops sent a letter of protest. The Church will not accept interference by the government on matters of faith and internal organisation. Compass Direct News, for example, notes that since the end of 2003 the bishops have refused to provide the Department for Religious Affairs with complete reports on their ecclesial and pastoral activities, insisting that these are internal matters on which they report only to the Holy See. They also opposed a request in 2005 for priests and seminarians under the age of forty to perform military service and pointed out that bearing arms “is not compatible with a priest’s activity”. In this country military service is compulsory and lasts 18 months, but the authorities can then keep anyone they wish in service for an unlimited period. The three other recognised religions – Orthodox, Lutheran Evangelical and Muslims – have, for their part, agreed to the request that their clergy should perform military service. On 16th November 2007, 11 missionaries of various nationalities were deported, both priests and nuns, whose residency permits had not been renewed. The Habeshia Agency noted that missionaries “have always contributed to progress and develop-

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Members of the Orthodox Church Government interference in the Orthodox Church is extremely serious. About 40 percent of Eritreans consider themselves Coptic Orthodox by birth. In August 2005, openly violating the Church’s internal laws, the government deposed the Orthodox Patriarch Abune Antonios, after he had protested against the arrest of three priests, detained without charge. The government then appointed a lawyer, Yeftehe Dimetros, as acting administrator – although the law of the Eritrean Orthodox Church requires this post to be held by a bishop, appointed by the Patriarch. On 5th December 2006 the government ordered all Orthodox priests to pay all income from donations and collections into a State bank account, to be used to pay their salaries. The government also indicated the maximum number of priests permitted for each parish, ordering that all priests in excess of this number should report to the barracks in Wi’a and enlist in the army. These requests provoked widespread protests and on 17th January 2007, fifteen priests who had protested were warned by Dimetros’ office to “keep their mouths shut”. Nonetheless, Patriarch Antonios was officially removed from office only in January 2006, by a secret synod, on a charge of heresy. (The Canon Law of the Coptic Orthodox Church forbids the election of a new patriarch for as long as the previous one is still alive and has not been deposed by the Church’s Council for heresy, immoral behaviour or serious physical or mental illness.) That same month the deposed Patriarch sent the synod an open letter in which he rejected all the accusations and excommunicated a number of members (of the synod) as well as public and government officials. Under house arrest throughout 2006 and 2007, Antonios was – it seems – even forbidden from receiving communion. On 20th January 2007 his patriarchal clothes and insignia were removed by force, as reported by a group of monks on the asmarino.com website. He was later taken to an unknown location and nothing further is known about him for certain. Official sources deny that this elderly priest, who is over eighty years old, has been arrested and state that he has voluntarily retired to a convent. In April 2007 the synod gathered to appoint a new patriarch. According to an official statement, on 19th April they “unanimously appointed” Bishop Dioskoros Mendefera, described by the group Christian Solidarity Worldwide on their www.csw.org.uk website as a “renegade bishop” appointed “16 months after the illegal deposition of the legitimate patriarch”, “an interference of unprecedented seriousness and a totally unacceptable one by the Eritrean government in the affairs of the Church”. On 23rd April

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ment in our country, and hence by expelling them, the regime has committed an extremely uncivilised act, damaging the population. […] By doing this the regime wishes to intimidate the Catholic hierarchy”.

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the Opposition website, www.asmarino.com, published a statement, signed by the “priests, monks, deacons and faithful of the Eritrean Orthodox Church” according to which “when the bishops asked to vote, they were told that there was no room for further discussions”. “The Eritrean people must be informed that the rights and the faith of two million followers of the Orthodox faith in this country, have been once again openly violated. The government has completed its plundering of the Church, which started some time ago”. Antonios is still acknowledged as the legitimate leader of the Eritrean Church by Patriarch Shenoudah III, the leader of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church. In 2004 the government banned the Medhane Alem congregation, a renewal movement within the Coptic Church, and has been persecuing it ever since. On 5th January 2007 eight of its members were arrested in Keren. Human Rights Without Frontiers reports that they were interrogated at length and asked to provide the names of others members of the group. The government accuses this movement of “heresy” and of wanting to “destroy” the Eritrean Orthodox Church. Three priests, arrested in April 2006, have been in prison for about two years. On the orders of the government, in March 2006 the Coptic Orthodox Church excommunicated 65 of the group’s leaders for having refused to admit that the movement was heretical. In May 2006 three of its leaders were imprisoned. Other Christian denominations The most serious situation however is that faced by the non-recognised Christian groups. Open Doors and Compass Direct News have reported that at least four Christians have died over the last two years because of torture inflicted in prison in order to make them recant. On 5th September 2007, 33-year-old Nigsti Haile died at the Wi’a Military Training Centre. A member of the Rema Pentecostal Church, she had been arrested 18 months earlier together with nine other women in a church in Keren. On 17th October 2006, 23-year-old Immanuel Andegergesh and 30-year-old Kibrom Firemichel died because of torture and dehydration inflicted at the Adi-Quala army camp. They had been arrested two days earlier together with ten others for having attended a religious service in the Rema Pentecostal Church held in a home in Asmara. On 15th February 2007 the Evangelical Christian Magos Solom Semere died in the Adi-Nefase army headquarters near Assab. He had been in prison since 2001 for being a member of a non-recognised Protestant Church. According to Open Doors his death “was the consequence of physical torture and chronic pneumonia, for which he had been denied appropriate medical care”. The Kaile Hiwot (Word of Life) Evangelical Christians have reported to Compass Direct News that the authorities pursue the annihilation of religious groups with a sys-

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tematic three-stage strategy. They start with the systematic arrest of the faithful, especially the ministers and leaders, simply because they meet to pray. These people are held in custody for an indefinite period of time with no charges brought against them. In stage two, the police start to frequently enter churches and other buildings belonging to the group, already deprived of its leaders, taking away the keys and stopping all activities, without any distinction between religious events and social work. Finally, they confiscate all the “outlawed” church’s property. In order to despoil the church, as reported by Human Rights Without Frontiers, they also request large amounts of money for bail, so as to impoverish the faithful and their communities. In May 2006, bail was fixed at 150,000 Nakfa (about 10,000 dollars) for Solomon Mengesteab of the Full Gospel Church and for a Mr. Yosief of the Rema Church, who had been arrested along with another 76 Christians on Christmas Day 2005. However, the average yearly per capita income in Eritrea, a very poor country, is less than 300 dollars. Pastor Fanuel Mihreteab of the Full Gospel Church was arrested in January 2005 in Dekemhare. He was also released on bail, to pay for which he was obliged to sell a number of properties. The Kaile Hiwot group has suffered arrests and confiscations for years. In September 2006 in Adi-Tezlezan, a little to the north of Asmara, pastors Simon Tsegay and Gebremichel Yohannes, both from the Kaile Hiwot movement, were also arrested. They were released on bail in January 2007 and obliged to sell many of their possessions. On 27th May 2007, twenty Kaile Hiwot believers were arrested, together with their children, in Dekemhare, 24 miles south of Asmara. On the following 1st June, Pastor, Michael Abraha, was also arrested, apparently because he was seen officiating at a wedding in a video confiscated by the authorities. He was released after more than a month. In September 2007, Pastor Mussie Ezaz was arrested in Asmara and on October 1st Pastor Oqbamichael Tekle-Haimanot was also arrested, having already spent 10 months in solitary confinement in 2005 for having attended a Christian wedding. (It should be noted that these are only a few of the more significant among the many violent episodes and arrests affecting non-recognised Christian groups.) In October 2007, Helen Berhane, an Eritrean Christian singer, imprisoned and tortured for two years before managing to escape, was granted political asylum in Denmark. As reported by the BBC News, the singer, who was a member of the Rema Church, an unauthorised Evangelical group, had been arrested on 13th May 2004, after recording and selling a cassette of Christian songs. For two years she was imprisoned without trial in a metal container in the Mai Serwa prison camp near Asmara, and often beaten to make her recant. Thanks to a widespread international campaign, she was released at the end of October 2006. Immediately after this she managed to flee to Sudan, where she was given asylum. Some months later she was welcomed by Denmark.

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Due to the serious injuries inflicted on her legs and feet in prison, she is now obliged to use a wheelchair. On 23rd February 2006, Pastor Daniel Heilemichel of the Charismatic Word of Power Church was taken from his home and arrested. Pastor Iyob Berhe, arrested at the beginning of 2006, was admitted to hospital in Mendefera in October 2006 owing to the grave state of his health, resulting from the harsh treatment in prison. On 23rd January 2007 in Asmara the police arrested Pastor Habtom Tesfamichel, the leader of the local congregation of the Full Gospel Church. At the beginning of January 2007, in the harbour city of Assab, 25 Christians were arrested and taken to the army camp in Wi’a, where they were subjected to extreme pressure in an attempt to make them recant. The police often intervene during religious weddings. On 18th February 2007 in Asmara, seven members of the Orthodox Church and three followers of the Full Gospel Church were arrested simply for having visited the home of a newlywed couple to wish them well. On 29th April 2007 in Asmara, Pastor Zecharias Abraham and eighty faithful of the Mehrete Yesus Evangelical Presbyterian Church, present in the country since the 1940s, were arrested during Sunday service, in spite of the fact that it had been authorised by the Department for Religious Affairs. They were released after about a month. On 19th August 2007 in Kahawata, a suburb of Asmara, ten member of the Full Gospel Church were arrested simply because they had gathered in a private house to pray. On 12th August 2007 in Asmara, Evangelical Pastor Leul Gebreab was likewise arrested. Amnesty International reports that “they have all been arrested only for having peacefully practised their own religious beliefs” and for this reason considers them “prisoners of conscience”. On 4th January 2007, once again in the Sawa army base, soldiers themselves were searched and 250 Bibles used for personal devotion were confiscated. The books were all burnt and 35 conscript soldiers were put in prison. On 6th January 2008 in Massawa, police broke into a home and arrested 35 Evangelical Christians belonging to the Faith in Christ Church who had gathered to pray. They were released on 16th February after being held in solitary confinement for the whole time. Anglicans Since October 2005 the Department for Religious Affairs has refused to give the Anglican Church in Asmara permission to replace the Reverend Nelson Fernandez, Vicar of the only Anglican congregation in the country (the Church of St. George in Asmara), who was expelled by the government. To replace him, the government has appointed the Reverend Asfaha Mehari, president of the Evangelical Church of Eritrea.

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It is feared that the government wishes to place the church under control of the Coptic Orthodox Church and close the Anglican primary school. Muslims The government’s interference in the internal religious affairs of Muslims, who make up almost half the population, is no less serious. For more than ten years the government has arbitrarily appointed Sheikh Al-Amin Osman Al-Amin as the highest Islamic authority in the country. Protests from believers have not subsided, not least because of the systematic confiscation of religious properties. The government responds to criticisms and protests with dozens of arrests, often justified by supposed links to subversive Islamic groups.

ERITREA

Jehovah’s Witnesses Many are arrested and treated in a particularly harsh manner, above all because of their refusal to do military service, which is compulsory in this country for both men and women. A presidential decree is in force according to which, by refusing to serve in the army and vote in elections, these people “have renounced their nationality”. The consequences include imprisonment for long periods of time without trial (at the end of 2007 at least 25 Jehovah’s Witnesses were being held without trial, at least three of them for over 12 years – although the maximum sentence applicable for refusing military service is two years), a ban on holding public office, deprival of their passports and identity cards. Their commercial licences are taken away and even their marriages are not recognised by the state.

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ESTONIA

ESTONIA

AREA 45,100 kmq POPULATION 1,370,000 REFUGEES 18 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Approved on 28th June 1992 by popular vote, the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia guarantees that “Everyone shall have freedom of conscience, religion and thought” (Article 40), that “There shall be no state church”, and that “Everyone shall have the freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private to practice his or her religion”. Activities by religious groups are regulated by the “Churches and Congregations Act”. In addition to a group’s charter, the application for registration, which is possible for groups of at least 12 adults, must include a list of the members of the group’s management board to be submitted to the city court. In private schools religious courses may be taught. In public schools ecumenical courses may be attended. No significant episode of religious discrimination or intolerance has been reported.

Affiliated Christians 63.5% Non religious 36% Others 0.5%

Baptized Catholics 6,000

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ETHIOPIA

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AREA 1,104,300 kmq POPULATION 75,070,000 REFUGEES 85,183 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 200,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 57.7% Muslims 30.4% Ethnoreligionists 11.7% Others 0.2%

Baptized Catholics 586,000

ETHIOPIA

The Constitution of 1995 recognises the secularity of the state (Art. 11) and religious freedom (Art. 27). Religious organisations are obliged to register with the Ministry of Justice every three years, each submitting a copy of its statutes and the curriculum vitae of the organisation’s leader. Private schools run by religious groups are permitted but they are forbidden to provide religious instruction inside school hours. Until only a few years ago Muslims were a minority compared to the Orthodox Christians, but are now almost equal in number and in some areas a clear majority, especially in the East and the Southeast. In recent years conflict between these two communities has increased, and even more so between Muslims and Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians (groups that are rapidly growing) and serious incidents and clashes have become more frequent and violent, with many dead. For example, on 15th October 2006, in Beshesha hundreds of Muslims attacked an Orthodox Church where celebrations were being held for the Meskel festivity (“cross” in Amharic). The attackers set fire to the church and forced the hundreds of faithful present to recant and become Muslims, although the great majority of them later returned to Christianity. Earlier, in September, there had also been violent clashes in the city of Dembi. These violent clashes resulted in at least four Muslims and six Christians being killed, numerous homes on both sides burned to the ground as well as four churches, and over two thousand people fleeing the area. An amateur video cameraman filmed the scene, including victims being killed with machetes. In February 2007, the High Federal Court in Jima sentenced to death the six people guilty of this attack and another 100 people to terms ranging from one year to life imprisonment. Again in October 2006 there had been serious clashes between Muslims and Protestants in Begi and in Gidami, in the Oromiya region, with nine people killed and over one hundred wounded; 21 churches, 1 mosque and dozens of homes burned down; and more than 400 people fled the area. In October 2006 the Synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church stated “the bloodshed and the religious temples that have been destroyed are the result of a campaign of hatred undertaken by

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a few individuals since the month of September”. Their statement continues: “The Holy Synod appeals to the government to act swiftly to put an end to these destructive and illegal activities that are fomenting hatred and violence between Muslims and Christians” (Reuters). Since the end of 2006 the state has increased police presence in areas at greater risk and transferred local officials accused of not having intervened to prevent or stop these clashes. This has resulted in less violence. For the rest, there is a lower level of violence or none at all in other areas, especially those where Muslims are not a majority. Meanwhile, in December 2006, the highest national Orthodox, Islamic, Evangelical and Catholic authorities agreed on a joint commitment to work together for peace and reconciliation. However, tensions remain high. In the first months of 2007 Archbishop Abba Athanasium complained that in the mosques “the loudspeakers keep on repeating that ‘the soldiers of Allah are brave’ and incite Muslims to act”. There are also conflicts and clashes between the Sufi Islamic majority and the Salaphite-Wahabis. Many Orthodox communities complain that Christians of other denominations do not respect their holy days and customs. On 27th January 2007 the first stone was laid for the future Catholic University of Ethiopia in Addis Abeba, in the presence of President Girma Woldegiorghis, various ministers and the mayor. A note from the Ethiopian Catholic Secretariat observes that the agreement between the Church and the government regarding the creation of this university “is an acknowledgment by the government of the significant contribution the Church has made to the country’s educational system. The hundreds of Catholic schools all over this country are a precious resource for the Church and for the country itself. The new university will rely on this network of Catholic schools”. Political parties based on a particular religious faith are also forbidden and it is a crime to incite interreligious conflict via the media. The state assigns to religious groups the free use of public land to build schools, churches, hospitals and cemeteries, although authorisation must first be obtained from the local authorities and the state can close these institutions at any time. There are many complaints are made about these issues. The Protestants say they are discriminated against in the distribution of land for churches and cemeteries and observe that in Addis Ababa at least 20 Orthodox Churches were built between September 2003 and July 2005, while none were built for other groups. The Muslims protest that in the cities of Axum and Lalibela the government has for years denied them land for building a mosque. In 2006 in Addis Ababa there were clashes between Muslims and the police, who had been sent to demolish a mosque built with no authorisation. To resolve this problem the municipal administration assigned the local Islamic Council another piece of land for a new mosque.

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Christians It is impossible to report all the violent episodes; hence we will list only a few of the more significant ones. In Addis Ababa, on 20th January 2006, a procession in honour of the Orthodox festivity of Tikmark (“baptism” in Amharic) turned into an anti-government protest. The police opened fire on the procession, which numbered tens of thousands of people; at least two people were killed and 36 wounded, 22 of them civilians and most with gunshot wounds. 42 people were arrested. On 24th May 2006, in Eastern Jijiga, an area with a Muslim majority and bordering on Somalia, more than 100 Islamic students marched for hours protesting against Christians, shouting “Allah is great” and throwing stones at the homes of Christians and at passers-by. Reporting on this rather unusual news item, the Italian daily newspaper Il Giornale said that the protest had allegedly been sparked by a Christian restaurant owner found using pages of the Koran to wrap up food and clean his hands. Again in Jijiga, on 15th April 2006, unknown persons threw a bomb at worshippers of the Emanuel United Church of Ethiopia, wounding a number of them. On 5th January 2007 an Evangelical Christian, Ajja Delge was killed by persons unknown in the city of Kofele, an area where there is a Muslim majority. On 26th March 2007 another Evangelical Christian, Teddese Tefeara Akuko was beaten to death by Wahabi Muslims for preaching the Gospel in the streets of Jima, in the south of the country. An enraged crowd dragged him into a mosque and beat him “savagely”. Sources told the ICN News Agency that this “a warning to Christians in this region” who are very active in evangelising activities. According to experts, this inflamed animosity was partly linked to the situation in Somalia, after the Ethiopian Army had invaded the country to support the internationally recognised government and the local Islamic militia had declared a “holy war” on Ethiopia, calling on Muslims all over the world to rise up. On 2nd March 2008 eight Muslims, armed with knives and machetes, entered the Kale Hiwot and Birmane Wongel Baptist churches in the village of Nensebo Chebi, and started to attack the faithful attending Sunday worship. Twenty-three people were wounded and one man, Tulu Mosisa from the Kale Hiwot Church, was killed by a machete blow that almost beheaded him (see Compass Direct News). The persecution.net website reports systematic attacks by the Islamic majority in the Jima regime against Christians, indicating this as a possible reaction to the successful evangelisation activity by Christians which has resulted in hundreds of Muslims converting. In Buko, near the city of Jijiga, on the night of 14th October 2007 Muslims set fire to the home of a Christian, and also to other homes on the nights that followed, leaving 13 families homeless. The threats and violence continued for days, until 25 Christians fled the city. Initially the authorities did not intervene. Then, pressed by

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their superiors, they put the 13 people responsible in prison for just one night and then released them without reporting them to the courts. Shortly after, the extremists returned to threaten the Christians and burn their homes and crops. There have been reports of systematic violence and abuse of power in the Bambesi and Tongo regions, where there is an Islamic majority, near the border with Sudan. On 5th July 2006 the Christian Shek Hamed Adem, a convert from Islam, was beaten and hung from a cross by unknown persons and the crops of dozens of Christians were destroyed. Often, converted Muslims are sent away by their relatives and sleep rough, seeking shelter wherever they can, even in churches (see persecution.net). In Begge, on 8th January 2007, Muslims burned down the homes of three Christians, Tareku Meres, Jemal Tasesa and Tamene Gemechu. The Christians complain that frequently the police do not intervene, nor do they carry out serious investigations to identify and punish those responsible. On 2nd April 2007 in Bambasse, Islamic extremists attacked and looted the home of Evangelical Christian Tolosa Megera also killing six head of cattle. On 7th April they destroyed the home of the leader of the Full Gospel Church, Lemmu Abdissa, and destroyed his crops. At the end of April 2007 in Jijiga, where over 90 percent of the residents are Muslims, a bomb exploded near a tent where Christians had gathered, killing two people and injuring many others. On 5th August, again in Jijiga, a bomb exploded next to the Full Gospel Church during a religious service attended by hundreds of believers. Luckily no one was seriously hurt. A few days later, on 15th August, an explosion destroyed the Mserete Keristos Church, in the Yayu district, as well as three nearby homes owned by Christians. In Seka Yoyo, on 16th October 2007, a group of Muslims attacked dozens of Christian homes destroying more than ten of them.

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FIJI ISLANDS

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AREA 18,274 kmq POPULATION 999,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 56.8% Hindus 33.3% Muslims 6.9% Others 3%

Baptized Catholics 95,000

FIJI ISLANDS

Article 35 of the Constitution of 1997 recognises freedom of religion. Religious groups are not required to register. Many missionary groups are present in the country, involved in social, welfare and education activities. There are many Christian schools but they are not publicly funded. In January 2006 the Assembly of Christian Churches in Fiji (ACCF) called on the government to adopt new rules to curb the arrival of new Christian groups, complaining that in a country of just under a million people there were more than 1,200 new groups outside of the ACCF. Mgr Petero Mataca, archbishop of Suva and highest Catholic dignitary in the country, is among the 40 members of the National Council for Building a Better Fiji (NCBBF), a body that was set up to draft a new Constitution after years of civil strive (four coups in 20 years; the latest, bloodless, by the military in 2006) ahead of elections scheduled for 2009. His task is to ensure that the new Charter will respect the dignity and inalienable rights of the person. In 2006 and 2007 several churches and temples of all religions were burglarised and suffered to sacrilegious damages. At least 40 such incidents were reported from March 2006 till March 2007, mostly against Hindu temples but also against churches (12) and mosques (9). Whilst sacrilegists struck temples of every religion with the police convinced that they are just common thieves, Hindu leaders have occasionally used these incidents to protest against what they call Christians’ “religious intolerance”, pointing out that Hindu temples are the ones most often hit.

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FINLAND

FINLAND

AREA 338,145 kmq POPULATION 5,277,000 REFUGEES 6,204 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

The Constitution safeguards the equality of all citizens before the Law, and excludes all forms of discrimination based on gender, age, origin, language, religion, persuasions, opinions, state of health, handicap or any other reason linked to the person. In particular, it guarantees freedom of religion and conscience for everyone, including the right to profess and practise a religion, to express one’s personal convictions and to belong or not belong to a religious community. Hence, no one can be obliged to participate, against his own conscience, in the practice of a religion. The Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Orthodox Church are recognised as state churches and those registered as their members must pay an annual tax to these institutions. The 55 nontraditional religious groups that are officially recognised are allowed the right to freely profess and spread their faith. The recognition procedure, under the ministry of education, is open to religious communities with at least twenty members which seek to publicly practise their religion and whose activities are in conformity with the statutes of the body concerned. There are no reports of significant institutional changes or notable events concerning the subject of religious freedom during the years 2006 and 2007.

Affiliated Christians 92.8% Non religious 6.8% Others 0.4%

Baptized Catholics 9,000

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FRANCE

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AREA 551,500 kmq POPULATION 61,330,000 REFUGEES 151,789 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 70.7% Non religious 19.6% Muslims 7.1% Others 2.6%

Baptized Catholics 46,427,000

FRANCE

The “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” of 26th August 1789 (reaffirmed in the Preamble to the present Constitution of the 5th Republic, 4th October 1958) states in Article 10 that “No one should be disturbed on account of his opinions, even religious, provided their manifestation does not upset the public order established by law”. Nonetheless, over time, numerous provisions, thought to conform with the constitutional principle guaranteeing the secular nature of institutions, have created difficulties in relations with the religious communities in the country. Currently there is an ongoing debate about the need to adapt the law of 9th December 1905 (amended on 2nd January 1907) on the separation of Church and State, which abrogated the 1801 Concordat between France and the Holy See and at the same time cut off State funding to religious bodies. According to the Vatican’s Cardinal Angelo Sodano, this provision was “a painful and traumatic event for the Church in France”. Later, as we are reminded by historian Emile Poulat, there was an attempt to improve these relations, although the main obstacle was the provision granting private associations the task of organising public worship. Since Catholics did not cooperate in the formation of these associations, lengthy negotiations were needed to reach a solution that neither changed the law nor its condemnation by the Church. This came in 1924, with a compromise involving the creation of diocesan associations of worship, which were established in all dioceses between 1924 and 1927 and are still in force today. Not all the issues arising from the law of 1905 have been resolved, however, starting with the confiscation of Church properties, which included a number of bishop’s houses, seminaries and priest’s houses. Later on, the Law – in particular as stated by the Constitutional Council – rejected the negative idea of a form of secularism that might turn this into state laicism. The most accepted boundaries with the framework of the neutrality of the institutions therefore appear to have become those of non-denominationalism and non discrimination. With the Law of 12th June 2001 addressing the prevention and suppression of sectarian movements which “threaten human rights and fundamental freedoms”, the attention of the legisla-

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tors moved from the “right of religious bodies” to their internal organisation. However, an investigation by the United Nations in 2006 noted that initially “government policies may have contributed to an overall climate of suspicion and intolerance towards those communities included on a list drawn up following the parliamentary report No 2468 of 1995, and have adversely affected the right to freedom of religion or belief of some of the members of these communities or groups”. However, it acknowledged that later “the French authorities have adopted a more balanced approach to this phenomenon, correcting their policy, partly through the transformation of the interministerial mission against the sects (Mission interministérielle de lutte contre les sectes, MILS) into the inter-ministerial mission for monitoring and combating sectarian deviations (Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires, MIVILUDES)”. In 2006 however, this organisation too became the object of criticism for having sent a questionnaire to the French embassies, aiming to verify the influence of religious movements and their practices on the moral and physical health of minors. Among the 22 questions the mission sought answers to, many people perceived a hostile and threatening attitude not only as far as religious liberty was concerned, but also towards freedom of education, health care and civil rights in general. Furthermore, up to the last months of 2007, there was no lack of condemnation of the arbitrary criticisms expressed against lay Catholic organisations such as the association Tradition, Family and Property (TFP), which in fact sued the President of the MIVILUDES, Jean-Michel Roulet, accusing him of slander for having stated that the funds collected by the TFP could have been used for “everything and the opposite of everything”. In the Department’s most recent report, the TFP is described as “at risk of being a cult, given its vague objectives and opaque organisation”. Most of the accusations made against the authorities seem to have been made by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Although acknowledged as an a religious association since the year 2000, the many civil and penal court cases initiated by them seem to indicate that this group suffers from a certain degree of disapproval being expressed against it by communist MPs and the president of the national family defence union, UNADFI, (Union Nationale des Associations de Défense des Familles et de l’Individu). Important and authoritative signs of an easing in the excesses of secularism were given during the official visit to the Holy See by the President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy on 20th December 2007. In his speech at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, where he was awarded the title, traditionally reserved to the French Head of State, of Honorary Protocanonical of the Papal Basilica of Saint John, the President admitted that the “secular republic had underestimated the importance of spiritual aspirations”. Sarkozy recalled how France had been suspicious towards religion,

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even after re-establishing diplomatic relations with the Holy See. The French President went on to say that even to this day “the Republic still holds the congregations under tutelage, refuses to acknowledge the religious dimension of the Churches’ charitable work or means of communication, does not recognise the diplomas awarded by Catholic institutes of higher learning, as laid down by the Bologna Convention, and gives no recognition to her degrees in theology”. However, “secularism does not have the power to separate France from her Christian roots”, which, as the French Head of State then emphasised, were not just an empty legacy from the past, but a driving force for the future of the country. “The time has come – emphasised Sarkozy – for all religions, in particular the Catholic religion, which is our majority religion, as well as all the Nation’s vital forces, to look together with the same spirit to what is at stake in the future and not only to the wounds of the past”. The President then reaffirmed that secularism means “freedom to believe or not to believe, freedom to practice a religion and freedom to change it, freedom not to be offended in one’s own conscience by ostentatious practices, freedom for parents to give their children an education that conforms to their convictions, freedom not to be discriminated against by the administration because of one’s beliefs”. The French Masonic lodges publicly expressed strong reservations with regard to his words. However, Sarkozy also recalled “the virulent criticism” he had been subjected to when, as Minister of the Interior in 2003 he had created the French Council for the Muslim Religion. Following that decision however, various previously unregistered Islamic places of worship came to light. Regional and national representation within the Council is linked to the number of places of worship, which in the most recent census came to 2,147 over the entire national territory. This recognition also resulted in a greater number of building permits being granted, these later multiplied due to a subsequent national decree issued in April 2006 concerning places of worship, which facilitated the application of emphyteusis (a process through which the administration grants land for long periods of time in exchange for a small rent, with the obligation of this land being managed). At times, as has happened in Montreuil, Marseille and Créteil, building projects are opposed by certain political forces, on the basis of the 1905 law, since they regard them as illegal favours bestowed by local administrations. Isolated episodes of tension involving Muslim believers were reported on various occasions, in particular during the revolts in the suburbs, which started at the end of 2005 and were blamed by some on the 2004 law banning female students at state schools from wearing the Islamic veil. There have been numerous reports in the press of discrimination and violence suffered by those abandoning Islam. One striking instance of intolerance involved the teacher Robert Redeker, who in his article of 19th September 2006 in the daily Le Figaro, had commented on the intimidatory actions of Islamic extremists in the context of the protests against Pope Benedict XVI following his address

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at Regensburg University. After the publication of his article, Redeker too was the victim of personal threats, including some published on Islamic websites, which resulted in the authorities placing him under police protection in a secret location. Following the tension caused by this case, during Ramadan 2006, there were violent acts against two French mosques, in Quimper and Carcassonne. Sources The Holy See-France: Sarkozy, the secular Republic underestimated the religious factor, Adnkronos, 20th December 2007 Xavier Delsol, Alain Garay et Emmanuel Tawil, Droit des Cultes. Personnes, activités, biens et structures, Juris-Service, Lione 2005 Marie-France Etchegoin, Francs-maçons en colère, Le nouvel Observateur, No. 2258, 14th-20th February 2008, p. 27 Marie-France Etchegoin et Claude Askolovitch, Le croisé de l’Elysée, Le nouvel Observateur, No. 2258, 14th-20th February 2008, pp. 12-20 Willy Fautré, France further on the way to anti-religious McCarthysm?, Human Rights Without Frontiers, 22nd October 2006 Human Rights Without Frontiers, Justice agrees with movements suspected of sectarian deviations, 25th October 2007 Jean-François Mayer, France: la République et les religions – autour du droit des cultes, Religioscope.info, 18th May 2007 MIVILUDES, Questionnaire sent to French Embassies, http://assembleenationale.fr/12/pdf/rap-eng/r3507-annexes.pdf Emile Poulat, Les Diocésaines, République française, Eglise catholique: Loi de 1905 et associations cultuelles, le dossier d’un litige et de sa solution (1903-2003), with an introduction by His Eminence Cardinal Angelo Sodano and by Dominique de Villepin, La Documentation française, Paris 2007 Nicolas Sarkozy, La Francia è interessata a una riflessione morale ispirata dalle religioni, L’Osservatore Romano, 22nd December 2007 United Nations’ Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, Sixtysecond session, Civil and Political Rights, Including the Question of Religious Intolerance, Addendum 2, Mission to France (18th-29th September 2005), Report submitted by Asma Jahangir, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, 8th March 2006

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GABON

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AREA 267,668 kmq POPULATION 1,499,000 REFUGEES 8,826 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 90.6% Muslims 4.6% Ethnoreligionists 3.1% Others 1.7%

Baptized Catholics 750,000

GABON

The Constitution of 1991, amended in 1994 and 1995, provides for full religious freedom (Art. 1). Religious groups are required to register with the Ministry of the Interior, but omission to do so does not obstruct their activities, although it does stop them from enjoying various tax benefits. There are no restrictions imposed on the activities of foreign missionaries. There are private denominational schools run by Catholics, Protestants and Muslims and while they are not financed by the state, they do come under the jurisdiction of the Ministry for Education. Catholics and Protestants also manage radio stations. State television provides free airtime to the Catholic Church, and in the past this resulted in protests because the same does not apply also to smaller religious groups. In 1970 a decree was passed banishing the Jehovah’s Witnesses because their internal organisation does not provide adequate protection for individuals in disagreement with the group. It does not however seem that this prohibition is applied, and to all intents and purposes they are permitted to practise their religion and proselytise. The government officially opposes the custom of inflicting ritual physical injuries, which is still practised by the traditional religions. In January 2007, the bodies of two children aged 3 and 4 were discovered in a car abandoned in a deserted location. The following April in Libreville, an enraged crowd lynched two men accused of having sodomised, tortured and killed three-year-old Richepin Eyogo Edzang, it is thought in the course of a ritual sacrifice. On 15th December 2006, the mutilated body of Mathieu Moundounga was found with injuries that indicated a ritual killing. The government strongly condemns such practices, but the results of these investigations, as well as others concerning ritual murders during previous years, have not been made public. Although there is no official data, Jean-Elvis Ebang Ondo, whose son was found in 2005 mutilated and left on a beach with the body of a friend of his, and who now devotes his time to abolishing this practice, has spoken of “several dozen victims” every year (see his statement to the AFP Agency on 28th February 2007).

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GAMBIA

GAMBIA

AREA 11,295 kmq POPULATION 1,550,000 REFUGEES 14,895 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Religious freedom is acknowledged by the Constitution of 1996 (Art. 25) and is in practice respected by the state. For the Islamic community Shari‘a law is applied (Art. 7, f) in all matters relating to marriage, divorce and inheritance. There are no reports of abuse against the Christian minority; on the contrary, marriages between Muslims and Christians are frequent and considered socially acceptable. Religious groups are not required to register. Religious instruction, both Christian and Muslim, is permitted in state and private schools, with no interference from the state. In recent years however, there have been episodes of ethnic-religious intolerance towards Christians. For example, in April 2007 in Brikama a group of Muslims attacked and beat up a Catholic priest, complaining that their evening prayers had been disturbed by the “noise” coming from the nearby church (the sound of bells ringing and evening functions). Some reports indicated that the attack had been instigated by the imam from the nearby mosque. Relations between the two religions are generally friendly, however. In January 2007 Bishop Robert P. Ellison of Banjul, visited Imam Ratif, the most senior imam in the country, on the Islamic festivity of Eid ul-Adha (Vatican Radio).

Muslims 86.9% Ethnoreligionists 7.8% Affiliated Christians 3.9% Others 1.4%

Baptized Catholics 41,000

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GEORGIA

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AREA 69,700 kmq POPULATION 4,400,000 REFUGEES 1,047 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 247,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 62.2% Muslims 19.3% Non religious 18% Others 0.5%

Baptized Catholics 90,000

GEORGIA

The problems that religious organisations face in the country must be seen against a backdrop of political and economic instability. In November 2007 during the campaign for the presidential election, there were anti-government demonstrations of up to 50,000 people. President Saakashvili (re-elected on 5th January 2008) imposed a 15-day state of emergency following a violent crackdown on protesters. About 500 people were hurt during the intervention by security forces. Demonstrators demanded a new electoral law and fresh elections, as well as Saakashvili’s resignation. In a TV address the president accused the Kremlin of fomenting the protests. The Latin Rite Catholic Church (about 2 percent of the population) comes under the jurisdiction of the Tbilisi-based Apostolic Administration of the Latins of the Caucasus. For legal purposes, the Catholic Church and other religious organisations have been treated since 2005 as secular non-profit organisations and allowed to register. But for Catholics, Muslims and members of the Armenian Apostolic Church this situation is far from being satisfactory – all three want the right to register as public religious organisations. The Georgian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (which represents about 75 percent of the population of about 4.5 million) enjoys some privileges that are enshrined in the concordat signed with the state in 2002. The latter gives the Orthodox Church power over all religious matters; for instance, the Patriarchate has authority over imported religious literature as well as the construction of places of worship of all confessions. Members of the Armenian Apostolic Church make up about 5 percent of the population. The ecumenical dialogue with the Orthodox Church is not easy because the latter has often accused Catholics of proselytism and expansionism. Still in January-February 2006 Cardinal Kasper made an ecumenical visit to Orthodox Patriarch Ilia II for the first time in 15 years, an event that has breathed new life into Catholic-Orthodox dialogue (ZENIT, 30th January 2006). An important event for Georgia’s Latin Church was the first Synod of the Catholics of Latin Rite in the Caucasus, which opened in Tbilisi on 4th September 2006. It brought together all clergy and other representatives of the country’s parish commu-

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nities from the Apostolic Administration of the Latins of the Caucasus, as well as representatives of the Assyrian-Chaldean community (altogether 84 people). The Synod, which was held over two sessions (4th-8th September and 5th-9th November 2006), focused on issues like communion in the Church, forming the faithful and the role of the laity, all this in accordance with the guidelines laid down by Bishop Giuseppe Pasotto in his pastoral letter.

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GERMANY

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AREA 357,022 kmq POPULATION 82,370,000 REFUGEES 578,879 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 75.8% Non religious 19.4% Muslims 4.4% Others 0.4%

Baptized Catholics 25,711,000

GERMANY

Article 4 of the German Constitution states that freedom of worship, of conscience, of religious denomination and ideology are inviolable, as well as guaranteeing the free exercise of religious practice. Article 7 (3) further establishes religious instruction, while Article 33 ensures the equality of citizens regardless of their religious beliefs. Other provisions in the Appendix repeat the articles of the Weimar Constitution of 11th August 1919 concerning relations between State and Church, protecting the free exercise of religious beliefs without coercion. These articles also establish that there is no State religion. As far as funding is concerned, religious associations with public status which are guaranteed property and other rights are entitled to levy taxes on the basis of the civil taxrolls and also receive state subsidies. Relations with the Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches (Lutheran and Reformed) are regulated by agreements stipulated both at a federal level and by the individual Länder (federal states). As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the Concordat of 1933 still applies. The recognition of religious groups is regulated by general federal laws. Among others, the Jewish Community, the Methodist Church, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Baptists, the Salvation Army, the Mennonites and Christian Science have obtained official recognition. Only more recently, on 9th March 2007, did the Islamic communities reach an agreement for creating a single body to discuss federal recognition, the Council for Islamic Coordination. The Länder are responsible for granting the status of “associations of public status” that provides the various denominations with particular advantages, such as the right to receive compulsory contributions from their members. This qualification was granted to the Jehovah’s Witnesses by the state of Berlin in a decision promulgated on 10th February 2006. According to the Constitution each religious community is permitted to organise courses in state schools, but only if it has a single educational programme. However, although the three largest Islamic organisations on Germany have still not reached an agreement due to ideological and doctrinal divergences, the Baden-Württemberg state administration has started to teach the Islamic religion, with the objective of encouraging the inte-

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gration of the children of immigrants from countries with a Muslim majority. In addition to Baden-Württemberg, Islam is also taught in the states of Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein. Muslims The German juridical-institutional system is being seriously tested by the challenge of the Islamic community’s extremist minority. This is evident in legal cases such as the ruling made on 21st March 2007 by a judge in a Frankfurt court, in a case involving domestic violence. The injured party, a twenty-six year old Moroccan-born German citizen, terrorised by the beatings and threats inflicted by her husband, was denied access to the fast-track process for obtaining a divorce. According to the magistrate, Christa Datz-Winter, there was no particular urgency and the woman should have expected her husband, who had grown up in a country influenced by Islamic traditions, to exercise “the right to use corporal punishment”. To support her thesis the judge even quoted a verse from the Koran. After this event the judge was removed from the case, yet this did little to calm the debate over the tolerance of different cultures and the fear of a gradual but inexorable introduction of Islamic Law, the Shari‘a, through the administrative process. Among the most glaring cases that gave rise to such a suspicion, was the decision by the Federal Minister for Social Affairs who in 2004 had informed the health insurance agencies that polygamous marriages should be recognized if contracted legally in the state from which the married individuals originated. The cancelling of a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera Idomeneo from the programme of the Opera Theatre in Berlin in September 2006, following a number of threats to the organisers, caused widespread public anxiety. Although Mozart’s work does not have a particularly religious content, one of the scenes in the version directed by Hans Neuenfels depicted the cut-off heads of Mohammed, Jesus Christ, Buddha and Poseidon. This might have offended the sensitivity of members of the public. In another respect there is also concern over the gap that exists between the Islamic communities and the rest of society. In schools some of the female Muslim students do not participate in all activities, in particular physical education and school excursions, to avoid common activities with male pupils. In family life, in the workplace and in regard to relationship, the lower level of integration experienced by Muslim women corresponds to a lower level of awareness of their rights, including religious ones. This condition is confirmed by the increasing phenomenon of so-called “crimes of honour”, with 45 murders officially recorded during the last decade. On 30th June 2007, faced with claims by a number of Muslim women claiming the right to wear the Islamic veil, eight states passed laws that forbid teachers from wearing the veil in the workplace, in accordance with a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court dated 2003.

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In the meantime, those who have abandoned Islam reported that they have received serious threats. In March 2007, the founder of the National Council for former Muslims, Mina Ahadi, of Iranian origin, was placed under police protection in Cologne after receiving letters containing a death sentence.

Sources Federal Administrative Court Grants Long-Awaited Recognition to Jehovah’s Witnesses, JW Office of Public Relations, 17th February 2006 Mark Landler, At German Conference on Muslim Relations, One Vote Is Unanimous: Mozart Must Go On, New York Times, 28th August 2006 Steven Winn, As Germans Cancel Mozart Opera, Arts World Shudders, San Francisco Chronicle, 30th September 2006 German State to Teach Islam in Public Schools, Associated Press, 5th September 2006. International Crisis Group, Islam and Identity in Germany, 14th March 2007 Muslim Atheists Get Threats in Germany, IANS, 22nd March 2007 Matthias Bartsch, Andrea Brandt, Simone Kaiser, Gunther Lasch, Cordula Meyer, Caroline Schmidt, Paving the Way for a Muslim Parallel Society, Spiegel Online, 29th March 2007, http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,474629,00.htm Agenzia Giornalistica Italia, Germania: offensiva contro Scientology, è incostituzionale, 7th December 2007

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New religious movements The long-running controversy between the German authorities and Scientology taking place both at an administrative level and in the courts, could end the controversial group being banned. In a meeting of the Ministers of the Interior of the 16 Länder with their Federal colleague, Wolfgang Schaeuble, in December 2007, unanimous agreement was reached on the drafting of a report by the internal security services about the activities of the American religious movement. Ehrhart Koerting, Minister for the citystate of Berlin, explained that he and his colleagues had agreed that “Scientology is an unconstitutional organisation”. In the autumn of 2008, when the security services have handed over their report on Scientology’s activities, the ministers will decide whether or not to ban the organisation. Udo Nagel, Minister of the Interior for the city-state of Hamburg, has described Scientology as a psycho-ideology addressed at the “complete submission of individuals”. In reply the spokeswoman for the organisation, Sabine Weber, asserted that Scientology has been acknowledged as a religious community by the European Court of Human Rights, while Spain has recently granted it a status analogous to that of other religious communities. On 4th June 2007, the government withdrew its ban on Sun Myung Moon’s (founder of the Unification Church) entry to the country, following a ruling one month earlier by the court in Koblenz.

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GHANA

GHANA

AREA 238,533 kmq POPULATION 22,898,000 REFUGEES 34,958 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 55.4% Ethnoreligionists 24.4% Muslims 19.7% Others 0.5%

Baptized Catholics 2,808,000

The opening words of the Preamble to the 1992 Constitution are “In the name of Almighty God”. Chapter V details, in a whole series of articles, the safeguarding of fundamental human rights, including religious freedom. Religious groups are obliged to register and are then officially recognised by the state. There are no reports of registration having been denied to any group. Foreign missionaries operate freely in the country. There are both Christian and Islamic schools. Religious instruction is compulsory in state schools. Primary school students receive general religious instruction, while students in secondary schools can choose between Islam, Christianity and the traditional African religions. All students are given the freedom to pray according to their own faith and many schools are organised in such a way as to respect the Muslim students’ need to fast during the holy month of Ramadan. The Catholic Church runs about 30 percent of schools and hospitals and a few years ago also opened a university. In many areas there is still a great fear of witchcraft. This results in communities expelling women – even blood relatives – on the mere suspicion of being witches, often for no other reason than some misfortune, a death or illness or on the strength of strange dreams thought to be some kind of revelation, or even because of some unexpected good fortune or success. The expelled women are often obliged to go and live in so-called “witch camps”, real villages in the north of the country, inhabited by alleged witches. It is estimated that there are about three thousand such women. Should they return to their villages they would risk being beaten or lynched. The government protects these ‘witches’ and punishes acts of violence against them, while working to change this situation. In an interview with Reuters dated 2nd January 2007, Richard Ouavson, a member of Ghana’s Human Rights and Administrative Justice Commission, said that “people are becoming more aware of these problems” and “are tending to no longer attack those leaving the camps and returning to normal society”. Abraham Akrong, a professor at the Institute of African Studies at Ghana University, explains however that “many successful and brilliant women have been accused of witchcraft so as to explain their achievements”.

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GHANA

People with mental problems are thought to be possessed and are in turn confined to camps. They are often left for days with no food or water so as to drive away the evil spirits. Or else they are tied to the bed or locked in rooms without windows. Many are children with problems such as epilepsy, who have been brought to these camps by their own parents.

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GREECE

GREECE

AREA 131,957 kmq POPULATION 11,140,000 REFUGEES 2,228 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 94.7% Muslims 3.3% Others 2%

Baptized Catholics 130,000

Article 3 of the Constitution declares that the Greek Orthodox Church is the country’s principal religion, but Article 13 guarantees the right to religious freedom for citizens of different faiths. However, non-Orthodox groups often encounter administrative or legal obstacles to the practice of their religion. Improvements were reported in the course of 2007 with regard to religious freedom for non Christian-Orthodox groups. In fact, in the month of June the government passed an amendment to an existing law, abolishing the necessity for local Greek Orthodox bishops to grant permission before other religious faiths can build places of worship. No progress was made, however, in regard to the long controversy between the government and the Jewish community in Thessalonica for the restitution of the cemetery appropriated in 1944 in order to build the Aristotle State University. The Italian Catholic magazine Il Regno (No. 6/2006) reported on the Greek Orthodox Synod held in November to promote a more modern image of the Orthodox Church. World wide more Greek Orthodox priests marry than those of any other denomination, and this often results in a series of at times thorny and important consequences, ranging from residency problems to the need to continuously verify vocations. Moves for renewal have not only occurred in this sector, however. On 6th February, during a conference held at Athens University, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Christodoulos acknowledged for the very first time the possibility of a change in relations between State and Church, possibly in the form of a “soft” separation. However, Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis excluded all forms of separation. Nonetheless, relations between State and Church are not always idyllic; on 6th September the agency DPA reported that the Greek Orthodox Church had condemned the government’s decision to ban priests from visiting schools to hear students’ confessions. However, the federation of secondary school teachers has described the decision of the Ministry for Education as “positive” and “compatible with a new multicultural era”. On 14th July 2006 the New Anatolian agency reported that Greece had again been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for having violated the right to religious free-

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GREECE

dom of a Muslim leader in Iskece, in Western Thrace. Mufti Mehmet Emin Agga, a member of the Turkish minority in Greece, had been elected as mufti by local Muslims, but had been sentenced to imprisonment and repeatedly fined by the Greek courts for refusing to stand down and accept a rival mufti, appointed by the state. On 30th October Vatican Radio reported on the words of Pope Benedict XVI to the Catholic bishops of Greece during an ad limina visit, exhorting them to a renewed commitment towards the pastoral care of immigrants and towards a constructive dialogue with the Orthodox Church. The Pope also affirmed that “the Catholic Church seeks no privileges but only asks to see her identity and mission recognised”. Members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses have reported about thirty incidents of which they were the victims in the course of 2007, including detention by the police and accusations of proselytism. For example, on 20th February, unknown vandals threw three Molotov cocktails at the Kingdom Hall in Athens. However his incident did not cause significant damage.

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GRENADA

GRENADA

AREA 344 kmq POPULATION 100,000 REFUGEES ---

Article 9 of the 1973 Constitution, in force since 7th February 1974 and amended in 1989, guarantees respect for freedom of conscience and worship. The authorities do not in any way interfere with the religious lives of citizens. It is not compulsory for religious groups to register, however, groups that do so enjoy tax exemptions on their properties and activities. There are no reports of violations of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and protected by the Law.

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RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 97% Others 3%

Baptized Catholics 55,000

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GUATEMALA

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AREA 108,889 kmq POPULATION 13,020,000 REFUGEES 379 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 97.7% Others 2.3%

Baptized Catholics 10,578,000

GUATEMALA

No significant changes in legislation have been reported in Guatemala between 2006 and 2007. As far as the acknowledgement and protection of religious freedom is concerned, it is decreed by the Constitution and generally respected by the government in power. There are no official numbers, with regards to membership of religious groups, since there was no official census of religious affiliation. In 2006, the Episcopal Conference of Guatemala, calculated that about 68 percent of the population describe themselves as Catholic. In an article published in its 24th May 2007 edition, the Italian weekly magazine Panorama, reported the view of Monsignor Alvaro Leonel Ramazzini Imeri, President of the Episcopal Conference of Guatemala, according to whom the Evangelicals only started to arrive in this country after the terrible earthquake in 1976, which caused over 23 thousand victims. Numerous US-based Protestant groups sent aid, and following these events many Guatemalans embraced the Protestant faith. Since then there has been a constant growth, significantly influenced – again according to Monsignor Ramazzini – by US policies, which have supported the spread of Protestant organisations, even elaborating a plan, known as “Plan Santa Fé II”, with an anti-communist agenda. Needless to say, his thesis was decisively rejected by Protestant leaders in Guatemala. In any case, there is no doubt that while the traditional Churches continue to lose believers, the sects and the new religious movements seem to have discovered the right preaching strategies for attracting new believers. One of the most popular movements in Guatemala is that of the Mormons, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, with over 200,000 followers and increasing constantly every year, especially among the poor. In Latin America as a whole, the Mormons number 4.5 million (out of a total of 12 million Mormons in the world) and they are finding new believers, both among the upper middle-class and the less rich, in the poor areas inhabited above all by indigenous people. The appearance and establishment of these new religious bodies has encouraged the traditional Churches, after years of conflict, to begin a new season of cooperation. Symbolic of this new stage, involving dialogue, is the Foro ecumenico por la paz y la reconciliacion (Ecumenical

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Forum for peace and reconciliation), or FEPAZ. Created in the year 2000, FEPAZ is a practical opportunity for direct meeting and cooperation between the various churches. Its members include the Catholic Church’s Commission for Ecumenism (CEG), the Conference of Evangelical Churches (CIEDEG), the Conference of Priests from Guatemala (Confregua), the Lutheran Church and the Presbyterian Church. Relations with Mayan spiritual leaders are held by Protestant groups, which better tolerates traditional indigenous religious practices, compared to Catholic Communities. On 8th December 2006 a Salesian co-operator called Johnny Morales was murdered in an ambush as he left his workplace. The car he was travelling in was riddled with bullets – which were shot at the vehicle from various different angles – resulting in instant death. Morales worked for the Father Sergio Checchi Salesian Centre together with his wife who like him was a Salesian co-operator in the same centre. Johnny worked in the Tax Administration Department (SAT) and only two days earlier had been appointed to work at the border at Tecun Umam (Mexico), where there is a great deal of drug trafficking and smuggling. It appears that the ultimate cause of his death was his integrity, since he had refused to participate in illegal activities. Sources ACI Prensa Fides Panorama

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GUINEA - BISSAU

Article 4 of the 1984 Constitution (amended in 1991) forbids the use of religious terms or denominations in the designation of political parties. Article 6 proclaims the separation between the state and religious institutions and also recognises the right to religious freedom. Religious groups must register but there are no reports of any requests being turned down. Relations between the various religions are generally friendly and there have been no particular episodes involving intolerance or discrimination.

AREA 36,125 kmq POPULATION 1,397,000 REFUGEES 25,226

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Ethnoreligionists 45.2% Muslims 39.9% Affiliated Christians 13.2% Others 1.7%

Baptized Catholics 132,000

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GUINEA - CONAKRY

GUINEA - CONAKRY

AREA 245,857 kmq POPULATION 8,898,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 67.3% Ethnoreligionists 28.5% Affiliated Christians 4% Others 0.2%

Baptized Catholics 240,000

The Constitution of 1990 acknowledges religious freedom, and Article 14 guarantees the total autonomy and self-government of religious institutions and communities. In March 2007 a special General Secretariat for Religious Affairs was created, with representatives from both religions, to ensure that both Muslims, who represent the majority in this country, and Christians participate in decisions of national importance. Religious groups must register with the Ministry of the Interior, but are also permitted to operate without registration, although they thereby lose various fiscal advantages. Unregistered groups can be banned and foreigners belonging to them expelled from the country, but this does not usually happen. The small Baha’i community is active although it is not recognised. Missionaries too must declare their activities and seek registration, but groups affiliated to the social activities of a church may operate without restrictions. The state-controlled media report on event of interest to both religions and every week, state television allocates 75 minutes airtime reserved respectively for Muslim and Christian programmes. Religious groups and political parties are not permitted to have their own radio or television stations. This prohibition appears to be a formal one only, however, since commercial radio stations are permitted to broadcast programmes with religious and political content. Private schools and faith schools are authorised and supervised by the Ministry of Education, which must guarantee that national standards are respected. But there are also many private schools, mainly religious ones, with no authorisation and working without any direct state control, partly because the official state schools are unable to satisfy the demand for education, especially in the urban centres. There are numerous Christian schools, both Catholic and Protestant. The madrassas (Islamic schools), which are often run by radical Islamic groups and financed with foreign funds, are generally not part of the state school system but offer a curriculum that is adequate for primary education. In some areas with an Islamic majority there is strong social pressure against proselytism by other religions and against any kind of conversion of Muslims from Islam. Real incidents of religious intolerance are however, rare.

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GUYANA

Article 145 of the 1980 Constitution of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, as amended in 1996, explicitly guarantees freedom of conscience, including religious freedom, whether professed privately or publicly, individually or in association. The Constitution also guarantees the freedom to provide religious instruction and to train religious personnel with no interference from the public authorities. The population’s varied ethnic and religious origins are acknowledge in the country’s national holidays: The Christian holidays are Good Friday, Easter and Christmas; the Hindu holidays are Phagwah and Diwali; the Islamic holidays are the Birth of Mohammed and Eid Al-Adha. There are no reports of violations of any kind of the citizens’ right to religious freedom. In spite of the ethnic non-homogeneity and consequent religious fragmentation, the various communities coexist peacefully.

AREA 214,969 kmq POPULATION 753,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 51% Hindus 32.5% Muslims 8.1% Others 8.4%

Baptized Catholics

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61,000

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HAITI

HAITI

AREA 27,750 kmq POPULATION 8,639,000 REFUGEES 1 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 95.8% Spiritists 2.5% Others 1.7%

Baptized Catholics 6,949,000

The Haitian Constitution guarantees freedom of worship on condition that religious practices do not disturb public order or go against the Law. The government generally respects this right. The monitoring of religious affairs is the responsibility of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Religion. In Haiti there is still a significant number of people who practise voodoo rituals, also among those who describe themselves as Catholics. On 21st July 2006, a Franciscan monk, Father Cesare Humberto Flores, and a young postulant, were kidnapped for ransom in Haiti, near Port Au Prince where their convent is situated. The monks were released two days later. As reported by Vatican Radio, in spite of requests, no ransom was paid for their release; rather it was obtained thanks to intense negotiations. The group of kidnappers were persuaded, it seems, by pressure applied by the government and also by various religious groups active in Port au Prince. The scourge of kidnapping in this Caribbean country has been unresolved for a long time, and is certainly not seen as an encouraging sign for newly-elected President René Préval, who came to power in May 2006 promising to reduce poverty and bring security to the country. Haiti has a special police unit for freeing those who are kidnapped and for avoiding further events of this kind. However, in spite of the presence of over 2000 UN soldiers, the government has still not managed to re-establish security in the country. The Haitian bishops have repeatedly spoken out, warning about the public order situation in the country. In their pastoral letter for Advent, in December 2006, the President was not spared any criticism. According to data provided by a local human rights organisation, in the course of 2006 there were 150 kidnappings and over 700 murders in this country. Meanwhile the economic situation on the island continues to get worse, producing a general climate of widespread insecurity. Sources Vatican Radio Political Resources on the Net

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HONDURAS

Sources Fides Vatican Radio Political Resources on the Net

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RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 97% Others 3%

Baptized Catholics 5,938,000

HONDURAS

Freedom of religion is guaranteed by Article 77 of the Constitution and also supported by the good relations that exist between the various religious groups present in the country. There is no State religion. The government generally consults the Catholic Church and occasionally appoints Catholic representatives to key positions in more or less official commissions, created to fight some of Honduras’ endemic scourges, such as the initiatives launched against widespread corruption. A number of Evangelical Churches are also represented on the National anti-Corruption Council. The Catholic Church continues to apply pressure in order to regain possession of property of historical interest confiscated by the Honduran authorities in 1825, and have presented formal requests to the government. With regards to the aforementioned friendly relations between the country’s various religious denominations, the Bishop’s Conference of Honduras has appointed Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, as the official representative for ecumenical relations and the archbishop has set up an office for interreligious dialogue in his archdiocese. There have been reports of increased episodes of intolerance towards people of Arab origin, occasionally linked to negative attitudes in the press towards Islam. Frequently there have been generic accusations associating Arab citizens with terrorist attacks. Development in Latin America, education and the battle against corruption were the main subjects in the audience Pope Benedict XVI gave on 24th November 2006 to the President of Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales. Zelaya Rosales was elected President in January 2006, in a country where 70 percent of the population still live below the poverty threshold.

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HUNGARY

HUNGARY

AREA 93,032 kmq POPULATION 10,070,000 REFUGEES 8,131 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 87.3% Non religious 11.6% Others 1.1%

Baptized Catholics 5,977,000

The right to religious freedom is guaranteed by Article 60 of the Constitution of 1949, amended at various times up to 1997. There is no State religion, but the four “historical” religions present in this country (Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed Church and Jewish) as well as other religious denominations (such as the Greek (Byzantine-rite) Catholics and Orthodox) have entered particular agreements with the Hungarian State. Registration is not compulsory for religious communities and churches, but the number of groups registered at the end of 2006 were 166; to register it is necessary to have at least one hundred members; at that point a court verifies that the registration request and the activities of the group concerned comply with the legal and constitutional standards. Religious instruction is not provided in schools but it is possible in both the primary and secondary schools to enrol in extracurricula courses in religious education. Registered groups receive state funding. On 13th February 2006, Parliament passed Law No. 47 of 2006 which reopened the issue of compensation for the close relatives of those who died during the Shoah. Jews and Christians regularly cooperate in organising joint events under the aegis of the Christian-Jewish Society. In February 2007, the Municipal Court in Budapest decreed that the archives of the State security service must now make public certain documents that had until now been kept secret about six religious leaders of various denominations – documents which had been requested by a number of journalists seeking to throw light on the accusations against these persons of collaboration with the communist secret police. In its issue 18/2006, the Italian Catholic magazine Il Regno published an interview on this subject with Cardinal Péter Erdö, Archbishop of Budapest and president of the umbrella organisation which represents the 34 European Episcopal Conferences. The cardinal clarified that since 2005 there has been a foundation for historical research, sponsored by the Hungarian Episcopal Conference, which aims to shed light on the history of the Catholic Church in this country from the 1940s up to the end of the 20th century. This commission is dedicated to the Piarist Father, Odön Lénard, who was imprisoned by the commu-

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HUNGARY

nist regime for 18 years. The foundation’s main objective is to “reconstruct the history of martyrdom and of persecution in general, within the particular context of our country”. The cardinal also stated that he had never personally investigated the political past of his priests, but that twenty of them had spontaneously confessed to him that they had in the past collaborated with the communist regime.

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ICELAND

ICELAND

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RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Article 62 of the Constitution establishes the Lutheran Evangelical Church as the State Church and as such it is supported and protected by the establishment. On this subject, the Law establishes that the State’s Church should receive an annual tax from every citizen over the age of sixteen. Article 63 guarantees everyone the right to “found communities for divine worship in compliance with their individual beliefs, on condition that they do not preach or practice anything that is prejudicial to good morals and public order”. There are 25 religious associations benefitting from the state subsidy system, after completing registration procedures with the Ministry of Justice and Ecclesiastic Affairs. Citizens belonging to registered religious denominations can pay tax to their own preferred denomination, or, if they do not belong to any religious group, they can pay the money to the University of Iceland. Civil and national rights cannot be lost due to one’s religion, as specified in Article 64, although one cannot refuse to undertake any civic duty for religious reasons. No significant institutional changes have been reported, nor have there been significant episodes concerning the subject of freedom of worship during the years 2006 and 2007.

Affiliated Christians 97.2% Others 2.8%

Baptized Catholics 7,000

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INDIA

Anti-Conversion Laws Although Article 25 of the Constitution guarantees the right to profess the religion of one’s choice as well as the right to change religion, so-called “anti-conversion” laws are in force in many states, imposing on average three to five years in jail as well as hefty fines on anyone engaged in “activities related to conversion.” Many legal experts view such laws as constitutionally dubious since no state can adopt laws that violate the Indian Constitution, but to add insult to injury, laws of this kind apply only to those who convert Hindus to other religions and not those who, by whatever means, convert others to Hinduism. Similar laws are in place in states like Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. In the last of these, the law has been overruled by a government decree, but this is being deliberately ignored by local authorities. In 2006 and 2007 more anti-conversion laws were adopted and indeed, more generally, a number of local governments and other public institutions became more open and systematic in their support for Hindu nationalists opposed to religious freedom. In Madhya Pradesh, a state governed by the Hindu-dominated Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the existing anti-conversion law was tightened on 25 July 2006. In its amended form the law requires every would-be convert to sign an affidavit before a district judge indicating his or her intention to convert, and this at least a month before the conversion ceremony; otherwise, fines of up to a thousand rupees and imprisonment can be imposed. After this initial phase, the law requires police to “verify the credentials of the priest or organisation” before the conversion proper “and that this is not done by force or with allurement”. At the same time, any priest or pastor who fails to inform the authorities of his intention to preside over conversion ceremonies could be fined 5,000 rupees and face up to a year in

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AREA 3,287,263 kmq POPULATION 1,117,730,000 REFUGEES 161,537 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 600,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Hindus 74.5% Muslims 12.1% Affiliated Christians 6.2% Ethnoreligionists 3.4% Others 3.8%

Baptized Catholics 18,408,000

INDIA

With the adoption of the 1950 Constitution the Indian Union became a federal state. Currently it is constituted by 28 states that exercise considerable political and administrative autonomy, plus seven territories administered directly by the central government.

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prison. The name and address of the would-be convert as well as the date of the conversion ceremony must be provided by the priest or minister concerned. On 3rd August 2006 the BJP-run state of Chattisgarh approved a law that makes it compulsory for anyone who wants to change religion to ask a district magistrate for permission a month ahead of time, a step which the authorities can also refuse. Failure to abide by the law can result in fines between 50,000 and 100,000 rupees, plus detention of up to three years. The same penalty applies to anyone involved in “forced conversions”, but no punishment is meted out to any convert who wants to return to Hinduism, which is ipso facto defined as the ancestral or original religion of the Indian people. In this way, the ‘re-conversion’ ceremonies to Hinduism organised by Hindu activists are legitimised. As such they are part and parcel of a programme called Ghar Vapasi or “Return Home” that targets Christian Dalits and often relies on intimidation and threats to achieve its ends. In this particular case, however, the Chhattisgarh governor in September 2007 has postponed the implementation of the law. On 29th December 2006 Himachal Pradesh approved a law that punished anyone who converted people “through fraudulent means”. Anyone desiring to change his or her religion must give 30-day notice to the district authorities. Failure to do so might result in a month in jail and/or a 1,000 rupees fine. But the most worrying aspect of this decision lies in the fact that it was taken in a state governed by the supposedly secular-oriented Congress Party (CP), which hitherto had always criticised anti-conversion legislation. Rajasthan also approved its own anti-conversion law on 26th March 2006. This law imposes two to five years in prison and a hefty fine for “those who carry out conversion activities by means of allurement or fraud”. But the state governor at the time, Pratibha Patil (who became Indian President a year later) refused to sign the bill into law because it “seems to affect people’s fundamental right to freedom of religion guaranteed by the Constitution to every Indian citizen”. On 20th June 2006 she eventually sent the draft bill to the former President to vet its constitutionality. These laws are widely enforced and in some areas people are arrested simply on the allegation of trying to convert Hindus. Just as people have also been arrested on nothing more than the accusation of having offended the religious sentiments of others. A Christmas of Martyrdom in Orissa Religious freedom took a real beating in the year 2007. It appears that “India’s identity as a secular state was seriously compromised” as the country quickly drifted along the path of Hindu sectarianism. What this may lead to remain anyone’s guess. The urgency of the situation is sadly best exemplified by the events of Christmas 2007 when Christians were literally hunted down in some districts of the eastern state of Orissa. After it was all over, the amount of death and destruction was worthy of a civ-

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il war. Not only were dozens of people hurt, but nine lay dead, and five murdered on 27th December when a group of Hindu extremists attacked Christian homes in the village of Barakhama, Kandhamal district; two more were gunned down by security forces when Christians took to the streets to protest the violence against them, and two others had been killed in earlier clashes. Altogether 70 churches and Christian institutions were attacked, destroyed or set on fire; some 600 Christian homes were damaged or destroyed; and 5,000 people were affected one way or another. In many streets smouldering ashes and rubbles were all that was left. And throughout this anti-Christian wave, there was not a single action by the security force or any other authority. The spark that set off the conflagration was ignited in the village of Bamunigam, near the police station in Daringibadi Bloch, Kandhamal district. AsiaNews described the incidents, as reported by eyewitness accounts, citing a report by Mgr Raphael Cheenath, Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneswr. On 24th December “[a]t 8 am a group of fundamentalists forcibly removed the Christmas decorations set up, with the permission of the authorities, by the Ambedkar Baniko Sangho group. When […] members protested, the Hindus responded that the Christmas celebrations had to be stopped, and within a few minutes more than 200 extremists began to attack the Christians with clubs, swords, and rifles. Although the Christians fled, their attackers opened fire and seriously wounded two of them. They then sacked and devastated dozens of shops and homes belonging to Christians, beating the people they found there. That same evening, during midnight Mass, explosives were thrown at the archbishop’s residence in Bhubaneswar”. “On Christmas Day, December 25, the attackers returned in force and destroyed the churches in the zone of Bamunigam. They then besieged and burned the homes and property of the Christians, shouting at them to go away.” The day before “at 2 p.m. on December 24, between 400 and 500 persons attacked and devastated the Catholic parish church in Balliguda. That same evening, they set fire to the church, the nearby convent, the parish offices, the clinic, and two student hostels. They then invaded the city and burned the Baptist church, and attacked a Pentecostal church. The following day, December 25, they returned, threatening all the priests and Christians and warning them not to tell the police”. “That same day, a crowd destroyed a convent in Phulbani, plus the new school bus there. At midday they destroyed the parish church and the priest’s residence in Pobingia. Fortunately, the priests and sisters who had gathered to celebrate Christmas had been warned in time to get away.” “According to witnesses, the police never intervened, even though they were present. In Bamunigam, at least 20 policemen silently watched the attacks. The authorities had even asked the priests of the parish of Phulbani not to hold any celebrations, to avoid

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further problems. More than half of the 24 parishes in Kandhamal were unable to celebrate Mass at Christmas, out of fear of violence.” “In the entire region, over the course of three days, the attackers destroyed 5 parish churches, 48 village churches, 6 convents, 6 hostels, as well as the minor seminary in Balliguda and the Sarshnanda clinic in Pobingia. In a true hunt of Christians, hundreds of homes were destroyed or burned. In the parish of Barakhama, 400 homes were gutted and 5 people were killed, and there was damage to shops and vehicles. The Capuchin formation house was devastated. Undisturbed, the attackers knocked down doors and broke through windows, heaped the furniture in the middle of the rooms, and set the pile on fire.” “But the violence continued during the following days, and again in the early days of 2008, with threats, aggression, and devastation.” Hundreds of Christians fled into the forest, without shelter, food or water. Over a month later many were still there, uncertain as to whether they could go back or not. For the victims there is no doubt that the attacks were carefully prepared, with hundreds of extremists (more than 200 in Bamunigam and 400 to 500 in Balliguda) getting together in just half an hour, well organised, carrying rifles and swords, coming from other villages so that they would not be recognised, carrying out the violence for days and hours. The Missionaries of Charity (MC) of Mother Teresa of Calcutta were among the victims of the attacks, and they too had to flee into the forest. Sister M Suma, MC regional superior, said that “[n]o one could ever have imagined the unbridled reign of terror unleashed against the Christian community in this part of Orissa at the end of December”. “We have three houses in Kandhamal,” she explained, “and all of our sisters had to flee together with the other Christians seeking to save themselves from the fury of the Hindu extremists. They escaped with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and hid in the forests without anything to eat or any way of sheltering from the winter cold.” Meanwhile in Sasanada, extremists damaged another MC house, located near a little church where residents usually go for Sunday Mass. The chapel was completely destroyed and desecrated”. “It was heartbreaking to see Mother Mary’s statue all smashed and burned and the MC house looted,” Sister Suma said. Similarly, the “convents in Balliguda and Phulbanii were set on fire by an extremist mob who, carrying swords and other weapons, entered the convent shouting ‘Kill the Christians’. Sadly, nearly every convent we visited had the same tragic tale to tell”. “It was 10 pm on 25 December,” brother Oscar Tete, a 25-year MC veteran, said, “when a group of 80 Hindu extremists came into our compound, our Shanti Nivas, armed with swords, axes, sticks and iron rods. To avoid violence we moved the 33

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patients, all Hindus, to the top floor of our hospital; 22 of them are very old and suffering from malnutrition, tuberculosis and diabetes.” “At one point outside, the extremists ran after me and three fellow brothers as well as six local villagers, throwing stones but thanks to the Blessed Mother Teresa’s intercession none of us got hurt.” “The extremists then turned on the chapel and tore it down, literally; they razed it to ground; not one stone left unturned. Religious articles and symbols of our faith were desecrated. They broke the statue of the Virgin Mary and set it on fire. They broke the altar and everything else, including copies of the Bible, set everything ablaze.” The sanatorium was also devastated, the kitchen as well. In the following days the missionaries and their patients received food and help from the area’s residents whilst the authorities were nowhere to be seen. For several days priests hid in the forest by night and helped the sick by day. Only on 9th January 2008 did the police show up, two weeks later. Throughout the region the authorities’ intervention was too little, too late, eliciting criticism both at home and abroad. On 29th December 2007 Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that for years Hindu extremist groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal (BD) have been engaged in a violent campaign against Christians. The human rights group went on to say that the state government had failed to address the problem and was unprepared to face the wave of violence once it broke out, thus leaving the population defenceless for days on end. For HRW unless there is a decisive intervention to guarantee everyone the right to profess their religion, and identify and punish those who fuel religious hate thanks to a sense of impunity, “India’s secular identity will be seriously jeopardized”. For his part Cardinal Telesphore Toppo, chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, said soon after the incidents that “India is a great country, a secular democratic republic;” for this reason he urged “the authorities to do justice to our Christians”. The attackers are believed to be linked to the VHP, itself considered the hard-line religious wing of the BJP, the Hindu nationalist party. Beyond the well-organised, well-funded and politically-supported violence perpetrated by Hindu extremist groups, the real problem is the use of nationalism by some political parties like the BJP, which held power at the federal level until 2004 and and is now in opposition, but still in charge of many state governments. For these political groups Christian missionaries are “emissaries of a corrupt West”; guilty of converting Dalits by fraud, money or violence, exploiting social activities for this purpose. For them any religious conversion is “an offence” that must be punished like any crime; for them the struggle against Christianity is a battle in the “the name of the unity, integrity and security of India”.

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Other persecutory actions by public authorities In addition to adopting anti-conversion laws, the authorities in states run by the Hindu nationalist parties, tend to clamp down on the public expression of other religions, especially Christians. Their first target tends to be Christian-held property. In Chhattisgarh the government has seized property held by the Catholic Church on the pretext that it must be returned to its rightful tribal owners. In Jashpur diocese alone there are hundreds of cases pending against tribal Christians for giving land to the Church. On 2nd February 2006 the government tore down the compound wall of St Francis Church, in Patalgaon Parish (Jashpur), damaging a Catholic retreat centre in the process because it said both were illegally built on tribal land. Seven priests, three sisters and other Catholics were arrested for the allegedly illegal occupation. Fr Babu Joseph, spokesperson for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, told AsiaNews that “[i]t is quite ironic that the government considers churches and Christian education institutions that are fully owned and administrated by the Tribals as non-tribal in status. The question that naturally comes to anyone’s mind is: whose are they?” Both Christian and non Christian Tribals have come to the defence of the Church. On 22nd January 2007 more than 80,000 of them took to the streets to protest against a decision by a local court ordering the Sisters of the Holy Cross to give back to Tribals 12 acres of land on which they had built their monastery and a school. The judge ruled that a law prevented non-Tribals from buying land from rural communities. However, the land on which Catholic missionaries built mission institutions “was not stolen from us,” said one demonstrator, “but was regularly sold to the Church by our ancestors, which now uses it to help. We are happy for the schools and hospitals,” which now stand on the contested land, because they “educate us and provide us with medical care” when we need it. In March 2007 residents in Jamjunwani village protested against an attempt to seize a piece of land on which a chapel has stood for the past 30 years, built on land donated to the Church by the father of a Tribal priest. Another major factor of discrimination is state funding for Dalits. Governments in India have adopted affirmative action plans to help Dalits overcome centuries of inferior social status. But several times the National Commission for Scheduled Castes/Tribes has refused to grant Christian and Muslim Dalits subsidies and aid, arguing that only Hindu Dalits have a right to such entitlements. In some states like Jharkhand the authorities have tried to withhold such entitlements (often indispensable for survival) from Dalit converts by reclassifying them as members of the Christian minority rather than as Dalit. In Chhattisgarh Christian Dalits have even been denied essential services like health care and education.

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Attacks against the school system Catholic educational institutions are often established to help the poorest groups in society, groups like Tribal communities or Dalits, i.e. groups who otherwise could not get a proper education. Even so, some states want to shut them down or place them under direct state control. In Kerala for instance a 2006 law grants the state the right to determine whether a community constitutes a minority or not, and on this basis decide how many schools it can run and by what proportion minority students can attend it. And although Christians represent only 19 percent of the population of this state, they are not considered a minority and have thus lost the right to run their own schools, which thus must be placed under state control, this despite the fact that Christian schools have been operating in the state for at least 150 years. Fr Paul Thelakat, spokesman for the Synod of the Syro-Malabar Church, told AsiaNews that the “rift between the left-leaning Marxist government in Kerala and the Church began […] with the self-financed professional colleges which the Church

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In Andhra Pradesh (AP) the government has tried to set up a virtual apartheid system, banning non-Hindus from Hindu holy places. Since 23rd July 2007 a state law has banned other religions from engaging in propaganda close to Hindu sacred places, i.e. places like the Tirumala Divya Kshetram, the whole Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, and the temples in the city of Tirupati as well as 19 other cities in the state with large temples. As a result of this the law virtually prevents non-Hindus from living, moving and undertaking any activity in such places. AP extremists want to go one step further and prevent Christians from carrying out any social activity. On 25th June 2006 for example four MC Sisters were assaulted during a visit to a hospital in the Hindu holy city of Tirupati. The nuns were in the Ruia Public Hospital to visit patients in the terminal phase of AIDS when some 50 members of the Hindu Dharma Parirakshana Samithi (Group for the defence of the Hindu religion) stormed the hospital, stopped the nuns accusing them of trying to convert the dying. The attackers came with journalists and cameramen, and held the sisters till 8 pm, when police arrived to arrest the nuns for “proselytising”. They were eventually released after the Metropolitan Bishop of Hyderabad, Mgr Marampudi Joji, intervened. In March 2006 the state of Gujarat took over the leper house in Ahmadabad, sacking the six Catholic nuns who ran the place and evicting them from the Ave Maria Convent which was their home for the past 60 years. Many of the sick they tended to said they would follow the nuns wherever they may go. “They have done everything for us,” Babban Sitapur told UCA News. “Not even our close relatives take care of us as they do.”

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started. It was a paradigm shift in education in Kerala where professional and quality education is the need of the hour and thousands of students were and are still going outside of the state to get an education. The Marxist party and its youth wing are entrenched in the old system which is withering away, especially because of the politicization of schools and colleges. Quality education has become costly and can no longer be free. The government says it is acting in the name of the poor but it is shortsighed, looking for votes, refusing to comply with the verdict of the Supreme Court on self-financed professional colleges”. In 2006 the state of West Bengal amended the School Service Commission Act which now requires minority schools and Christian institutions to accept teaching staff and school programmes selected by the government if they want to get public funds. Christian schools are also excluded from a government programme, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, which provides funds and assistance to children aged 6 to 14 years. By contrast, in state schools an attempt is underway to hinduise education. In Madhya Pradesh for example the government has proposed that state schools engage in “sun worshipping”, organising mass Surya Namaskara or ‘Salute to the Sun’ ceremonies as was done on 25th January 2007, an observance inspired by one of the first yoga teachings. And yet Catholic schools are appreciated and praised by everybody. In 2007 the Indian Minister for Development and Human Resources Development Muhammad A. Fatmi said that it was necessary to “recognise the precious contribution that Catholic schools offer the country”. This is even more important if we consider that according to UNICEF more than 60 million children in India do not attend school for even a single day in their lives. But despite this fact, Christian schools have also become targets for violent actions by Hindu extremists. According to official figures released by the Catholic Church more than 100 episodes of violence against Christian institutions or staff were recorded in 2007, down from 215 in 2006 and more than 200 in 2005 (Fides). The violent incidents are often “announced” as was the case in July 2007 when more than 250 Hindus from the Sangh Parivar devastated a school run by the Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Grace in the village of Vikas Nagar near the city of Dehra Dun (Uttarakhand). The school had received threats from BJP representatives for some time and had informed the police about them. The police, however, did nothing. Violence Sajan K. George, chairman of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), said that his organisation has “collected documentary evidence of more than 500 reported cases of anti-Christian violence” that took place “all over the country” between January 2006 and November 2007, largely as a result “of the sinister religious hatred by

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Catholics Fr Eusebio Ferrao, 61, parish priest at St Francis Church in Macasana (Goa), was killed in the night of 17th March 2006. The Fides News Agency reported that parishioners found him in his bed, smothered to death with a pillow. This priest used to write for a local paper commenting on sectarian violence in the area. On 21st March Amit Shukla and Manish Dubey, both from Allahbad (Uttar Pradesh), were arrested after confessing to the crime during interrogation. At the end of 2006 a Catholic leader in Jammu-Kashmir, Bashir Tantry, was gunned down by an unknown assailant. For the police the murder was likely motivated by religion since Mr Tantry was a former Muslim who had converted to Catholicism. On 29th January 2006 more than 100 Bajrang Dal activists shouted slogans and threw stones at Mgr Thoas Dabre, bishop of Vasai, and three priests who were visiting the village of Ghosali (Maharastra) where they were due to inaugurate a new shelter for orphans and street children. The attackers accused the priests of planning to convert the children. On 25th July 2006 unknown attackers seized two Salesian missionaries, Fr Soby Thomas (vice dean at the local Salesian High School) and Father Vinod, in Hebbagodi (Bangalore), and then beat them with sticks. On 10th September 2006 in Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) a group of Hindu nationalist militants stormed a school run by the Sisters of Loreto, breaking down the entrance gate, looting and devastating the premises, including the chapel.

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Hinduvta forces, under the umbrella organisation of the Sangh Parivar, [by groups] like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party.” In a letter sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in December 2007 the GCIC listed the various violent incidents against individuals and places of worships. In it the Christian rights group said that the purpose of such acts was “to create an atmosphere of fear and terror,” adding that “[t]his type of threat to internal freedom is worse than terrorist attacks.” Some “Hindutva elements even had the temerity to protest against the police for attempting to find the culprits.” And generally, attackers operate because “there has been a climate of impunity for any acts of violence that are committed against non Hindus.” Often the police have refused to “file charges or pursue matters;” instead, in some cases, it “actually included the names of the attackers in the list of victims.” Even BJP leaders and party members have been involved in attacks of this kind. It is impossible to account for all the cases in which Catholics and other Christians have been victims of physical violence or material loss. But here are a few significant examples.

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On 18th November 2006 the theological school run by the Carmelite Sisters in Carmelaram, on the outskirts of Bangalore, was invaded. As if that were not enough, the attackers then desecrated the school’s small Marian grotto, destroying the statue of Our Lady. On 30th November 2006 about 50 extremists attacked the High School for Girls in the Avila Convent in Misore (Karnataka), going on a rampage, assaulting the staff, accusing the school managers of performing conversions. The police opened an investigation against the school director. Between 17th and 18th December 2006 Hindu fundamentalists attacked the priests in charge of the St Thomas Church, in a Bangalore suburb, and of a nearby school. They then attacked the car that was carrying the Archbishop of Bangalore, Mgr Bernard Moras. Fr Anthony Samy, who was with the archbishop, said that “police were there but were only mute spectators. They were there in sufficient numbers to intervene. At least, they could have warned us not to proceed to the school gate”. On 14th May 2007 near Ranchi (Jharkhand), Fr George Minj was beaten by unidentified assailants who might even have intended to kill him. Sister Teresa Kindo, who was with him at the time, was also hurt. In the early hours of 17th July Fr V. Michael, a Catholic priest at the Chuhari Mission in Bettiah, was assaulted at his home. On 20th August 2007 extremists from the Bajrang Dal and the Hindu Jagrutika Samiti in Chitradurga district (Karnataka) handed out flyers written in the local dialect Kanada, ordering Christians to “immediately abandon Indian territory, or return to the mother religion which is Hinduism”. If they do not “they will be killed by all good Indians, who by doing so will show their virility and their love of the country”. The flyer listed the crimes “Christians commit” like “[t]reating everyone with love, educating orphans in order to convert them, offering health care to those who cannot afford it, ignoring the caste system, accepting marriage by consent, and agreeing to commercial exchanges between people who should not even associate with each other”. On 22nd September 2007 the High Court in Orissa sentenced Dara Singh for the murder of Fr Arul Doss, a priest in the Anandpur Church, who was killed on 1st September 1999. The Court recognised the particular “brutality” of the act, since Dara Singh and ten accomplices shot arrows at the clergyman before burning his church. Singh, whose real name is Rabindra Kumal Pal, had already been sentenced to death on 22nd September 2003 for the murders of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his seven- and nine-year-old sons who burnt to death as they slept in a car in Keonjhar district (Orissa) on 23th January 1999. On 26th October in Raseli (Madhya Pradesh), five Claretian nuns were beaten with sticks by some activists from the Dharma Raksha Samiti (Religion Protection Coun-

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Other Christian confessions Violence against other Christian denominations is no less intense than that against Catholics. Here are some of the more significant episodes. S. Stanley, 58, owner of a building used as a house church, was stabbed to death on 10th February 2007 in Kalliyoor, not far from Thiruvanandapuram, the capital of Kerala. A group of young men under the influence of alcohol had shouted anti-Christian slogans in front of the house; when the owner went out to confront them he was assaulted and stabbed to death in front of his wife, who was also roughed up. On 8th June 2006 Pastor Prem Kumar, from the Church of South India, was found dead, his head smashed in, his body mutilated. In late November 2006 Bashir Ahmad Tantray, a Muslim convert to Christianity, was killed by two Muslim fundamentalists in broad daylight in Mamoosa, Baramulla district (Jammu). Fearing further violence, his village chose not to give him a Christian funeral but arranged for burial according to Islamic rites. Goda Israel, 29, a Protestant pastor with the Emmanuel Mission International, was found dead on 20th February 2007 in Krishna district (Andhra Pradesh). He had been threatened by Hindu fundamentalists because of his evangelisation activity. Manzoor Ahmad Chat, 33, an Evangelical Christian who had not yet been baptised into the Salem Voice Church, was abducted and killed by Muslim fundamentalists on 14th April 2007. After decapitating him they left his head inside a box in front of a mosque. Suspicions fell on Hizbul militants, self-styled “freedom warriors”, i.e. Muslim extremists who are active in Pakistan and India. Hemanta Das, 29, a Hindu convert to Baptist Christianity, was beaten to death on 28th June 2007 in Chand Mari, near Guwahati (Assam). Ajay Topno, 38, an Evangelical Christian who worked for Trans World Radio, was killed on 19th September 2007 near the village of Sahoda, Ranchi district (Jharkhand). Hindu extremists in the area had earlier threatened to attack Christians, “guilty” in their eyes of carrying out conversions.

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cil), an extremist group that supports sati (suttee), the ritual suicide of widowed Hindu women. In November the Convent of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Rajgir and that of the Sisters of the Holy Heart near Muzaffarpur, both in Bihar, were attacked and sacked. The robbers stole money and told the nuns to go away. On 5th December 2007 about 150 Hindu extremists attacked the Church of the Divine Mercy in Pitampura, north of New Delhi, which is still under construction but has all the required permits. They razed to the ground all of the walls already built and destroyed the construction equipment (Fides).

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Vipin Mandloli, 27, an Evangelical convert from Hinduism, died on 14th October 2007 from gunshot wounds near the village of Aamkut (Madhya Pradesh MC Elias, 47, a Christian policeman and member of the Salem Voice Ministries, was killed on 26th October on the campus of the University of Changanassery, Kottayam district (Kerala). According to Kerala’s Home Affairs Minister, “BJP activists” were behind this murder. On the night of 20th November 2007 Hindu fundamentalists attacked the Pentecostal church in the village of Mandwa, Jagdalpur district (Chhattisgarh). Those inside were tied up and subjected to a drawn out beating; among them Pastor Sudroo who died from the injuries he suffered. The attackers eventually set the church on fire. Even though some of the culprits are known, the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum has denounced the police for not investigating the incident. Sajan George told AsiaNews that in December 2007 “Sangh Parivar radicals tried to kill Pastor Bikay Charan Sethi in Bamunigam. He sustained 50 percent burns [over his entire body] after they threw a petrol bomb at him.” On the night of 28th May 2006 in the village of Nadia (Madhya Pradesh) a group of Hindutva-inspired fanatics attacked and abducted two Christian women and three men. The women were raped and the men were seriously injured from gunshots. When they went to the police station to file a complaint about what happened to them Inspector Thakur arrested them. The women “were raped as punishment for changing religion and converting to Christianity”, said Indira Iyengar, a member of the Madhya Pradesh State Minorities Commission. The authorities, “whether civil, police or the courts failed to listen to the women and give them justice”, she added. One of the two women said that the “police told us that our charges were false. They refused to listen. Now, we have nowhere to go”. On 24th January in Ramchandrapur (Uttar Pradesh) more than 200 Hindus roughed up Pastor Ram Prakash and other Christians. When the clergyman went to the police to file a complaint he too was arrested under the local anti-conversion law. Beaten up in jail he was released on bail, only to be re-arrested later, accused of causing social tensions. Three leaders from the Church of the Nazarene were arrested on similar charges on 26th January in Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh). On 25th January 2006 in Jhabua (Madhya Pradesh), a group of seven police officers beat up two Protestant clergymen in a house. When they arrested them, they ordered them to cease “Christian activities.” It is not known whether any action was taken against the policemen. On 1st May 2006 in Seikmaijing (Manipur) Hindus demolished a church and assaulted some Christians, warning them to go away; they were protesting the fact that a local personality had become a Christian.

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On 30th June 2006 a group of Hindu fanatics set fire to a Pentecostal church in Shivani, in the southern district of Harda (Madhya Pradesh), destroying the Bibles that were inside and threatening to kill the pastor. On 8th October 2006 a mob of fanatical Hindus sacked and destroyed a shelter for widowed women and a school for poor children in the village of Danupura in the heart of Varanasi district (Uttar Pradesh); both institutions were run by a Christian couple from the United States who were accused of proselytising and forced conversions. For some years now extremists have been celebrating Christmas their own way, in an escalating wave of anti-Christian violence. In 2006 Arun Pannalal, general secretary of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum, said that “that on Christmas Eve some 50 vehicles carrying Hindu nationalists drove through the streets of Raipur, the capital of this central Indian state [of Chhattisgarh], warning people that they would close down any form of Christmas celebration”. Not satisfied with their action, “they beat up a teacher whom they accused of handing out Bibles in school. Despite the fact that the accusations were false, the woman was arrested by the police on charges of forced conversion”. For the same reasons members of a fringe Hindu group, the Dharma Sena, attacked Pastor Philip Jagdella, a Christian clergyman who was giving some sweets to children on 17th December. He, too, is now in prison. In Punjab local police arrested a clergyman with the Good Shepherd Community Churches, warning him of serious consequences “if he celebrated Christmas speaking about Christ”. Two other Protestant leaders received the same treatment. They were arrested on 23rd December and released the next day after they were warned “not to preach the Gospel anymore”. In Raipur (Chhattisgarh) on 2nd February 2007 a group of Hindu nationalists attacked a meeting of Christian pastors, accusing them of carrying out mass conversions to Christianity. Some 30 participants out of 120 were hurt; others were robbed. On 22nd February 2007 extremists demolished a church under construction in Bhubaneswar (Orissa). On 28th February a group of Hindus attacked the Believers’ Church Bible College in Jharsuguda (Orissa), beating up students and staff, going on a rampage inside the building. On 7th March 2007 Protestant Pastor Reginald Howell was beaten with steel bars as he prayed with disabled people in Hanumangarh (Rajasthan). In hospital doctors refused to treat him fearing the fanatics’ retaliation. Police refused to accept the complaint Rev Howell filed and forced him instead to leave the state and return to his home town in neighbouring Punjab. On 4th April 2007 in Orissa Sangh Parivar and RSS activists demolished a Lutheran Evangelical church and damaged the pastor’s property.

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On 7th June 2007 in Hessarghatta (Karnataka), a mob made up of young nationalist Hindus beat up Protestant Pastor Laxmi Narayan Gowda, paraded him naked in the streets of nearby Bangalore with a sign hung around his neck that said: “I am the one who was converting people.” They then tried to set him on fire. Prior to his conversion Pastor Gowda was a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (Compass Direct News). On the night of 14th October 2007, ten extremists attacked the New India Bible Church in Wayanad (Kerala), seriously wounding Protestant Pastor T. C. Joseph and his wife Ammini. What happened to the Emmanuel Mission in early 2006 typifies the sort of systematic planning that goes into attacks Christians have had to endure. “The conspiracy against the Emmanuel Mission began in 2002 when the BJP came to power in Rajasthan,” wrote John Dayal, chairman of the All India Catholic Union. “Christian orphanages and hospitals were shut down, their bank accounts frozen, and people working there were sent away. The worst consequences were faced by the inmates of these institutions.” The situation got out of hand when “action was taken against the archbishop and his son, Rev Samuel Thomas, who was later arrested in Uttar Pradesh. Every day one could read attacks in the press against them, attacks forming part of a daily denigration campaign orchestrated by Hindu nationalists, who are left free to offer rewards for the head of the Protestant leader. All this started with a book called Haqeekat, said to have been published by the mission headed by Thomas, which allegedly included passages injuring the religious sentiments of devout Hindus.” “Archbishop M A Thomas has been active in Kota for more than 30 years. His is an independent mission with a clear-cut charism: caring for orphans and running schools and hospitals for them. Although he is not part of the Catholic Church and not affiliated with any of the Protestant Churches and works independently of them, he is popular with the people and his record of service has led to the government awarding him the Padma Shree three years ago. But despite this, he continues to invite hostile attention.” “As soon as the BJP came to power in 2002, clandestine enquiries were launched against all his institutions. He was subjected to criminal inquiries and financial audits by the department dealing with the registration of societies and charitable organizations. In all these years, he has never been found guilty of any wrongdoing. Now suddenly, without notice, his organizations have been shut and their bank accounts stand frozen. This has led to a shortage of resources for the orphanages. We were told that for three days, food in the orphanages had to be cooked on a wood fire because they ran out of cooking gas. In the hospital, patients could not be treated because police on guard threatened that if any one was treated, the staff would be arrested and the hos-

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Muslims India’s Muslim minority has also been the target of Hindu extremism. And in some areas this has the potential of getting out of hand and turn into full-blown sectarian feuds. In Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh) Muslims and Hindus clashed in April 2006 over a dispute during a festivity. After it was over two people lay dead and eight were wounded. On 1st May, the authorities in Vadodara (Gujarat) tore down a 300-year-old mosque despite requests by local Muslims to have the building preserved as a national monument. In an attempt to disperse the crowd that protested the action the police killed two Muslims. The clashes that followed this incident saw Muslims engaged in virtual urban warfare; cars and stores were set on fire, and after days of violence six people were dead and 42 more injured. In July 2006 in Bhiwandi (Maharashtra) Muslims protested against the building of a police station near a Muslim cemetery. Here, too, the police response led to the death of two Muslims. Muslims in turn killed two policemen, setting buses and public buildings on fire; 18 people were injured, including 13 police agents. In that same month several bombs exploded on Mumbai trains, killing some 200 people and wounding another 700. From all the evidence these terrorist actions were meant to provoke Hindu-Muslim clashes. On 8th September 2006 a series of bombs exploded in an area near a mosque and a cemetery in Malegaon (Maharashtra), a predominantly Muslim city, as thousands of faithful gathered to celebrate Shab-e-barat, an observance during which Muslims pray for the dead. The carnage left 38 people dead and more than 100 wounded. In May 2007 a bomb exploded at a crowded Friday prayer in a mosque in Charminararea (Hyderabad), killing 12 people and injuring another 40. In Indian-held Kashmir Muslim rebel groups are active, trigger happy when it comes to targeting the civilian population. In April 2006 at least 35 Hindus, all civilians, were

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pital closed down. Inmates included children suffering from tuberculosis, including one in a coma.” “The Thomas family itself is terrorized. Non-bailable warrants were issued against the father, son and their senior staff; some were arrested because of this controversial book that offends Hindus. […] Samuel Thomas was arrested in Noida under shady circumstances, and it was only police action that saved him from being lynched.” Because of such charges about forced conversions and the “defamation against Hinduism”, the government of Rajasthan in February 2006 withdrew all permits from Emmanuel Ministries International (EMI). A month later it froze all of EMI’s assets, a measure eventually overturned by a court. EMI President Samuel Thomas was held in prison from 17th March till 2nd May 2006 for offending Hindu religious sentiments.

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killed in two attacks. The first left 13 people dead in Udhampur district; the second killed 22 in the mountain district of Doda. These were the most violent attacks since 2003 when India and Pakistan agreed to a cease-fire in the area. Security experts believe that the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT or Army of the Pure), a pro-Pakistan Islamist group, is behind anti-Hindu attacks (Hindus are a minority in Kashmir). In the last ten years, LeT insurgents are said to have carried out at least 17 massacres, resulting in the death of 270 Hindus. In the meantime the investigation into the Godhra train massacre continues. Here in 2002, the Sabarmati, an express train, was stopped and set on fire killing 59 people. This sparked further violence in which, according to official figures, 790 Muslims and 294 Hindus were killed, with more than 2,500 people injured. Unofficial sources say that the number of Muslims killed runs in the thousands. In October 2007 15 Hindus were sentenced to life in prison for burning 11 Muslims alive (including two women and a child) during sectarian clashes in 1992-1993. At the time Hindu extremists provoked very serious incidents that resulted in thousands of dead, mostly Muslim. Still the instigators of that violence have not yet been brought to justice. The commission of inquiry set up to investigate the clashes was headed by Justice B.N. Srikrishna, then a judge of the Mumbai High Court. It found that the Shiv Sena (an armed militant Hindu group) and its leader Bal Thackery were responsible for what was tantamount to an anti-Muslim pogrom. It also found that the BJP-led city administration had conspired with the culprits and that the police had stood idly by as the massacre unfolded. In the end though, the findings of the commission were simply disregarded by the official investigation.

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AREA 1,904,569 kmq POPULATION 222,030,000 REFUGEES 315 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 250,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 54.7% New religions 21.8% Affiliated Christians 13.1% Hindus 3.4% Others 7%

Baptized Catholics 6,627,000

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Legislation The Constitution guarantees religious freedom, but in recent years this right has, in effect, been increasingly threatened by an intense islamisation campaign driven by extremist movements and formations; and the government often finds it difficult to intervene against their initiatives. The authorities tolerate the discrimination and abuse inflicted by these groups of extremists and fanatics on minorities and do not prosecute those responsible. Aceh remains the only province authorised to apply the Shari‘a, but between 2006 and 2007 there was an increase in local laws inspired by Islamic precepts – there are now at least 46 such laws (10th March 2008) according to the Indonesian Women’s Coalition, and in some areas provisions have also been extended to non-Muslims. Jakarta has promised to monitor this phenomenon, only to subsequently allow local administrations complete freedom. The demolition of house churches continues, as do episodes of religious intolerance. Most people enjoy religious freedom, but the government only recognises six religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hinduism and – since January 2006 – Confucianism. Even though officially recognised, the six religions are obliged to respect precise laws or ministerial provisions, including: the “Revised Joint Ministerial Decree on the Construction of Houses of Worship” (2006), concerning the building of places of worship; “Overseas Aid to Religious Institutions in Indonesia” (1978), concerning donations from abroad, and the “Guidelines for the Propagation of Religion” (1978), which forbids proselytism in most situations. Other religious groups are only allowed to register as organisations, with the Ministry for Culture and Tourism, and with only limited permission to engage in religious activities. Organisations that are not registered do not have the right to establish a place of worship and also suffer other restrictions. The law obliges all citizens to state on their IDs which of the six official religions they belong to. Article 156 A of the Indonesian Penal Code establishes a minimum sentence of 5 years in prison for those offending any religion. Insults based on ethnic origin, race, colour or social class are also prosecutable. Since 2005 there has been a crescendo of extremist attacks

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against the so-called illegal house churches.The ministerial decree of 1969 (SKB No 1/1969) established that any religious community wishing to build a place of worship had to receive permission from the head of the local authority and also from the residents in the area in question. Legal authorisation was not easily obtained and requests by Christians were almost always left unanswered, often obliging the faithful to practise their faith in semi-illegality. The new text, the result of a debate between religious leaders of the various communities, government authorities and national security forces, maintains the basis of the previous one, but defines more specific requirements for obtaining permits. A legal permit must now be granted by the representative of the local government, who must first consult with representatives of the various communities – assembled together in the Communication Forum for Religious Harmony (FKUB) – and also with the local department of the Ministry for Religious Affairs. The FKUB must be composed of representatives of all the religions. It will evaluate the requests for permission and then present its “recommendations” to the local government. In order to obtain a new place of worship, a community must have at least 100 members. Some Protestant representatives wanted the number of faithful to be set at 60. The project must be approved by at least 70 local residents in the area of the proposed building and they must all be of a different religion from the community presenting the request. The Communion of Churches of Indonesia has instead proposed that the minimum number of faithful should be 60 and the number of local residents approving the request 40. According to a statement from Home Affairs Ministry, the procedure for obtaining a permit should not take more than six months and permits should be granted within 7 to 30 days. In the most recent debates on the new text of this decree, voices have emerged calling for the entire decree to be scrapped and replaced with a law on religious freedom. The spread of local legislation inspired by the Shari‘a Since 2004, following the coming into force of regional autonomy, dozens of regencies and municipalities have adopted laws influenced by the Shari‘a; some of these laws criminalise behaviour forbidden by Islamic Law such as adultery, prostitution, gambling, alcoholism and also restrict the freedom of women. Minority groups, Muslim intellectuals and parliamentarians from various political parties have for some time been asking Jakarta to abolish these laws, warning that there is a “sneaking” Islamisation of Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population in the world. The anti-prostitution law, passed in the Tangerang region in 2005, resulted in strong protests after a woman was accused of prostitution simply because she was walking home alone on the streets after dark. In regions such as South Sulawesi and Aceh, local laws require all public officials to understand written Arabic. After a long silence on this question, in mid November 2006 the Indonesian Ministry

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for Justice and Human Rights announced that it would revise the laws of the local governments, accused of discriminating against minorities, contrary to the principles of the Constitution. Minister Hamid Awaluddin announced that he would coordinate his work with the home affairs ministry, which had often in the past promised to check on the constitutionality of regional laws. Only six months earlier he had referred this question back to the individual local governors. Widodo Adisucipto, Minster for Political Legal and Security Affairs, had already emphasised that more than 85 percent of local laws were full of contradictions and that many were also discouraging foreign investment. According to Hamid’s report, the Justice Ministry will establish a human rights standard that will have to be respected by regional legislation. The revision of these controversial laws would be carried out by officials of the local human rights office. But the final word on the revocation of these “incriminated” provisions, will lie with the Minister of Home Affairs, who for the moment has not taken any initiative in this direction. In 2007 the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS, founded on Islamic principles) proposed a law for applying the Shari‘a to all those living in the province of Aceh, without distinguishing between religions. This proposal is part of the work undertaken towards the draft of a new Law for the administration of Aceh. This was established after the signing of the Helsinki Peace Agreement in August 2005 between Jakarta and the separatists of the Free Aceh Movement for Freedom (GAM). The Christian Prosperous Peace Party (PDS) immediately clarified that “Islamic courts have no authority to judge cases involving nonMuslim citizens”. Objections presented by the PDS received full support also from nationalist political parties such as the Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDIP) and the Democratic Party (PD) led by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The GOLKAR, Vice-President Jusuf Kalla’s party, presented a “compromise” solution stating that Islamic Law must be also applied to the non-Muslim residents in Aceh, who have committed crimes against or are involved in cases that also concern Muslim residents. According to a number of politicians, the law for the administration of Aceh threatens the principle of national unity, contained in the Pancasila, the five guiding principles for the country. In a letter addressed to the inhabitants of Jakarta before the elections for the governor, held on 8th August 2007, the Commission for the Apostolate of Lay People (KAJ) in the capital’s Catholic archdiocese warned that the PKS, “although not openly revealing its intentions, is implementing policies aimed at introducing the Shari‘a in this country”. The KAJ warned that attention should be paid to “radical right wing Muslim groups and political parties that call for Islamic Law to be applied at a national level”; this is a “political violation” of the fundamental principles of the Constitution itself which is based on pluralism. The letter continues, explaining that closing down

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house churches and attacks by the Islamic Defender Front (FPI) against a number of night clubs in Jakarta, should be seen as “preliminary steps” towards the creation of an Islamic state. As the president of the KAJ, Krissantono, emphasised, “The PKS claims to reject all forms of extremism, but there are various reasons for believing that its objective is to radically change modern Indonesia’s secular status in favour of a religious state with laws dictated by Islamic morals”. The increasingly numerous local laws inspired by the Shari‘a (perda syariat) threaten the religious freedom of non-Muslims, who are obliged to adapt to Islamic customs. In September 2007, AsiaNews reported the case of a Catholic family in Padang, in the province of Northern Sumatra, whose two daughters had been “invited” by their teachers to wear the jilbab (the Indonesian word for the Islamic veil). “This is the first time this has happened” – said their father – “and my daughters are frightened; they clearly understand that the problem is not at all an aesthetic one and perceive the hostility addressed at their religion”. This is not an isolated episode in this province that is almost totally Muslim. Since 2002, more than 19 districts here have approved the perda syariat, rules that should only be applied to Muslim citizens. One Catholic girl studying at the state school SMU Negeri II – in the district of Pesisir Selatan – reported that since 2005 this institute had also made the veil compulsory and that she had had no choice but to comply. Boniface Bakti Siregar, a Catholic working in the Ministry for Religious Affairs in Padang, reported that the perda syariat have had a powerful psychological impact, especially on non-Muslim students in districts that are far from the city: “They have no other choice and must attend state schools since the Christian ones are too far away”. A provincial ruling, which comes into force in 2008 in Western Sumatra, prescribes a test in reading and writing the Koran for both primary and high school students, as well as for couples wishing to marry, with no distinctions made for those of other religions. According to statements made by Guspardi Gaus – president of the special committee that drafted this law – all cities and regencies in Western Sumatra will apply this provision within a two year period. “The regency of the Mentawai Islands” – reported the daily newspaper Jakarta Post, quoting the politician – “will not be included, due to the powerful majority of non-Muslims who live there, but should the people want it, there will be no problem”. Out of 19 cities and regencies in Western Sumatra, seven have already adopted rules inspired by Islamic law. Some require students to say Muslim prayers at school. The idea of a decree concerning Koranic education came from the 4th local Legislative Commission for Education, which includes the members of various political parties, such as the National Mandate Party, United Development Party, Prosperous Justice Party, Golkar Party, Crescent Star Party and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle. The Commission – according to Guspardi –

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was simply responding to pressure and requests from the provincial community and the governor. There is, however, a strong movement among intellectuals and Muslim religious leaders in the country, committed to containing the growth of Islamic fanaticism and extremism. Kia Haj Hasyim Muzadi, President of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the largest Muslim organisation in the country, has described applying the Shari‘a as a “violation of constitutional principles and of the Pancasila”. He then promised that the NU would remain “loyal to the values of the founding fathers and the Constitution”. In the summer of 2007 the debate on Islamic law and the creation of a caliphate increased, after statements made by the extremist leader, Abu Bakar Bashir. At a conference sponsored by the Sunni radical group Hisbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), he said that “it is a great mistake not to apply Islamic law”. “The Indonesian government”, he continued, “seems to understand little about Islam”. According to Bashir – considered by many to be the spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiya (JI) terrorist group- “until Shari‘a is introduced, Indonesia will be manipulated by foreign countries”. Bashir’s statements provoked the disapproval and condemnation of Vice President Jusuf Kalla and a number of ministers, among them the Minister of Home Affairs, Mardiyanto and the Minister for Industries, Suryadharma Ali. Professor Syaffi Maarif, former President of the Muhammadiyah, the second largest Muslim organisation in the country, believes that the Muslim community should concentrate on exporting “Islamic values and not laws”. Tolerance, friendship and solidarity are some of the values referred to by the professor, a noted campaigner for peace and interreligious dialogue. According to this scholar, the level of tolerance expressed by Indonesian Muslims with regard to other religions is still low and he attacked the “fanaticism of some of his compatriots, all busy studying how they should dress, make friends or meet in public according to Islamic laws”. The threat of Islamic terrorism Terrorism is one of the greatest threats to religious freedom. On 1st February 2007 the Indonesian police arrested the two most wanted men in the central Sulawesi province, the leaders of a group of Islamic militants responsible for attacks on the Christian community. These arrests were made public by the police themselves, after they had arrested Basri, the most wanted man in the area, and his right-hand man Ardin, alias Rojak, during a raid. The security forces regard these two as the leaders of a gang guilty of at least 14 cases of violence in Central Sulawesi, including the murder of a female pastor, Susianti Tinulele, in Palu. The two men were also charged with the murder of two students in Poso – 17 year old Ivone Natalie and her contemporary Siti Nuraini, who were shot in the face from a very close distance in November 2005. A police spokesman in Poso, Muhammad Tahir, said that the group led by the two

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terrorists was linked to the JI, the terrorist network operating in South East Asia, also responsible for the 2002 bomb attack in Bali. “Their mission is to turn the whole of Poso Islamic”, added the spokesman, explaining that there are as many Christians as there are Muslims in this region at the moment. Between 1999 and 2001 Poso and Palu were the stage for a violent interreligious conflict which resulted in the deaths of eight thousand people and left half a million refugees. In recent years Indonesia has seen a series of bloody attacks for which the local Al Qaeda branch, the JI, has claimed responsibility and were mainly directed at “western” targets such as churches and embassies. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has for some time been harshly criticised for never having spoken out clearly against these violent attacks, that are sweeping away Indonesia’s tradition of religious toleration and moderation. Hence, in October 2006 the President called on all Muslims living in the country “to respect the law and not use intimidation or violence”. The United States and various other western countries continue to support the national government, seen as a stronghold on the frontiers of extremism. The JI has its bases, among other places, in Indonesia and in particular on the island of Sulawesi. Here the preachers and the militants recruit young terrorists, taught by instructors trained in Afghanistan and in the southern Philippines. This phenomenon is increasing and has deep roots, as an expert on interreligious relations in Indonesia explained. According to Father Ignatius Ismartono, coordinator of the Indonesian Episcopal Conference’s Crisis and Reconciliation Service, one of the main reasons is the “frustration experienced by the new generations”. For example, “Increased unemployment is easily used by extremists to enlist young people with no jobs or prospects. Since the law has failed in putting an end to corruption”, adds this Jesuit priest, “the extremists call for their religion to become the real law of the country”. To fight against this misuse of religion as an instrument of violence, Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, Hindu and Buddhist leaders, as well as intellectuals, have launched a “campaign for national morality”. “It is an attempt”, says Father Ismartono, “to send out a message and bear witness that the escalation of violence, and attacks, is not supported by the religions, which instead sincerely desire to work together for peace”. But the point of no return has not yet been reached. “Fortunately”, Father Ignatius concludes, “there is also a growing number of the faithful within the various religious communities who are ready to work side by side for dialogue and against fanaticism. Conflicts that use the banner of religion are based on a clash of fundamentalisms. Now more than ever, it is imperative for religious leaders to understand the roots of these conflicts, in the hope that they will not become more or less conscious instruments of this violence”.

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The Moluccas and Sulawesi The conflict between Christians and Muslims in the Moluccas and in Sulawesi province ended when two peace agreements were signed in 2001 and 2002. Violence has decreased, but occasionally there are still murders and disturbances that go largely unpunished. Analysts observe that by simplistically blaming interreligious hatred, it has been possible to avoid addressing other problems, such as the corruption of local authorities, the lack of intervention by the police at the scene of such incidents and the involvement of the army, and the problem of weapons circulating, in the area. In some of the more serious incidents of religion-based violence the magistrates and the local authorities have behaved in an ambiguous manner and shown little determination to charge the criminals or guarantee justice. On 3rd April 2007 the court in South Jakarta sentenced Wiwin Kalahe, alias Rahman, to 19 years in prison. His accomplices, Yudi Heriyanto, alias Udit, and Agus Nur Muhammad, alias Agus Jenggot, were sentenced to 10 and 14 years repectively. The three Islamic terrorists were involved in the beheading of three female Christian students in Poso in 2005. Indonesian public opinion saw this as a “lenient” sentence, given the gravity of the crime committed. The judges accepted that the trio’s terrorist attacks had provoked anxiety and fear throughout Poso. The three girls were walking home on 29th October 2005, when they were attacked and beheaded with machetes in the Gebang Rejo area in Poso. Two of their heads were found near a police station and the third was left in front of a church. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned this triple murder, which Pope Benedict XVI described as a “barbaric murder”. On 22nd September 2006, the Indonesian authorities carried out the death sentence imposed on three Catholics – Fabianus Tibo, Marinus Riwu and Domingo da Silva – allegedly responsible for the death of 121 Muslims in a school in Poso during the

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Christians The murder of the Protestant Pastor, Reverend Irianto Kongkoli in Palu, Central Sulawesi, on 16th October 2006, may well have had terrorist origins. Investigators believe that responsibility lies with a terrorist group already suspected of beheading three young Christians in Poso in 2005 and also linked to the JI network. The police in Central Sulawesi believe that the motive for these murders could have been to incite religious feeling in this province – already an area where sensitivities are running high – in order to stir up tensions between the Muslim and Christian communities. The 40-year-old pastor, leader of the Synod of the Central Sulawesi Christian Churches (GKST), was shot in the nape of the neck outside a shop in Palu. This town has also witnessed an escalation of tensions following the execution by firing squad on September 22, 2006 of three Catholics sentenced to death after the bloody interreligious conflict in 2000 in Poso, in this same province.

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‘interreligious’ conflicts in 2000. The executions were carried out in Palu, in spite of a chorus of international protests denouncing the irregularity of the trial. The authorities did not even allow the “Poso trio” to receive the Last Sacraments, it was revealed by their spiritual guide in the prison, Father Jimmy Tumbelaka, the parish priest of Saint Teresa in Poso. The government even denied them the right to a funeral in the cathedral in Palu. The three men were the only people sentenced to death for crimes related to the interreligious conflict of those years. The guilty verdict against them was considered by many to be influenced by Islamic fundamentalistsextremists and was the result of a summary trial which did not take into account the numerous witnesses and the extensive evidence in their favour. Even the Vatican intervened to try and save the lives of the three men. In August, the Pope appealed for clemency to the Indonesian President. A statement from the Vatican Press Office, released the day after the execution, expressed “intense regret” for the death of the three men and recalled the occasions on which the “Secretariat of State had repeatedly intervened with the Indonesian authorities to request, in the name of the Holy Father, a gesture of clemency for the three men sentenced to death”. “In addition to the telegram made public on 12th August”, says the statement, “Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano sent two letters to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, one dated 5th December 2005 and the other dated 7th March 2006. Other steps were taken through the Indonesian Embassy to the Holy See on 13th December 2005, on 14th February and on 20th September 2006”. The execution sparked violence and tension in Flores and Timor West (mainly Catholic) and in Central Sulawesi. In Flores three thousand people attacked and burned down at least three government offices, while in Kefamananu and Atambua, in West Timor, another five thousand people destroyed homes, public buildings and vehicles. The day after the execution, two Muslims were beaten to death while travelling through Tarpa, a village with a Christian majority. For this double murder, 17 Christians are undergoing trial, charged with terrorism. Other incidents were reported after September 2006, involving both Christians and Muslims. One attack also involved the head of the police in Central Sulawesi, attacked by an enraged crowd which destroyed the helicopter he was travelling on. The investigators are still investigating statements made by Tibo, who before his execution had named the16 people who he believed had actually orchestrated the violence in this province. There is little hope of clarifying matters entirely. Sporadic clashes continued until October, after the holy month of Ramadan in 2006. At the end of October violent clashes between Muslim inhabitants and the police resulted in one death and four injured; the Protestant Ekklesia Church was also set on fire. All this started on 21st October when the police carried out house searches in the village of Gebang Rejo, in Poso Kota. The officers went from house to house, asking

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Proselytism and the house churches This is an accusation often levelled at Christians. In April 2007 a tense situation developed in Bandung, in the West Java province, between the Anti Apostasy Division (DAP) and the Pasundan Christian Church (GKP), which they accused of paying local Muslims to convert to Christianity. The two parties met on 4th April to discuss the problem. On this occasion, Suryana, a member of the DAP from the local council of Indonesian ulemas, claimed that the GKP was responsible for proselytising among the inhabitants of Cisewu, and Pangauban, in the Bandung regency. “They carry out these illegal activities”, he explained, “paying at least 500 dollars for every Muslim who converts to Christianity”. Since 2005 there has been a crescendo of fundamentalist violence and pressure applied on Christian communities in West Java, and directed especially against the so-called illegal house churches, which have been threatened and forced to close down because they are unable to obtain building permits for places of worship. In 2006, in response to this issue, the central government published the long-awaited revision of the 1969 Ministerial Decree SKB No 1/1969, which regulates the construction of places of worship. But the lengthy procedures and problems in obtaining building permits still oblige many religious communities to practice their faith illegally. The violence against the so-called house churches has not ceased. On 20th July 2007 over one thousand Muslims protested against the existence of the Carmelite prayer

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the Muslim inhabitants if they had “anything to declare”. This operation was aimed at discovering and confiscating illegal materials and objects, such as weapons, false IDs, and unregistered vehicles. The officers then started to look for a man who had fled during the searches. The razia, as they are known locally, continued the following day, but this time the inhabitants reacted violently, attacking the local police station. The situation degenerated when someone called other people to join them and weapons were fired against the policemen. Events at this time raised suspicions that these clashes had been instigated by groups or individuals intent on reducing the area to chaos. For in actual fact the people had gathered to attack the police after receiving text messages falsely claiming that the police were attacking an Islamic school. In April 2007 the South Jakarta district court imposed sentences of between 14 and 18 years imprisonment on four other terrorists implicated in making bombs and in a series of attacks on the Christian community, including a bomb attack in the Tentena market on 28th May 2005. Twenty two people were killed on that occasion, while another 43 were seriously wounded. “During the trial –the accused acknowledged their mistake”, said one of the defence lawyers, “and explained that they had acted to avenge the Muslims who had died during the long interreligious conflict in that region”.

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centre on Cikanyere Hill in Kota Bunga, Cianjur regency (West Java), about 100 kilometres from Jakarta. A group called the Islamic People of Cianjur, wearing white clothes, left from the Siti Hajar mosque, about one kilometre away, protesting against a planned conference on the Holy Trinity organised by the Carmelite centre. They were joined by Muslims from nearby towns such as the local capital Bandung. The protestors loudly opposed the use of the Centre for celebrating Mass and other liturgical ceremonies and even against its existence. Using shields, sticks and dogs, the police supervised the entrance and prevented them from entering. This Centre, also known as the Lembah Karmel in Cikanyere, was founded about twenty years ago and has become a favourite place of worship for Catholics in the provinces of Jakarta and Western Java. Every week seminaries and conferences are organised here as well as periods of spiritual retreat. On 9th December 2007 the authorities prevented the parish priest of Christ’s Peace Church in South Duri, West Jakarta, from celebrating Mass. This Catholic parish had been the object of a powerful protest by a group of Muslims contesting its legality. Following great pressure from the extremists and so as to avoid “social tensions”, on 24th November the sub-district of Tambura ordered all activities at this church to cease. The parish priest, Father Matthew Widyalestari MSC, signed a document accepting these requests. He had, however, expressed the wish to at least celebrate Sunday Mass for his four thousand or so parishioners, who would otherwise be unable to practise their faith. But on 7th December, after a meeting between the Catholic leaders in this area and officials from the West Jakarta district and the Tambura sub-district, the political authorities insisted that he should not celebrate the Eucharist. The reason – really an excuse – is always the same one: “public order”, in other words the fear of interreligious conflict, as Father Widyalestari explained to AsiaNews. “The faithful keep on asking us to meet their spiritual needs”, he said; “they feel like wanted criminals, like illegal immigrants, obliged to find another location where they can practise their religion”. However it is “technically difficult to find a suitable place”, explained another priest, Father Lestari, MSC. “Some parishioners attend Mass in the provincial headquarters of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus – he said – but the location is not large enough to accommodate thousands of people”. On 18th November 2007 an enraged crowd of Muslims broke into and vandalised a house church in the sub-district of Dayeuh Kolot, Bandung. This event took place as the faithful were gathering at the home of female Pastor Obertina, to attend the Sunday service. The aggressors say that justice was done because, “this private home had no legal permit allowing it to be used as a place of worship”. The police did not arrive on the scene until very late in the proceedings. Seeing the police officers, the crowd dispersed. The Pastor reported that religious functions had been held in her home since the Eighties and that no one had ever protested about this.

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On 2nd September 2007 a group of over 300 Islamic extremists attacked a house church in the regency of Tangerang, 25 kilometres from Jakarta. The attackers seriously wounded the Pastor and six of the faithful and also destroyed all the community’s possessions. This attack took place while the faithful, about 60 people, had gathered for Sunday worship. On 14th June 2007, about 150 Islamic extremists marched to Bandung demanding the closure of a number of private homes that were being used as churches. The protestors belonged to the Mosque Movement Front (FPM) and the Anti-Apostasy Front. The leader of the FPM, Suryana Nur Fatwa, present on the streets, threatened that if the administration and the Religious Community Communication Forum did not close down the house churches, then his own group would deal with the matter. According to Fatwa, 26 private homes had been transformed into Christian churches in the regency of Bandung. Of these he said, “17 have spontaneously suspended their activities, but nine still continue to be active”. On 24th September 2006, about 50 people attacked and tried to destroy a church in the Indonesian province of West Java. The crowd of extremists set off at about 9 a.m. from a nearby mosque and marched to the Yayasan Penginjilan Roti Kehidupan Church – in the village of Arjasari, 20 kilometres south of Bandung – because they claimed it was being used by Christians for “illegal” prayer meetings. When those responsible refused to close the church, the group began to destroy the roof and only stopped when the police intervened. On 1st July 2006 a bomb exploded in the Ekklesia Protestant Pentecostal church. The powerful explosion occurred late in the evening and no one was killed or injured. Christmas 2006, was also a period of very high alert. On December 16th, the Catholic news desk at Radio Pelita Kasih received a phone call saying that a bomb had been placed in the office. The police and bomb-disposal experts inspected the entire building in Dewi Sartika – in the eastern sector of Jakarta – but the threat was a hoax. This radio station broadcasts Christian hymns and teachings. Muslims: the “heretical” sects Repression of the so-called deviant sects of Islam continues. The leader of a Muslin sect, judged as “heretical” by the Indonesian Council of Ulemas (MUI, the largest Islamic Forum), may be brought to trial charged with blasphemy. On November 1st 2007, Ahmad Moshaddeq, leader of Al Qiyadah Al Islamiyah, handed himself over to the Indonesian police, who had been searching for him after the fatwa issued against him by the MUI for having allegedly besmirched the image of Islam. This case has led to a heated public debate in Indonesia, and some even spoke of “mini-theocracies” in the West Java and West Sumatra provinces, where initiatives taken by police forces appear to be at the behest of religious leaders, rather than the political or judicial

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authorities. According to the police, Al Qiyadah has about 41,000 followers throughout the country. This sect is considered as “deviant” from Islam because it does not consider as compulsory the pilgrimage to Mecca, fasting, and praying 5 times each day. Furthermore, Moshaddeq describes himself as the new prophet, after Mohammed. The fatwa issued by the MUI was likewise followed by condemnation from the two other largest Muslim organisations in the country, the Nahdatul Ulama (NU) and the Muhammadiyah. For his part, the local police chief, Sutanto, warned that the presence of followers of this heretical sect would not be tolerated in the capital. Attacks by fanatics on the headquarters of Al Qiyadah in Bogor (West Java) and Padang (West Sumatra), and police intervention involving the arrest of about ten leaders of the sect on the pretext of “protecting them from attacks”, resulted in comments about the creation of “mini-theocracies” in these areas. It does in fact seem that in Padang and Bogor – as reported by one Indonesian blog – Islamic religious leaders have more influence than the civil authorities and are pursuing a campaign for eliminating all deviations from orthodox Islam. These same provinces are also often the stage for antiChristian activities. After the fatwa issued by the Council of Ulemas, and the attacks by extremists, the Indonesian authorities decided to ban the activities of this Muslim group that does not believe that Mohammed was the last prophet. The case involving Al Qiyadah is not an isolated one and seems part of a real campaign against “heresies” within Islam. On 8th November 2007 the MUI’s offices in Pekanbaru in Sumatra also declared as heretical the Islamic school of Al Haq, guilty of having claimed that the teachings of the NU and the Muhammadiyah did not reflect “pure” Islam. This ongoing trend risks triggering strong social tensions. The fatwas issued by the MUI against one group or another are often followed by attacks by fanatics against the premises of the group thus accused. The government is worried about the growth of these sects and the social tensions triggered by such fanaticism. According to Vice-President Kalla, the members of these Islamic sects are increasing above all among university students, but “this problem cannot be addressed with violence”. On 20th September 2007, in less than ten minutes, a group of more than 500 Muslims destroyed a “domestic mosque” longing to the Lembaga Dakwah Islam Indonesia, an Islamic missionary group considered as having radical characteristics. The attack took place in the village of Tanggul Weran, in the Jember regency, in East Java province. According to the police chief in Jember, “the domestic mosque did not have a government permit. This is why it has been destroyed”.

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The parents of the three Christian girls beheaded in 2005 in Poso, Central Sulawesi, forgave their daughters’ murderers. On 20th November 2006, the Indonesian police organised a meeting between the families of the victims and the three terrorists now undergoing trial. Hasanuddin, the organiser of the triple murder, repeated that he had repented and expressed his profound pain together with his accomplices, Irwanto and Haris. In tears, the mother of one of the girls said she was prepared to forgive them. The Islamic militants and the Christian families then embraced and shook hands as a sign of peace. The police department’s spokesperson explained that “the meeting in Poso had no political objective other than that of promoting harmony” and that the police had only facilitated this event. The police chief described the encounter “a historical moment”, in which victims and murderers were able to “exchange their most profound feelings and try and experience forgiveness”. Hasanuddin, Irwanto and Haris admitted their responsibilities in the murders and now risk the death sentence. The accused explained that with this aggression on the three young girls they wished to avenge the many Muslims who had died during the interreligious clashes in Poso from 1999-2001. On 30th July 2006, the Jakarta Post reported, thousands of Christians and Muslims from various villages gathered in Waai to place the first stone of a Catholic Church that is to be built on the ruins of a previous one, destroyed during the 2001 interreli-

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Positive signs There are, however, also some positive signs. On 8th June 2007, after almost two years in prison, Rebecca Loanita, Etty Pangesti and Ratna Mala Bangun, three Christian teachers accused of proselytism, were released thanks to a reduction of their sentences. The news was reported by Compass Direct News. Rebecca and her two colleagues taught Sunday School in their community in Indramayu, in West Java. On 1st September 2005 they were found guilty of having violated the Law for the Protection of Children dated 2002, by trying to convert Muslim children to Christianity. They were sentenced to three years in prison. During the trial, which lasted four months, Islamic extremists tried in every possible way to intimidate and influence the judges. This ruling was described as “unjust” by many human rights organisations, since the school’s activities were aimed at Christians and any Muslim children present were there by permission of their guardians. Thanks to a powerful international campaign in their favour, the sentence imposed on these three women was reduced for “good behaviour”, but they will continue to be supervised until February 2008. For security reasons, their release was earlier than expected; Islamic extremists had in fact announced that they would gather in front of the prison to protest against the decision of the authorities.

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gious conflicts in Ambon. The new place of worship will be called the John Paul II chapel. Eye-witnesses reported an “atmosphere of reconciliation”. Thirteen young people from Tulehu performed a traditional dance to welcome the guests. The GPM band from Waai sang religious hymns to accompany the dancing by the girls. The event was also attended by the members for the Committee for the Rebuilding of the Church, many of whom are Muslims.

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IRAN

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AREA 1,648,195 kmq POPULATION 70,600,000 REFUGEES 963,546 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 95.6% Zoroastrians 2.8% Baha’i 0.7% Affiliated Christians 0.5% Others 0.4%

Baptized Catholics 17,000

IRAN

From a political and religious point of view, Shia Islam and the Iranian state are one and the same. As Article 4 of Iran’s Constitution states: “All civil, penal financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria. This principle applies absolutely and generally to all articles of the Constitution as well as to all other laws and regulations, and the fuqaha’ of the Guardian Council are judges in this matter.” Only three religious minorities – Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians – are officially recognised (Article 13); all other minorities (Sunni, Baha’is, Ahmadi, etc.) are “de facto” discriminated against, sometimes violently. Buddhists and Hindus are likewise not recognised and live in a legal limbo, but are not subjected to violence. Recognised minorities are dhimmi, that is “protected”, second class citizens, open to abuses and denied many of the rights that pertain to true religious freedom, but often required to show their support for government policies. In the attempt to show themselves as defenders of the purest and most profound form of Islam, Iran’s political and religious elite ends up by persecuting Shiites as well, especially young people who, under the influence of globalised models, would like to imitate young people in other countries in the way they dress, listen to music and make use of the information media. Campaigns by “modesty patrols” to enforce morally and islamically correct clothing effectively enforce rules that deny religious freedom to people since everyone (Muslim and non-Muslim) is required to submit to a single (Islamo-national) dress code imposed by the country’s rulers to control and repress the population. The group most directly targeted is the women, who have to wear chador and hijab, wear their hair tied together and covered, and use no makeup. But men too can be reprimanded and fined if they wear a tie, shorts or a T-shirt. The rigid system of separation between men and women in schools, public places and hospitals is similarly justified in the name of the Islamic ideal and the authorities have gone to great lengths to enforce it by building women’s and men’s only schools, hospitals, bars, etc.

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Domestic censorship has been stepped up. President Ahmadinejad has infiltrated “revolutionary” ideas and personnel into the state services, from traffic police to fire departments. In addition to unleashing “modesty patrols”, which control people even in the car, he has also started a campaign against immorality, (which in practice means the use of the Internet, or satellite TV) and by cracking down on all dissidents, i.e. trade unionists, intellectuals, journalists, etc. Overall, few dissidents may actually be in prison, but most, like Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, continue to live in a strictly curtailed freedom. According to many analysts, such suffocating control masks a profound crisis of credibility for the political and religious leadership, mired as it is in corruption and the economic collapse of the country. Powerless, the people have responded by paying less and less attention to what their leaders say, engaging instead in passive resistance. Baha’is The Baha’is are the country’s most violently persecuted minority; they are also the largest, with about 300,000 members. This faith was founded around 1863 by a Persian nobleman, who came to be known as the Bahá’u’lláh, who proclaimed himself to be a new prophet, following in the footsteps of Moses, Jesus and Mohammed, but in doing so he challenged the Muslim belief that Mohammed was the last of the prophets. Though permitted under the reign of the Shah, the Baha’i faith was deemed heretical and banned by the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Since then more than 200 Baha’is have been executed or murdered; hundreds more have ended up in prison; tens of thousands have lost their jobs, pensions and businesses. All Baha’i institutions have been banned and Baha’i holy places have been seized by the government or destroyed. Many Baha’is have been convicted for teaching their religion to their children. And young Baha’is are not allowed to enrol at university unless they declared themselves to be Muslims. In early 2008 news reached the West, saying that three Baha’is had been sentenced in Shiraz to four years imprisonment for undermining public security by engaging in propaganda against the political system and proselytising for their faith on the “pretext of helping the poor”. According to the Justice Department spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi, another 51 were given a one-year suspended prison sentence, but with the requirement that they attend courses by state propaganda officials (see AsiaNews, 31st January 2008). Arab, Kurdish and Baluchi minorities As followers of Sunni Islam these minorities enjoy no cultural recognition and complain of discrimination. Hatred against them is also ethnic in nature. Most of them live along the borders with countries currently at war (Iraq and Afghanistan), where drug

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trafficking fuels violence and poverty. Such distant regions have high levels of unemployment and illiteracy as well as other major social problems but get very little funding from the state. In the east, near Afghanistan and Pakistan, lies the province of Sistan-o-Balochestan. Here a Sunni extremist group named Jundallah has been carrying out terrorist actions on a regular basis, even threatening Sunni religious leaders for being too accommodating towards the Iranian state. On 14 May 2006 Iranian police chief Askandar Moemeni blamed the group for the murder of 12 people near the Kerman-Bam highway. According to the deputy governor of Sistan-o-Balochestan province, six “rebels”, part of a larger group a group of 15 to 20 militants dressed in police uniform, were killed by security forces. The Baluchi population stands at 1.4 million, most of them Sunnis of the Hanafi School. The “Arab” province of Khuzestan is located in the country’s south-west, on the border with Iraq. Violence, repression and oppression of the Sunni minority by the Shi’ite state are commonplace here as well. In May 2006, a “Wahhabite sheikh” was arrested and accused of instigating, if not organising, rallies and bomb attacks. The region, which is home to two million Arabs, has 80 percent of Iran’s oil and gas reserves. For this reason control and repression by the Revolutionary Guards (elite corps, answerable above all to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei) is particularly intense in this part of the country. Indeed the authorities have built a new military base in Abu al-Fadl instead of fulfilling demands by the Arab minority for better public services and an end to the socioeconomic discrimination. The Iranian Kurds (5-8 million, or 7 percent of the population) live in the west, near Iraq. They too are Sunnis. Kurds were blamed for two explosions on 8th May which injured six people at the Governor’s House and the Chamber of Commerce in the city of Kermanshah (250 km from Baghdad). Whenever ethnic Kurds protest crackdowns follow. At times the authorities go so far as to use the military to suppress dissent, including using artillery against villages located near the border, where the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK (considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and others) is accused of having its operational bases. But there is also a rival Kurdish party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) which occasionally launches attacks against Iranian targets from Iraq. Iran has accused, variously, the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel of backing these rebel groups but has failed to acknowledge the fact that the deeply rooted causes of such violence are the frustration generated by discrimination and Iran’s failure to respect their human rights and uphold the rule of law, including the right to freely profess their own Sunni religion. In February 2008 Rooz, a website associated with expatriate Iranian dissidents, reported that Ayub Ganji, a young Iranian Sunni cleric had been found after disappearing

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three weeks earlier. When found he was suffering from hallucinations, unable to recognise his wife and son, and bore signs of torture and injections on his body, and could only say “Don’t hit me”, “electricity”, and “No! No! No!” This 30-year-old cleric had been abducted in front of the Ghaba mosque, which he ran, in the city of Sanandaj (Iranian Kurdistan), and driven away in an unidentified car. In his Friday sermons he had criticised among other things the rejection by the Guardian Council of the great majority of moderate candidates for the 14 March Majlis (parliament) elections. Some 909 reformist candidates had announced their candidature but only 138 had been allowed and they gained 49 seats (hence with almost no chance of changing the political order). When Ganji was found he was in shock and had lost weight, Rooz reported. After being carried inside his mosque, it was realised that his condition required medical attention and he was taken to hospital. “Mr. Ganji has not said anything since his return, and he is incapable of recognising his close relatives”, a civil rights activist said. Signs on his body indicated that whoever had held him had “subjected him to severe torture”, he added. Moreover, there were also “two injection spots on his feet”. While it was not clear who his captors were or what exactly they subjected this cleric to, “He appears to be completely brainwashed. His general condition is not good and there are plans to transfer him to Tehran for a full medical examination”, the spokesman said (see AsiaNews, 12th February 2008). Catholics The Catholic Church, both Eastern (Armenian and Chaldean) and Latin, enjoys at least some freedom of worship. This means they have churches where their members can gather and where religious worship can take place, but they cannot express their faith in public or outside their community. Any missionary action whatsoever is banned as proselytism, as is all public expression of their faith. Since the “Islamic” cultural and social model is imposed on everyone, Christians tend to refrain from public expression of their lifestyle, which is more open in terms of male-female relations, eating, drinking and listening to music. Even though President Ahmadinejad boasts that the Christian minority “enjoys equal rights”, Christian communities are in fact reduced to the status of ethnically ghettoised minorities. And yet Iran too has signed the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. [And that] This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching” (Cf Art. 18.1). What is more, Christians

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Protestants Protestant communities, inasmuch as they are supported by one or other of the foreign embassies, are respected as Christians, but their status remains precarious, especially for those organised in “local house churches.” Less protected against arbitrary rule and frequently less prudent than the Churches of the apostolic tradition, these “underground communities” have in fact become targets of the regime. On 10th December 2006, in the run-up to Christmas, Iran’s secret police launched raids against Christian communities in Karaj, Tehran, Rasht and Bandar-i-Anzali. The operation “netted” 15 arrests of local house church members of the self-styled Free Evangelical movement. The police gave various reasons for the arrests, including activities of evangelisation and acts against national security. Police seized computers, CDs, videos, Bibles and evangelical literature. In the following days various members of the same movement were called in by the police and interrogated for one or two days, then released. The authorities also warned the 600 members of the community not to report the news about the arrests to the outside world. Two of those arrested, Barman Irani and Seyed Abdolreza Ali Haghnejad, were freed on 14th December. The others were released on bail between the middle and the end

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are marginalised by persistent undercounting. For the government, officially, there are 79,000 Christians in the country. However, Armenians alone are thought to number at least 200,000 and other Christian denominations must total from 20,000 to 50,000 members. The Latin Church is made up mostly of immigrants living in the capital; they include diplomats, students, businessmen and sometimes tourists. Her close links with the foreign embassies, including the Apostolic Nunciature, provide a legal basis for her existence and enable her to keep open her places of worship and have space in the cemeteries. Converts from Islam face the greatest problem, since they are de facto “illegal”. These are either Muslims who have converted to Christianity, former Christians who have “repented” and returned to their original faith after formally converting to Islam (in order to marry a Muslim, for example), or else the children of mixed Muslim-Christian families. Very often, especially those who are new converts from Islam, they have to hide their new faith, even from their own family, or else emigrate if they want to be open about it. The police are always present at Christian religious services. Officially, they are there to “protect” Christian places of worship, but in practice they prevent all those who are not “legally Christian” from attending. Under customary law apostasy is punished with the death penalty, often carried out by the relatives of the convert.

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of December. Fellow members of this Christian group targeted by the secret police were able to come up with € 30,000 (US$ 45-50,000) in bail money to get two Tehran prisoners out, Hamid-Reza Tolou’ee and Shirin Sadegh, the latter is the sister of the man still in prison. As for the rest, the police accepted their “work permits” in lieu of bail. One of the group’s leaders, Behrouz Sadegh-Khandjani, remained for some time in prison in police custody on the pretext that he had not paid for damages he had caused in an accident with an uninsured rental car. It seems the police were able to persuade the owner of the car rental company to pursue him for compensation (see AsiaNews/Compass Direct News, 5th January 2007). On 26th September 2006, an Iranian Christian woman and her husband, a convert from Islam, were arrested by the secret police in Mashad (north-eastern Iran). Thanks to the international coverage their case received they were freed later, on 5th October. According to Middle East Concern (MEC), the two were released on bail even though no specific charges had been brought against them. A MEC press official said the “authorities linked the arrest to the Christian activities of the couple.” The wife, 28-yearold Fereshteh Dibaj, is the daughter of an Evangelical pastor, a convert from Islam who was murdered in 1994. Her 35-year-old husband, Amir, converted to Christianity at the age of 20. According to Pray for Iran (www.prayforiran.com), “at 7 am on 26th September 2006, several members of the Iranian secret police entered their apartment, taking away computers, Christian books and other things”. Before his arrest Amir was able to call relatives, asking them to come and pick up their six-year-old daughter, Christine. When Amir’s mother arrived at the house, the couple had already been taken away and two police officers were still searching the premises. They told Amir’s mother that the couple would be taken to a police station, which turned out to be false because they were actually brought to a secret centre of the Revolutionary Guards. Fereshteh and Amir run a house church in Mashad, one of the holy cities of Iranian Islam, the destination of many pilgrimages. Fereshteh’s father, Mehdi Dibaj, had been arrested on apostasy charges and sentenced to death when she was six years old. He was eventually released as a result of international pressure, but was abducted and murdered a few months later. Fereshteh’s brother, Issa Dibaj, who lives and works in the United Kingdom, has called on people to spread the news about the couple’s arrest to make sure that the rest of the world “knows about this and cares”. Issa, who has come to terms with his father’s death and forgiven his executioners, remains hopeful about Christianity in his country. “The average Iranian is fascinated by this message of love. They look at their own religion and see nothing but fighting and hatred. Then they see Christians who love each other, who are so joyful; they see the difference immediately and they want to know how to become like that. The government doesn’t like this.”

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Jews There are approximately 25,000 Jews in Iran. They represent the largest Jewish community in the Middle East outside of Israel. Generally speaking, they are not mistreated and many Iranian Jews are proud of their Iranian and Jewish roots. Like Christians, they cannot easily find a public service job, but the regime’s anti-Israel rhetoric has not usually spilled over into grassroots anti-Semitism. In December 2006 the Foreign Ministry organised a ‘negationist’ conference on the Holocaust with international holocaust deniers invited as expert speakers. The event was mounted after President Ahmadinejad claimed in several speeches that the Holocaust was a “myth” invented by the West to justify the creation of the State of Israel. According to some Iranian Jewish leaders, although the conference and speeches were despicable, they had no “effect on our daily life” (Christian Science Monitor, 27th April 2007).

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Converts and apostasy So far no law has been adopted in the matter, but according to the Institute on Religion and Public Policy (IRPP), a bill that would impose the death penalty on apostates has been tabled in Iran’s Majlis or parliament (see IRPP, 5th February 2008). Hitherto, many Muslims who have converted from Islam have risked the death penalty but international pressure has so far stopped Islamic courts from imposing it, commuting it instead to long prison sentences. According to the IRPP, the new proposal is apparently backed by the Iranian government but has to be vetted by parliament. Article 225 of the draft law refers to two types of “apostasy,” i.e. “innate” and “parental,” both of which would be punishable by the death penalty. The former refers to situations in which someone is raised in an environment where at least one parent is Muslim and where he or she is Muslim on reaching adulthood and then leaves the faith. The latter refers to situations in which someone living in a non Muslin environment converts to Islam as an adult but then decides to abandon the Islamic faith. In the latter case apostates can repent to avoid execution. “After the final sentencing, for three days, he/she would be guided to the right path and encouraged to recant his/her belief,” the article stipulates. “If he/she refused, the death penalty would be carried out.” Although some sections of the draft law appear to indicate that both men and women can be executed for apostasy, Section 225.10 states that convicted female “apostates” will be imprisoned for life. The proposed law also stipulates that “hardship” will be exercised on a female “apostate”, who will be immediately released if she recants. “The condition of hardship will be determined according to religious laws,” the draft states.

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Islam and moralisation Pressured by the international community on the nuclear issue and human rights, Iran’s ruling class has used moralisation along Islamic lines as a way to control the population, frightening people to the point that few now dare protest or organise antigovernment demonstrations. For at least two years a campaign of intimidation has been underway – including public hangings, arrests of students, the imposition of the death penalty on women and juveniles, and the shutdown of cybercafés and other Internet outlets that fail to respect Islamic values. On 2nd January 2008 a young woman was executed in Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison for defending herself against her husband’s violent behaviour. Rahele, the woman concerned, killed her abusive husband two years earlier to escape from a life of constant abuse. The mother of a 3-year-old boy and 5-year-old girl, Rahele asked her motherin-law to forgive her and so save her from execution. In fact, rooted in the Lex Talionis, Iranian law grants the victim’s family the power to decide the fate of those who, intentionally or unintentionally, committed the killing. A crackdown has been underway against Iran’s universities and cybercafés. Between 14th and 15th December the police searched 435 cybercafés with 170 receiving a warning and “23 people arrested,” including 11 women. The main reasons invoked were “playing immoral video games, obscene images and the presence of women with improperly worn hijabs”. Indeed, the campaign to shutdown cybercafés is running parallel to a new crackdown against women on the pretext of “improper dress.” In the last six months thousands of women have been arrested or “warned” by the police because of their clothing, makeup or visible hair. Last April Police Chief Ismail Ahmadi-Moqaddam reported that in 2006 a million women had been arrested for the way in which they were wearing the hijab (Islamic veil) and that 10,000 men and women had been tried for violating “Islamic” rules. Last summer fashion shows were even organised, with chador and veils, in order to persuade women to conform to the Islamic model (AsiaNews, 16th July 2007). Traders who sell ‘unislamic’ clothing can also be prosecuted and their businesses closed. The authorities also decided that in order to enforce their moral code on the media, all TV productions that do not have prayer scenes will not be allowed to air (AsiaNews, 12th May 2007). Religion’s formal role is always preponderant on TV Programmes stop for daily prayers; passages from the Koran are frequently read and speakers proclaim the name of God before making any announcements. Children’s shows are required to teach the importance of prayer. For the schools, a plan to make the study of the Koran compulsory for the last four years of school is under consideration. By the same token, the Pasdaran Corps (the

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Revolutionary Guards) and other “revolutionary” agencies are being urged to open up private schools, especially for pre-school children and in technical fields, and to give them a decidedly religious character (AsiaNews, 27th October 2006). Any view that diverges from the official line is violently persecuted. Hard-line Shia schools have access to the corridors of power and are free to do as they please, whilst those run by reform-oriented or moderate Shia leaders are stifled. One such leader, Hojjatoleslam Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari, was sentenced to several years in prison for stating that wearing the Islamic veil all the time was not compulsory. He was freed a few months ago but defrocked, banned from teaching and not allowed to wear the religious habit. In October 2006 Ayatollah Mohammed Kazemeini Boroujerdi was arrested because he supported a return to an Islam in which religion and politics were separate (BBC, 8th October 2006). In order to arrest him police had to use tear gas to disperse hundreds of his followers who had formed a protective ring around his Tehran residence.

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IRAQ

IRAQ

AREA 438,317 kmq POPULATION 28,810,000 REFUGEES 42,354 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 2,778,305

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 96% Affiliated Christians 3.2% Others 0.8%

Baptized Catholics 304,000

On 15th October 2005 Iraq approved its new Constitution, which proclaims Islam as the “official religion” and also establishes that “No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established” (Art. 2.1a). The text also states that the State defends democracy and basic freedoms as well as the full religious rights of all believers (Articles 2.1b and c and 2.2), and guarantees administrative, political, cultural and educational rights for all the different Iraqi ethnic groups, including the Turkmen, Chaldeans and Assyrians, who are mentioned specifically (Art. 121). The situation of the Christians Christians, however, played no role whatsoever in drafting this new Constitution, and in vain asked for the suppression, or at least amendment, of Article 2.1a (30 Giorni, No. 10-2005). Their very weak representation in the Parliament elected on 15th December 2005 (just 3 seats out of 275) does not allow them to influence the outcome of the voting on legal matters. Furthermore, an individual’s religion continues to be indicated on identity cards, which makes Christians easy to identify. Among the advantages arising from the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime (2003), it can be said that all the educational centres that were previously nationalised have now been returned to the Churches that originally set them up and that it is now possible to provide religious instruction in these schools (on this point see Auxiliary Bishop Jacques Isaac of the Chaldeans in Baghdad, in France-Catholique, Issue No. 3026, 26th May 2006). The Churches also have their own courts for all matters relating to their juridical status. Finally, for the first time in the history of Iraq, Christians have been able to organise dozens of denominational political parties. However, according to Monsignor Georges Casmoussa, the Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, they have no real influence at an institutional and juridical level. Furthermore, many Christians in the province of Mosul have been deprived of the voting rights (see “Les Irakiens chrétiens: rumeurs, réalités, enjeux”, a round table organised by the Oeuvre d’Orient in Paris on 23rd November 2007).

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Anti-Christian violence So, Iraqi Christians are suffering acts of violence and intolerance every single day. The following is a list of events reported in 2006 and 2007. On 29th January 2006, two churches were attacked in Kirkuk. A thirteen-year-old boy, a member of the choir, Fadi Raad Elias, was killed together with three other Christian believers. According to Archbishop Sako, it is hard to discover precisely who the perpetrators of these crimes are: “extremists, fundamentalists, islamists, common

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None of this however is enough to guarantee that Christians can remain safely in Iraq. According to Archbishop Jean-Benjamin Sleiman of the Latin-rite community in Baghdad, “A clear perspective obliges one to see that everything points towards the dissolution of Christianity in Iraq. In the current institutional framework, which makes the Shari‘a the only source of legislation, there is no room left for Christians. They must choose between retreating into themselves and being lost among many others” (L’Homme nouveau, No. 1382, 11th November 2006). During an address he gave to the French Senate in Paris on 12th July 2007, Archbishop Sleiman said, among other things, that “They [Christians] often feel they are the victims of a conspiracy or of a plan for political reorganisation”. The Patriarch of the Chaldeans, Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, for his part said: “We suffer because we bear the name of Christian” (30 Giorni, No. 6/7-2007). And in fact, the ineffectual authority of the State, bunkered down inside the fortified Green Zone in the centre of Baghdad, places Christians in an extremely precarious situation. They are the victims of all kinds of violence inflicted on them by mafia-like gangs, taking advantage of their vulnerability, and by Islamic movements wishing to reduce Christians to the status of dhimmis (“protected subjects” in submission to the Muslim power) or oblige them to leave the country. Islamic aggression has increased since the proclamation, in October 2006, in Baghdad and in the majority Sunni regions, of an “Islamic State of Iraq” by an Iraqi branch of Al Quaeda known as the “Alliance of the Embalmed”, in reaction to Parliament’s approval of a law creating a Federal State (Le Monde, 17th October 2006). In Dora, a Sunni majority district in southern Baghdad where Christians were once numerous, they are now “being subjected to a real religious purge”, said Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk (ZENIT, 24th June 2007). Three quarters of the Christians have abandoned the district (Joseph Yacoub, “Les chrétiens engloutis dans la nuit irakienne”, Oasis, No.6, October 2007, p.93). The Patriarchs of the Chaldean and Assyrian Churches have launched a joint appeal: “Christians are the victims of blackmail, kidnappings, and being forced to move out in many parts of Iraq, in particular in regions controlled by the so-called “Islamic State of Iraq” […], while the government remains silent and is taking no radical measures to stop these events” (Reconquête, Paris, No. 238, May 2007).

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criminals released by Saddam Hussein before the American invasion. Certain movements want to ‘purify society’ of all non-Muslim elements, and impose Islamic Law on society, even though many Iraqis do distinguish between Western and Oriental Christians” (L’Eglise dans le Monde, No. 131, 3 tr. 2006). On 12th April 2006, the Anglican priest Andrew White reported the kidnapping and murder of four members of the Alpha Evangelisation programme who were working with him. In May 2006, a Christian who had taken refuge in Erbil (Kurdistan) told of what had happened to one of his coreligionists: “Rimon, one of my Christian neighbours, had a record shop; he was kidnapped and assassinated. The terrorists sent his family a video of his torture. They beheaded him slowly and then immersed his head in boiling water, holding it up by the hair” (Le Figaro, 15th May 2006). On 15th July 2006, Father Raad Kashan was kidnapped while travelling by taxi in Baghdad. Kidnapped for forty-eight hours, he was beaten and burned with cigarettes on his back and his hands. Then they released him, saying: “We know where you live […] If you do not pay us 200,000 dollars within two days, we will come looking for you” (Le Monde 2, 28th October 2006). On 5th August 12006, Father Saad Syrop Hanna, a professor at the major Chaldean seminary in Baghdad, was kidnapped while driving his car. Released three weeks later, he was hospitalised. In mid-September, Father Bassel Yeldo, secretary to Patriarch Delly, was kidnapped for twenty-four hours (Le Monde 2, 28th October 2006). On 8th October 2006, Father Amer Iskander, parish priest of the Syriac-Orthodox church of Saint Ephrem, in Mosul, was kidnapped. His kidnappers asked for a ransom of 350,000 dollars and apologies from his Church for statements made by Benedict XVI in Regensburg, statements from which the Syriac-Orthodox Church had already dissociated itself. He was found beheaded on 11th October (L’Eglise dans le Monde, No. 133, 1 tr. 2007). On 9th October 2006, shortly after the Regensburg lecture, a Syriac-Orthodox priest, Father Boulos Iskandar, was kidnapped in Mosul by a group calling itself “The Lions of Islam”, which in addition to a ransom of € 280,000, demanded that thirty proclamations, apologising for the “Pope’s offensive words against Islam” be placed on the walls of all the churches in the city. Four days later, his beheaded body was found, to the east of Mosul. That same day, another priest, Father Joseph Petros, was murdered in Baghdad (Le Monde 2, 28th October 2006; Saint-Pierre d’Antioche Bulletin, France, No. 36, November 2007). On 19th November 2006, Father Douglas Youssef Bazi, parish priest of the Chaldean church of Saint Elijah in Baghdad, was kidnapped and then released 9 days later. On 4th December another priest, Father Samy Raiys, rector of the Chaldean major

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seminary, was kidnapped for six days in Baghdad and then released (La Croix, 7th December 2006 and 12th December 2006). On 26th November 2006 Mundher Aldayr, a Protestant pastor in Mosul, was assassinated in the centre of the city (Joseph Yacoub, Oasis, No. 6, October 2007, p. 92). On 26th March 2007, two Chaldean sisters, Fawzeiyah and Margaret Naoum, were stabbed to death in their house in Kirkuk (ZENIT, 29th March 2007). On 23rd April 2007, a bomb exploded in the Christian village of Tale-Esqof, not far from Mosul, killing twenty Assyrian-Chaldean Christians (Joseph Yacoub, Oasis, No. 6, October 2007, p. 92). In May 2007, Vatican Radio reported the kidnapping of seven Christians travelling on a minibus. They were stopped at a check-point manned by rebels wearing the uniform of the security forces. Their bodies were found on the road to Bakouba, next to the burnt-out remains of their vehicle. Around the same time, the bodies of 24 Christians were discovered in Baghdad; they had obviously been tortured before being murdered (ZENIT, 21st May 2007). That same month, a car bomb exploded near a school in a Christian village in the north; ten people died, among them two children, and another 140 were injured, including two Dominican nuns from a nearby convent that was also seriously damaged (Reconquête, No. 238, May 2007). On 21st May, Father Nawzat Hanna, a Chaldean priest, was kidnapped and then released after two days in Baghdad (ZENIT, 22nd May 2007). On 3rd June 2007, a Chaldean priest, Father Raghid Aziz Ganni, and three subdeacons who were with him, Basman Yousef Daoud, Wahid Hanna Isho and Gassan Issam Bidawid, were shot after Sunday Mass in Mosul (La Croix, 5th June 2007; L’Eglise dans le Monde, No. 135, 3 tr. 2007). Father Ganni, who taught at the Chaldean major seminary, (which had been moved to this region; see below), was also responsible for two parishes – Saint Paul’s and the Holy Spirit parish. In the months preceding his assassination, he had received three threatening letters ordering him never to enter a church, celebrate Mass or organise and speak at meetings (Famiglia Cristiana, 16th22nd June 2007). For his part, Archbishop Louis Sako has stated that: “The current government seems unable to guarantee security or to apply the law; there are no Christian militias to defend the Christians; hence a Christian is a vulnerable person par excellence […]. In Dora (Baghdad), the Christians are being subjected to a real religious purge” (ZENIT, 24th June 2007). At the beginning of June 2007, a Chaldean priest, Father Hani Abdel Ahad, and four young Christians accompanying him, were kidnapped in Baghdad. They were all released a few days later (ZENIT, 18th June 2007).

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During this same month, six students were kidnapped while returning by bus from Mosul University. Syrian Catholic Archbishop Casmoussa of Mosul commented on this incident: “The bus was part of the project sponsored by the Church for transporting around a thousand of the Christian students living in the villages surrounding Mosul. As a result of this incident, the busses will no longer be running next year, and so 1,500 Christian students – more than half of them girls – now run the risk of not being able to continue their education” (Round Table organised in Paris by the Oeuvre d’Orient, 23rd November 2007). On 6th July 2007, a Chaldean priest, Father Georges Ata, his son and two other members of their family, were kidnapped in the Sleiman Bek region, 200 km north-east of Baghdad. Their kidnappers asked for a “significant amount of money in exchange for their freedom” (ZENIT, 6th July 2007). They were released on 11th July. On 13th October 2007, two Syriac-Catholic priests, Father Mazer Ishoa Mattoka, parish priest of the Church of Saint Thomas in Mosul, and his vicar, Father Pios Affas, were kidnapped in the district of Faisaliya, in the north of the city, while they were walking to the church of Our Lady of Fatima for a funeral (ZENIT, 17th October and 23rd October 2007). The kidnappers demanded a ransom (La Croix, 16thOctober 2007). Also in 2007, Iraqi journalist Sahar El Haieri was assassinated in Baghdad following the publication of an article in which he had written about Christians, which concluded as follows: “If a strong government does not guarantee their safety, one must fear that Christians will disappear completely from this part of the world” (from the Bulletin Saint-Pierre d’Antioche, No. 36, November 2007). To this list should be added the hundreds of other unknown Christians who have suffered the same fate. “Hundreds of Christian families are being ruined, together with their children. CDs containing images of executions have been posted in their letterboxes to terrorise them and persuade them to abandon their places of worship, convert [to Islam,] or to leave Iraq immediately, or else suffer the same fate as those on the videos” (Bulletin Saint-Pierre d’Antioche, No. 36, November 2007). Violence is also directed against Christians who will not comply with Islamic laws. A female Christian doctor, a refugee in Dohouk (Kurdistan), told of all the things she had been subjected to during her specialist studies in the capital. “The last few weeks in Baghdad, I was forced to wear a chador to go out. The extremists had shaved the heads of two female students and beaten them for not wearing the veil, then they posted their photographs all over the campus, with the warning: “Do not show your hair, or we will shave you and kill you” (Le Monde 2, 28th October 2006). A female Christian lawyer from Mosul, Ilham Sabah, explained that she wears the veil because she fears she will otherwise be killed; the militias insult Christian women,

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they burn them or kill them if they refuse to dress like Muslim women (Bulletin SaintPierre d’Antioche, No. 36, November 2007). Anonymous letters have been sent to Christians, who are considered dhimmis. Archbishop Georges Casmoussa spoke of this in a paper for the Council of Bishops in Niniveh on 12th October 2006: “Will Christians therefore never enjoy the honour of normality? ‘You are traitors (kafir)’. ‘You are the Americans’ hirelings’. ‘You must pay the djizya (a special tax imposed by the Koran cf. 9, 29) like everyone else’. These are a few of the humiliating expressions that fill the intimidating and threatening anonymous letters received by Christians, so as to oblige them to pay exorbitant ransoms in American dollars imposed by the moudjahidin (Muslim fighters)” (see also ZENIT, 21st May 2007). A number of these letters, with a Magnum .22 bullet enclosed, order the recipients to get out within three days (La Croix, 12th July 2007). In Dora, Christians have been forced to leave their homes, taking nothing with them and they even have to pay a sort of ‘exit tax’ as well. They are given just one choice: they can remain in the district only if they agree to give a daughter or a sister in marriage to a Muslim (L’Eglise dans le Monde, No. 135, 3 tr. 2007). According to Cardinal Delly, “especially in Baghdad and in Mosul, but also in Kirkuk and Basra, these violent groups sometimes knock on the door of Christian homes and force the family to pay an instant sum, like a ‘fine’, sometimes even compelling the entire family to publicly declare that they have converted to Islam and forcing the father to instantly give one of his daughters as a ‘bride’ to one of the young men in the gang. Finally, they order them to immediately abandon their home, just as it is, and leave the country, ‘because this is not your homeland’. Recently, hundreds of families have been forced to emigrate and dozens have been obliged to ‘convert’ to Islam. And if this were not enough, there are the kidnappings; to my knowledge, many of those who refused to convert have been killed” (30 Giorni, No. 6/7, 2007). The aggressors also attack places of worship. In June 2007, a convent of the Chaldean nuns of the Sacred Heart, in the Dora district in Baghdad, an Islamic stronghold, was attacked by a group of terrorists, taking advantage of the absence of the two nuns living there. When they returned, the sisters found the convent looted and transformed into a base for military operations (Reconquête, Paris, No. 238, May 2007). That same day, two churches were attacked in the same part of Baghdad, the church of Saint John the Baptist and that of Saint James, which it seems has been transformed into a mosque (ZENIT,8th June 2007). During the same year, the crosses in all the churches of Dora were removed by islamists. They were later returned to their legitimate owners, but the clergy did not dare restore them to their places (L’Eglise dans le Monde, No. 135, 3 tr. 2007). Faced with constant threats, the seven churches in Dora were closed (Joseph Yacoub, Oasis, No. 6, October 2007). Furthermore, following the kidnapping in September

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2006 of the rector and the pro-rector of Babel College, Fathers Samy Raiys and Salem Basel Yaldo, the Chaldean Church decided to move both this Pontifical College and the major seminary of Saint Peter, both of which were situated in the same district of Dora. In January 2007 these two institutions resumed their activities in Ankawa, near Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan (L’Eglise dans le Monde, No. 135, 3 tr. 2007). The buildings in Dora were then requisitioned by the American troops (Joseph Yacoub, Oasis, No. 6, October 2007). In Baghdad the Dominicans were also obliged to close their educational centre for lay people, which they had opened next to the Latin Cathedral of Saint Joseph. Kurdistan, a province that enjoys great autonomy and where Christians are actually represented in the state institutions (with one minister and five members of the national Kurdish parliament, which has 111 elected members), has welcomed many Christian families. In all, there are about 100,000 people here who have fled Baghdad and Mosul. Some have been returning to their home province, which they were forced to flee during the repression of the Kurds by Saddam Hussein’s regime. But they have been unable to regain possession of the farms they once owned and as a result they have had many difficulties in finding work. Furthermore, these Christians do not speak the Kurdish language, and they do not feel their future in Kurdistan is secure, as one of them explained: “Christians have no future in Iraq; even the children will tell you this. Today the Kurdish leaders build homes for us, in order to portray themselves in a good light. But the extremism will come, just as in Basra. It cannot be stopped. You cannot change Islam; one day they call you ‘my brother’, the next day they kill you” (Le Monde 2, 28th October 2006). Finally, in the southern city of Basra, where there is a Shiite majority, the pressure on Christians is so strong that Chaldean Archbishop Djibraïl Kassab, has had to leave the city. It must also be said that local Christians feel threatened by the arrival of American neo-Protestant missionaries, who started to settle in Iraq during the international embargo (1991-2003) under the cover of humanitarian aid organisations. Ever since the 2003 invasion, these missionaries have been spreading across the country, renting buildings everywhere, which they turn into churches (see La Croix, 19th May 2006). Speaking of these preachers, Archbishop Sleiman said: “They may have but one theme, namely religious liberty. However, in my view they do not respect the Churches that have been here for a very long time. Furthermore, by wishing to convert Muslims, they arouse a great deal of suspicion. Their proselytism does not respect the Iraqi mentality. Iraqi Christians have cultural roots and a historical outlook similar to Muslims. One cannot come here with an imperialistic attitude and simply implant Christianity. This attitude only greatly increases the feelings of suspicion with regard to Christians.” (ZENIT, 2nd April 2007).

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To escape the chaos they are immersed in, many Christians flee Iraq to neighbouring countries, where they wait in hope for visas for the West. At the end of 2007, there were between 25,000 and 30,000 in Jordan, 100,000 in Syria, 4,000 in Turkey, several thousand in the Lebanon (see Round Table organised by the Oeuvre d’Orient, 23rd November 2007). In Iraq, out of a population of 28 million inhabitants, there are no more than 200,000-300,000 Christians, whereas there were still 800,000 in 2003 (L’Eglise dans le Monde, No. 135, 3 tr. 2007). Muslims The civil war between Shia and Sunni Muslim militias has created a situation of grave insecurity which also affects the religious life of the two communities. The identification of religious movements with political movements, which is typical of the Islamic world, makes it extremely difficult to distinguish the real motives behind the numerous and bloody bomb attacks and other outrages against mosques and on the occasion of religious ceremonies, funerals and weddings. Both communities are mourning the loss of thousands who were victims of a homicidal hatred, which the most reasonable elements in the Iraqi Islamic world are struggling to contain, with extreme difficulty.

Yazidis A similar fate is reserved to the Yazidis, most of whom live in the area around Mosul, and in Kurdistan. Followers of a syncretist religion that mingles Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Nestorianism and Judaism, they were recognised by the 2005 Constitution, which authorises their religion. The Yazidis also have three seats in the national parliament and two in the Autonomous Kurdish Parliament. However, in the eyes of

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Mandaeans In addition to Christians, other non-Muslim minorities are likewise victims of persecution and receive no protection from the authorities. Among them are the Mandaeans, followers of a dualist religion that appeared in the early centuries of the modern era, inspired by Saint John the Baptist. In March 2007, the BBC reported numerous cases of rape and aggression, among them the fate of a 9-year-old child, kidnapped by extremists and forced to jump into a fire because he was a Mandaean. According to Kanzfra Sattar, one of the five Mandaean “bishops”, this community is experiencing outright “genocide”: “Some do not consider us to be People of the Book [Jews and Christians]. They see us as unbelievers. The result is that they believe they have the right to kill us”. Over 80 percent of this community of 50,000 members are believed to have fled from the country, travelling to Syria and Jordan (La Croix, 7th March 2007).

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the Muslims they are pagans and hence have no rights. Since the American invasion in 2003, at least a thousand shabak civilians (a branch of the Yazidis), have been killed by Sunnis in the Mosul region and 4,000 have had to flee their homes. On 23rd April 2007, a group of armed men stopped a bus taking Yazidis to their village in Beshika, 10 km from Mosul, and murdered 23 of them. On 15th August 2007, there were four simultaneous car-bomb attacks, targeting the Yazidis and causing the death of 200 of them (La Croix, 16th August 2007). Source Mons. Jean-Benjamin Sleiman, Dans le piège irakien, Presses de la Renaissance, 2006

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IRELAND

This however does not imply a disavowal of religion’s role in public life, a role explicitly defended by Prime Minister Bertie Ahern on 26th February 2007 in his speech for the inauguration of the so-called “Organised dialogue with Churches, religious communities and non-denominational institutions”, in which he supported “The legitimate role played by Churches and religious communities in public life”, promoting the dialogue with Churches and religious groups, a dialogue that he considered important “for the understanding of the beliefs and values that have formed our institutions, costums and values and provide the general key for the sense of identity experience by most of our people”. “If as a country we should turn our backs on the lively and vibrant life of religious faith, this would be a mistake”, added the Prime Minister, who believes that “the moral attitudes inculcated in a culture of faith are at the centre of the persuasions of many people who do not consider themselves particularly close to a specific credo or denomination”. Speaking against aggressive secularism that ignores the importance of the religious dimension and wishes to confine religion to the

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RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 97.2% Others 2.8%

Baptized Catholics 5,112,000

IRELAND

Right from its Preamble, the Constitution of 1937 explicitly refers to the “Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred”, specifying that the Irish people “humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial”, adopts its fundamental Charter “with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity”. Article 44, entitled “Religion”, acknowledges that “the homage of public practice is owed to God Almighty” whose Name will be revered, respecting and honouring religion”. This is followed by guarantees for freedom of conscience and the freedom to profess and practice one’s religion, guaranteed for each citizen, on condition that public order and morals are respected. All religious denominations have the right to manage their own business and property, to buy and maintain educational and charitable institutes. The text makes no mention of a State Religion, and the promoting of one religion rather than another is forbidden, as is religion-based discrimination in schools.

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private sphere, Ahern said that he believed that “should modern Ireland be removed from its background of religious beliefs, our culture and our society would become separated from their profoundest roots and from one of the most vital nourishing sources for their growth and their direction in the future”. Islam Although relations between the institutions and the immigrant communities are based on respect and equal rights, the growing number of requests presented by Islamic organisations has led to problems in the interpretation of the law. Those wishing to obtain citizenship must swear that they will not marry more than one woman, to avoid the spreading of polygamy, forbidden by Irish Penal Law but permitted by Koranic Law.

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The inhabitants of the Holy Land are divided between two territories; on one side Israel and on the other the territories that in principle come under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip), created in 1994 under the Oslo Agreements, which were signed the previous year. Since June 2007, however, Gaza has been controlled by Hamas’ (the Islamic Resistance Movement), which took possession of this territory after a war against Al Fatah, the political party of which the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is a member. Christians in the Holy Land are divided into three ‘families’ and thirteen denominations. The ‘Orthodox’ group (in the sense of its separation from Rome) is the most numerous, and includes, Greek-Orthodox (Arab population, Greek hierarchy), Armenians, Syriacs, Copts, Ethiopians and Russians. The Catholic group includes the Latins, the Greek-Melkites (these are Arabs of the Byzantine rite), Syriacs, Armenians and Maronites. Finally, the Protestants in this region include both Anglicans and Lutherans under a common Bishopric. There are also Christians of Jewish origin who have come on the scene more recently. The situation as far as religious freedom is concerned differs in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

ISRAEL Since the State of Israel still does not have a Constitution, it is best to refer to the 1948 Declaration of Independence for all matters concerning religious freedom. According to this text, “every religious community is free by right and in fact to practise its own religion, celebrate its own festive days and administer its own affairs. Each community has its own religious courts, recognised by the law, which are competent to address religious matters and issues involving their own status”. Hence Judaism is not the State religion in Israel. Public institutions are secular and work according to Western democratic standards. Non-Jewish citizens in principle have the same rights and civil obligations as Jews. Effectively, they may vote, belong to political parties and be elected to parliament (the

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AREA 20,770 kmq POPULATION 7,050,000 REFUGEES 1,156 INTERNALLY DISPLACED Israel: 420,000; Palestinian Territories: 115,000 RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Jews 77.1% Muslims 12% Affiliated Christians 5.8% Non religious 4.8% Others 0.3%

Baptized Catholics 128,000

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Knesset currently has eleven Arab, Christian and Muslim members). Their role however, is not of great importance in political life and they have no military service obligations. In this country, initially created by Jews, everything that is linked to the Jewish identity de facto enjoys pre-eminence. This means that Arab citizens are not considered in the same manner as Jews and this results in a certain amount of discrimination against Muslims and Christians due to the fact that they are Arabs. In particular, this discrimination affects education, especially university, employment, building permits, and subsidies for local communities. (Certain professions are moreover forbidden and those in military careers cannot become high ranking officers, with the exception of the Druzes). To this, one must also add the confiscation of land belonging to Arab Israelis for building Jewish settlements. Furthermore, according to an emergency amendment to the laws on citizenship, passed by the Knesset in 2002, Palestinians married to Israelis (Arabs) do not have the right to reside in Israel and cannot obtain Israeli citizenship, because they are citizens of an “enemy country”. The Supreme Court justified the rejection of petitions presented to it, using the following words: “The benefits and security that the law on citizenship brings the inhabitants of Israel outweigh the damage caused to the handful of Israeli citizens married to Palestinians”. According to the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, this provision is effectively aimed at preserving a Jewish majority in the country. This newspaper claims that it is above all a discrimination against the country’s Arab community (Le Monde, 16th May 2006). Among Israeli Arabs, Christians are more at ease in this society, open to western modernity, which helps them escape the political and legal domination of Islam. However, they are increasingly feeling marginalised and made conscious of the constant reference to their ‘Arab’ identity. According to Monsignor Marcuzzo, Auxiliary Bishop of Nazareth, “Christians are very worried about the general atmosphere in Israel, where differences are not accepted and legal protection of minorities is not guaranteed” (La Croix, 29th March 2006). This situation is seen as all the more unfair, since Christians do not in any way represent a danger to the security of the State of Israel or to their Jewish compatriots. As far as worship is concerned, Christians are also victims of discrimination and harassment. Sundays are not holidays in Israel, and a Christian student may have to sit an exam on Easter Day. Jewish extremists sometimes also attack Christians. At the beginning of March 2006, three Israelis, a man and woman and their daughter, using a pushchair in which they had hidden small gas canisters, threw firecrackers inside the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth during a religious function (La Croix, 6th March 2006). There is also the fact that visas for priests and nuns coming from the Arab world are not always approved and the authorities are free to exercise their own discretion on

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this subject. The editorial staff committee for the news agency Un écho d’Israël complained about this in a letter sent in April 2006 to Shimon Peres, then the president ad interim of the Knesset. “We Christians who have lived in Israel for many years are increasingly worried about the future of our presence in this country. For some years now, the precariousness of our situation has constantly increased. It is increasingly hard to obtain a renewal of our residence permits, and a number of us are now explicitly threatened with having to leave the country. Unpleasant incidents have multiplied in recent years. Some of us were recently treated in a manner that did not even respect our human dignity […]. We know this country well enough to understand the reasons that cause public officials to seek to guarantee the Jewish character of this State. But we believe that the means used to resolve this problem – the expulsion of priests and other Christians – are totally inappropriate” (ZENIT, 25th April 2006). One should also note the obstacles placed on the movements of Christians and Muslims who are under the authority of the Palestinian Authority and who wish to travel to Israel and Jerusalem, in particular to pray in the Holy Places. Monsignor Fouad Twal, now Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, deplored this situation: “The creation of a separating Wall by the Israeli government, in particular inside and around East Jerusalem, has heavily restricted access to mosques, churches and other holy places, and it is a serious obstacle to the work of the religious communities who are providing education, health services and other social and humanitarian aid to the Palestinians […]. The separation Wall has created problems for Christians in the Bethlehem area who wish to visit the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and has made things far more complicated for Palestinian Christians living on the Israeli side of the Wall to visit Christian sites in Bethany and Bethlehem, still further fragmenting and dividing this small minority community […]. The Wall and police cordons have also made it impossible for the clergy to move between the churches and monasteries in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and similarly for the religious congregations from their houses to their places of worship. […] For many young people, Jerusalem is almost a myth, a city they have never seen, that belongs to the Biblical world” (“Palestine, radiographie d’un dé-développement”, Oasis, No. 5, March 2007). This situation was also deplored by Father Jamal Khader, a professor at the Catholic university in Bethlehem and at the Latin seminary in Beit Jala: “Like all Christians in the West Bank and in Gaza, I cannot attend, as I would wish to, meetings organised by the Patriarchate, or spiritual retreats, training courses or celebrations. […] It is also impossible to visit the Holy Places without a permit. […] For the recent Easter festivities, I had asked for 65 permits, but only received six, and furthermore for only one day, and not even for the correct date” (La Croix, 23th-24th-25th December 2006). On 29th September 2006 the thirteen patriarchs and leaders of the Churches present in the Holy Land published a Joint Statement on Jerusalem, on this same issue, in which in

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particular they wrote: “The future of the city must be determined by common agreement, through collaboration and consultation, and must not be imposed through power and by force”. The feeling of injustice experienced by Christians is made even worse by the uncertainty that weighs on the future of their institutions and hence on their own existence in the Holy Land. In 1997, by way of extending the validity of the 1993 Fundamental Agreement, which establishes the reciprocal recognition between the Holy See and Israel, another agreement was signed, granting the Catholic Church juridical status in Israel. But the Knesset has never ratified this text and never voted the appropriate laws, thereby depriving Israeli Christians of the practical resources for ensuring that their rights are respected. Moreover, the negotiations envisaged under the 1997 agreement, which involved Israel acknowledging all the economic and fiscal rights that had been enjoyed by the Catholic institutions under the British mandate (1920-1948) and which guaranteed the Church’s fiscal immunity, have for the moment not led to any results. On this issue the Vatican complains regularly about the lack of political will in Israel, which was responsible for breaking off the meetings of the bilateral committee appointed to solve this issue. “Everyone can see how much faith can be placed in Israel’s promises”, said the former Nuncio to this country, Archbishop Pietro Sambi (La Croix, 28th November 2007). The meeting of the commission, held in Jerusalem in mid-December 2007, had no concrete results. In Rome, Archbishop Antonio Maria Veglio, Secretary for the Congregation of Oriental Churches, said after this failure, “The Catholic Church could take advantage of the tourist manna brought to this country by Catholic pilgrims” (La Croix, 18th December 2007). The Greek-Orthodox Church (heir to the patriarchal seat at the time of the undivided Church, the most ancient in the Holy Land and also the largest numerically), has suffered various interferences in its internal affairs by Israel. In accordance with a tradition dating back to the Ottoman Empire, the election of every new patriarch to the Greek-Orthodox Chair in Jerusalem must be confirmed by the political authorities in the Holy Land, in this specific case by the Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian authorities. Now, Theophilus III, elected Patriarch in August 2005 by the Holy Synod of the Greek-Orthodox Church, was only officially acknowledged in December 2007, following various outside interventions, in particular from the Ecumenical Council of Churches. Ever since October 2005, the new Patriarch had drawn the attention of the Israeli Supreme Court to this case. In his request, Theophilus III accused the Israeli government of haggling, in other words of making his acknowledgement dependent on continuing certain controversial property transactions that had led to the dismissal of his predecessor, Ireneus I (L’Eglise dans le Monde, No. 130, 2 tr. 2006). This Patriarch

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had on various occasions signed commitments to sell property belonging to the Patriarchate situated in Jerusalem to Jewish property promoters wishing to build in that area. He had also agreed to sell two hotels and a number of shops near the Jaffa Gate to a group of religious Jews belonging to the Ateret Ha Cohanim movement, which buys property owned by Christians and Muslims in East Jerusalem. “I am not prepared to serve the specific interests of private businessmen, close to power, in order to obtain acknowledgement.” said Theophilus III (Petites annonces chrétiennes, 15th October 2007).

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES Since the Palestinian State still does not exist, the organisation and functioning of the Palestinian Authority is not based on a Constitution but on a ‘Fundamental Law’ passed in 2002. This Law states that Islam is the official religion and that the principles of the Shari‘a, Islamic Law, are the main sources of legislation. Christians, however, have their own jurisdictions for all that relates to their own individual rights. Furthermore, this same fundamental law acknowledges the sanctity of other “celestial religions”, exhorts respect for them and guarantees the freedom to practise them accordingly, to the extent that this practice does not violate public order or public morals. In practice, this freedom of worship is generally well respected within society. So as to allow Christians to take part in political life, they were reserved a number of seats in the legislative Council at the time of the first elections, held in 1996. This provision was confirmed for the 2006 elections. The quota is divided as follows: one seat for Gaza, two for Bethlehem, two for Jerusalem and one for Ramallah. However, the victory of the islamist movement Hamas’ in these latest elections (they gained 76 seats out of 132) has plunged Christians into a state of anxiety about their future. In recent years, the daily lives of Christians have deteriorated because of increased pressure and intimidation by Muslims. According to Afaf Abou Habil, a primary school teacher in Nablus (West Bank), “Since the first Intifada (1987), prejudice against Christians has increased. We are accused of not participating sufficiently in the battle and of cooperating with the Americans and Israelis. They say we are foreigners. Those spreading these ideas are ignorant; the problem is that there are more and more of them” (La Croix, 18th May 2006). In fact, the Palestinian Christians, from the greatest to the least, make great show of their Arab identity and solidarity with their Muslim compatriots. This pressure is applied in a variety of ways. Merchants are increasingly pressured not to sell alcoholic drinks, for example, and sometimes their shops are set on fire for this reason. These merchants are also forced to pay a religious tax to Muslims. It should further be noted that dozens of plots of land belonging to Christian citizens have been

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confiscated. To give one typical example, in Bethlehem a Muslim took possession of an undeveloped plot of land belonging to a religious community, and turned it into a parking lot. He has now gained squatter’s rights having used false ownership documents (Famiglia cristiana, 4th-10th February 2006). Sometimes the pressure is also more violent. For example, on 4th September 2006, a group of young Muslims set about looting the Christian town of Taybeh (West Bank). These youngsters, who had accused a Christian merchant of having had a relationship with a Muslim woman from a nearby village, set fire to numerous houses in revenge. During the night of 17th August 2007, in Beit Sahour, Molotov cocktails were thrown by a group of unidentified people at the house of Samir Qumsieh, a member of the Greek-Orthodox Church, and the founder (in 1996) and director of the only private Christian TV station in Palestine, El Mahed (The Nativity), which has its headquarters in Bethlehem. Qumsieh told the AsiaNews that since then he is constantly receiving death threats against himself and his family (L’Eglise dans le Monde, No. 134, 2 tr. 2007). The situation of the Christians in Gaza (200 Latins, 3,000 Greek-Orthodox and about twenty Baptists) is even more difficult and precarious. For example, in September 2006, the Orthodox church in Gaza was attacked by men in balaclavas, following Pope Benedict’s speech in Regensburg. Later, the small Christian community suffered the consequences of the victory by Hamas’ in the elections. On the night of June 15th – 16th 2007, masked and armed men of the Ezzedine El Qassam Brigade, the military wing of Hamas’, attacked and looted the Latin Catholic Church in Gaza and the school run by the Rosary Sisters. According to Father Moussalam, parish priest in the church of the Holy Family, the attackers desecrated both places: “They broke a number of crucifixes, burned prayer books, broke a statue of Jesus and destroyed a number of religious icons. They also set fire to the nuns’ home but, thanks be to God, the sisters were not at home at the time. They stole computers, destroyed the photocopying machine and turned the place upside down” (Le Figaro, 22nd June 2007; La Croix, 26th June 2007). According to the headmistress of the Rosary School, Hanadi Missak, “Sometimes the nuns are insulted or spat at when they are in the streets” (La Croix, 26th June 2007). Finally, at the beginning of October 2007, Rami Ayyad, the owner of the only Christian bookshop in Gaza, was kidnapped and then shot. His body also showed traces of knife wounds and torture. The victim, of Orthodox origin, had two years earlier joined the Evangelical Baptist Church and worked for the Society of the Holy Bible, an international Baptist association. His bookshop had been set on fire six months earlier by a small group called “The virtuous swords of Islam”, which had denounced his “Christian proselytism”. Former Prime Minister, Ismaïl Haniyeh, leader of Hamas’ in Gaza, reported “an act of sabotage against Palestinian unity and the strong relations between Christians and Muslims, who are members of the same nation” (Le Figaro, 8th October 2007; La Croix, 9th October 2007).

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ITALY

Legal, legislative and institutional aspects From a legal and legislative point of view religious freedom in Italy falls first and foremost within the purview of the Lateran Pacts of 1929 agreed by the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See and ratified by Law No. 810 of 27th May 1929. In the Pacts “Italy recognizes and reaffirms the principle […] according to which the Catholic Apostolic Roman religion is the only State religion”. The Pacts were incorporated into the Constitution of the Italian Republic of 1947, in Articles 7, 8 and 19, which stipulate that “the State and the Catholic Church are, each within their own reign, independent and sovereign (Art. 7). Religious denominations are equally free before the law. Denominations other than Catholicism have the right to organize themselves according to their own by-laws, provided they do not conflict with the Italian legal system. Their relationship with the state is regulated by law, based on agreements with their representatives (Art. 8). Everyone is entitled to freely profess religious beliefs in any form, individually or with others, to promote them, and to celebrate rites in public or in private, provided they are not offensive to public morality” (Art. 19). These legislative references did not change until the original Pact was amended by Law N. 121 of 25th March 1985 on the “Ratification and Implementation of the Pact with an Additional Protocol” which was signed in Rome on 18th February 1984. In the aforementioned law, the additional protocol reads: “With reference to Article 1, the principle, normally stated in the Lateran Pacts, that the Catholic religion is the sole religion of the Italian state is no longer in force.” In 2000, in Decision N. 508, 20th November 2000, Italy’s Constitutional Court abolished the offence of “Contempt of State Religion”. In 2002 a draft bill on “Rules on Religious Freedom and the Abrogation of Legislation on Accepted Cults” was presented.

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AREA 301,318 kmq POPULATION 58,880,000 REFUGEES 38,068 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 82.1% Non religious 16.6% Others 1.3%

Baptized Catholics 56,454,000

ITALY

No major legal or institutional changes or noteworthy events have taken place during the period covered by this report, except in relation to immigration and its short- and long-term impact on the ecumenical, multi-religious and socio-cultural fields.

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Approved by cabinet on 1st March 2002, the basic proposal is still under review and discussion by various stakeholders (politicians, scholars, representatives of the Catholic hurch, legal, sociological and cultural experts and representatives of a number of religious associations). Italy’s recent debate over the “Islamic Question” As a result of immigration, Muslims have become the second largest religious community in Italy. Muslims are visible in the media as well as through 735 places of worship and associations (as of May 2007), more than double the 351 in 2000 (Source: Report No. 59 to Parliament by SISDE, the Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Democratica or Intelligence and Democratic Security Service, 1st semester 2006). The place and role of Muslim women in the family and society is one of the critical issues facing Muslim communities in Italy, with respect to the country’s institutions, social and religious environment and public opinion. Such a topic is inherently complex, but it is all too often reduced to a number of tragic news items or extreme situations. Although the latter must be confronted with great resolve, they cannot be used to make sweeping generalisations about a very complicated and ever changing reality. The tragic fate of Hina Salee, a 20-year-old Pakistani woman, who had her throat cut by relatives in August 2006 because she dared to have an Italian boyfriend (from the town of Brescia) and live a Western lifestyle, is a case in point. It resulted in a crossparty group of MPs presenting a draft bill in September 2006 to set up a parliamentary committee of inquiry into the status of immigrant women in Italy. The few data that are currently available seem to indicate that a large proportion of immigrant Muslim women (perhaps in other religious groups as well) are in a highly subordinate position. Most of them have arrived in Italy to join husbands, fathers or brothers as part of family reunification programmes. At Rome’s Great Mosque the Islamic Cultural Centre of Italy and the Italian Ministry of Social Solidarity have jointly sponsored an experimental course to teach Italian to Muslim women in order to ease their interaction with their new environment and create a smoother process of integration and socio-cultural and multi-religious exchange. The same point of view is reflected in the Declaration on “Women and Society” made by the 16-member Youth Council on Religious and Cultural Pluralism (eight young men and eight young women from different religious backgrounds) which was released on 18th September 2006 before being published in the government’s Gazzetta Ufficiale (Official Journal) by the relevant ministers (Interior, Youth and Equal Opportunities). The thrust of the declaration focused on enabling women to make their own choices in fundamental domains like partnership and employment as well as lesser ones like how to dress; the latter might not be a crucial issue but it is one that is highly charged

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Proposed legislation on religious freedom and the Catholic Church As in the past recent Italian governments have tried (albeit unsuccessfully) to adapt the country’s institutional and regulatory framework to one where principle of religious freedom becomes a necessary condition for peaceful co-existence, for the correct separation of church and state and for genuine protection and defence of human rights (see draft bill “Norme sulla libertà religiosa e abrogazione della legislazione sui culti ammessi” – Rules on Religious Freedom and the Abrogation of Legislation on Accepted Cults). As Italy’s largest religious confession, the Catholic Church has agreed with the thrust of the proposed legislation on regulating inter-faith relations, but it has also raised some questions about the proposed law’s procedures, not shying away from expressing concerns over the “unjustified acceptance of doctrines or practices that raise social fears and which are contrary to the inalienable principles of our legal tradition,” which is how Mgr Giuseppe Betori, secretary general of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (Conferenza Episcopale Italiana – CEI), articulated the Church’s position before the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the Italian Chamber of Deputies on 16 July. Insofar as “the full respect of religious freedom is an inherent requirement for human dignity and a corner stone of human rights”, said Monsignor Betori, the inclusion of the principle of separation of church and state as the basis for regulating matters relating to religious freedom is something “peculiar and contrived”, especially because the

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symbolically (see Antonietta Calabrò, “Il velo, una tutela per le donne” – The Veil, Protection for Women, in Corriere della Sera, 19 July 2007). Still exaggerations must be avoided, knowing full well that a balance must be found between rights and duties, individual liberties and public order. An example of this is the case of Monia Mzoughi, a 37-year-old Tunisian national living in the town of Cremona, who was charged for wearing a burqa at her husband’s trial, Mourad Trabelsi, who was accused of international terrorism. She was charged under Article 5 of Law No. 152 on Public Order of 22nd May 1975 which bans coverings which impete the recognition of an individual. In this case it became evident no one could claim the right to opt out of a rule common to all arguing that the burqa was a religious symbol, especially when the doctrinal basis for the latter is not shared by all co-religionists, and when the object in question is seen among other things as a symbol of oppression and humiliation by many Muslim women. This, in turn, has raised concerns that a single case might undermine the obligation for all to respect the law. In such a situation what is “Islamically correct” could become the “basis for cognitive, cultural and religious relativism” (see Magdi Allam, “Prigionieri della cultura del burqa” – Prisioners of the Burqa, in Corriere della Sera, 15th July 2007; also Corriere della Sera, 1st February 2007).

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prevailing constitutional practice (Decision No. 309 of 1989) views religious freedom, along with other fundamental rights, as the basis on which the principle of separation of church and state itself is defined. The Catholic Church has also taken issue with the draft bill’s intent to place it on the same level with other confessions that have signed agreements with the Italian state, in particular in relation to the legal obligations associated with marriage, access to broadcast media and laws regulating the construction of places of worship. For the Church the proposal, which is still being vetted, is inadequate with respect to new religious groups and movements as well as issues relating to interculturalism and ethnic pluralism. At a previous hearing (9th January 2007), the CEI secretary went into greater detail to explain the legal obligations of marriage not only in terms of its “legality” but also in terms of its “appropriateness” so as not to de facto recognise polygamy even if it is accepted by the legal systems of the countries of origin of many immigrants. Sources Dignitatis humanae – On the Right of the Person and of Communities to Social and Civil Freedom in Matters Religious, Declaration by the Second Vatican Council, 7th December 1965 CEI (Italian Bishops’ Conference), General Secretariat, 9th January and 16th July 2007 Immigrazione - Dossier statistico 2007 (Immigration - Statistical Survey), XVII Rapporto (Report No. 17 Caritas/Migrantes, Rome: 2007 La Repubblica, 11th August 2006 Corriere della Sera, 1st February 2007 and 15th July 2007 Avvenire, 15th September 2006 and 11th July 2007 Cristiani e musulmani – esperienze di dialogo e di fraternità (Christians and Muslims – Experiences in Dialogue and Brotherhood), Bologna: EDB - 2007 Rapporto sui diritti globali 2007 (2007 Report on Global Rights), by Associazione SocietàINformazione, Rome: EDIESSE, 2007 La città abbandonata – dove sono e come cambiano le periferie italiane (Leaving the City – Italy’s Changing Suburbs at a Crossroad), by M. Magatti, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2007 Basta! – musulmani contro l’estremismo islamico (Enough is Enough! Muslims against Islamic extremism), Milan: Mondadori, 2007 Libertà religiosa e minoranze (Religious Freedom and Minorities), by G. Long (editor), Claudiana 2007, pp. 180 La libertà religiosa (On Religious Freedom), M. Tedeschi (editor), Rubbettino 2002, pp. 1,064

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IVORY COAST

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AREA 322,463 kmq POPULATION 19,660,000 REFUGEES 24,647 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 709,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Ethnoreligionists 37.6% Affiliated Christians 31.8% Muslims 30.1% Others 0.5%

Baptized Catholics 3,147,000

IVORY COAST

The Ivoirian population is more or less equally divided between Christians, Muslims (particularly found in the north of the country) and followers of traditional indigenous religions, the latter being still victims of discrimination by members of the other religious groups who consider them to be of low “social status.” Religious associations and groups must register with the Interior Ministry. Religious teaching is allowed in schools, including state schools, on the condition that it does not take place during regular school hours. Since September 2002 the country has been divided by a deep crisis. The northern area came under the control of the rebels of the Forces Nouvelles (New Forces) who are fighting against the southern region under the control of the legal government. However, in the years 2006 and 2007 there has been a slow and steady improvement in the situation, leading to greater stability. In 2006, after many discussions and attempts at conciliation and appeals against social disorder (including those by Ivoirian Catholic bishops), the leader of the Forces Nouvelles, Guillaume Soro met with President Laurent Gbagbo for the first time, during a cabinet meeting. Soro had not been in the capital, Abidjan, since October 2004, the eve of major clashes between government and rebel forces. In the days that followed the meeting, the president held a series of consultations involving women’s organisations, religious groups and representatives of the industrial and professional sectors. A news report of 11th December 2006 by Jeune Afrique highlighted the work undertaken by the Catholic clergy in organising a series of consultations with civil and party leaders, aimed at avoiding tensions that could jeopardise the peace processes in the country. On 29th March 2007 Guillaume Soro, leader of the Forces Nouvelles in northern Ivory Coast, was appointed as prime minister in accordance with the political agreement signed on 4th March in Burkina Faso, establishing a new transitional government to take the country through to new presidential elections in 2008. A report by Fides on the same day noted that President Gbagbo had reassured the bishops that he would take immediate steps

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to guarantee the safety of Catholic Church properties as well as those of other religions in the country. As Fr Blaise Amia, secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of Ivory Coast, pointed out, in just four months there were ten attacks on parishes, homes of missionaries and other facilities belonging to the Catholic Church – all motivated by economic factors. In one of these attacks Fr Pascal Koné Naougnon was shot to death in his presbytery by thieves trying to rob him. Even though the government has always tried to safeguard freedom of religion as set out in the Constitution, violence has continued in the country, partly along religious lines, but mainly due to political and ethnic problems: many political groups represent specific ethnic groups, which have particular religious loyalties. Soro’s election as prime minister in 2007 eased the Muslim community’s feelings of discrimination. However, it cannot be said that the various religious groups are peacefully integrated. For instance, Muslims continue to complain that they are treated differently when it comes to applying for identity papers or when they are subject to ID checks. Sources Fides, 17th March 2006 and 29th March 2007 jeuneafrique.com, 11th December 2006 MISNA, 29th March 2007 and 8th November 2006 ZENIT, 8th November 2006

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JAMAICA

Guarantees of religious freedom are set out in Article 21 of the 1962 Constitution, as amended in 1994. This article describes clearly and in detail the right to freedom of conscience and worship, both for individuals and associations. The Constitution also guarantees the right to religious instruction and training for religious personnel. Registration is not compulsory for religious groups, however, after verification by state authorities, registration provides tax exemptions for a group’s property and activities. Foreign missionaries are free to enter this country. Practical conditions for exercising religious freedom comply with all established by the Constitution and there are no reports of violations of this right by the authorities or individuals.

AREA 10,991 kmq POPULATION 2,670,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 84% Spiritists 10.1% Others 5.9%

Baptized Catholics

JAMAICA

116,000

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JAPAN

JAPAN

AREA 377,829 kmq POPULATION 127,945,000 REFUGEES 1,794 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Buddhists 55.2% New religions 25.9% Non religious 13.1% Affiliated Christians 3.6% Others 2.2%

Baptized Catholics 537,000

Article 20 of Japan’s Constitution states that freedom of religion is guaranteed, and in actual fact this is the case. Religious groups are not required to register or seek legal recognition, but almost all do so in order to take advantage of certain legal privileges granted by the state, like tax exemption status. Overall some 182,000 groups are registered as religious organisations. The trials against the leader and some of the members of the Aum Shinrikyo (supreme truth) sect ended with death sentences. The group, now called Aleph, holds beliefs that blend elements of Buddhism and Hinduism with apocalyptic views and doomsday expectations that include nuclear wars and world devastation. The group’s leaders were found guilty in connection with a series of attacks carried out between 1995 and 1996, including the Sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway on 20th March 1995 which left 12 people dead and more than 5,500 injured, many with permanent physical injuries. After an eight-year trial, the group’s founder Shoko Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, was sentenced to death in February 2004 for a number of crimes, including the killing of 27 people. During the proceedings the presiding judge called him the “most depraved criminal in Japan’s history”. Despite attempts by Asahara’s lawyers to argue that he was mentally unfit to stand trial because he could not communicate with others and was thus unable to participate in the trial itself or launch a proper appeal, the court ruled in 2006 that the sentence was final. The High Court in Tokyo rejected the lawyers’ complaints, ruling instead that all the terms for an appeal had been exhausted, this after a February 2006 expert report concluded that the cult leader was of sound mind. Twelve other members of the group were also sentenced to death but so far no one has been executed. For the government, Aleph followers are not members of a religion but terrorists. For this reason it has closely monitored the group since 2000, periodically inspecting its offices. The group, which at one point had more than 15,000 followers in Japan and Russia, is now estimated to have 1,500 members in Japan and 300 in Russia.

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JORDAN

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AREA 84,394 kmq POPULATION 5,600,000 REFUGEES 500,281 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 93.5% Affiliated Christians 4.1% Others 2.4%

Baptized Catholics 79,000

JORDAN

Islam is the State religion (Article 2 of the Constitution), but discrimination for religious reasons is forbidden (Article 6) and the Constitution safeguards “the exercise of all forms of worship and rituals, on condition that they are in compliance with the country’s customs and with the exception of those cases in which this is incompatible with public order and decorum” (Article 14). The Constitution however establishes that no one may “ascend the throne except […] a Muslim born of a legitimate wife and to a Muslim father and mother”. Government control over the Islamic institutions is managed by the Minister for Religious Affairs who appoints the imams and subsidises activities promoted by the mosques. Articles 103 to 106 of the Constitution further regulate issues concerning the personal status of Muslims, who are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Islamic courts, which apply the Shari‘a according to the Hanafi School of Sunni Islam. Under Section VI of Draft Law No. 33 dated 2002 (amendment to the Penal Code) are listed a series of crimes “against religion and the family“, among them offences against the prophets, violating the Ramadan fast, the destruction or violation of places of worship, the disturbance of religious meetings, the profanation of cemeteries and offending the religious sentiments of others. In June 2006, in its Official State Gazette, the government published the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which in Article 18 acknowledges the right of “each person to freedom of thought, conscience and religion” and to “manifest, whether individually or with others, in public or in private, their own religion or credo, whether in education, in religious practice, in worship or the observance of its rites”. Its publication means that the Declaration has now become a source of legislation alongside the national law. Religious organisations have the right to establish themselves and to fund schools for educating their own faithful, on condition they comply with the provisions established by the law and submit to government control over their educational programmes and objectives. The law regulating political parties does not permit places of worship to be used for political activities, and this seems to be

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a means for preventing radical elements from carrying out political propaganda in the mosques. Religious instruction is compulsory for Muslim students attending state schools. Christians In 1996, the government permitted Christianity to be taught in state schools and Christmas was proclaimed a national holiday. Of the 110 seats in Parliament, 9 are reserved for Christians. The government bans conversion from Islam as well as proselytism among Muslims. Muslims who have converted to other religions complain that they suffer social discrimination by the authorities because the government does not legally acknowledge such conversions, and considers those who have converted as still being Muslims and subject to the Shari‘a, according to which they are apostates and may have their property confiscated and a number of their rights denied. On 20th January 2006, an Islamic court accepted a complaint against Mahmoud Abdel-Rahman Eleker, a convert from Islam to Christianity, laid against him by his brother-in-law. On 14th April 2006, the brother-in-law withdrew his accusation after the converted man’s wife had renounced her inheritance from her parents in the presence of a solicitor. On 29th April 2007, after interrogating him, the authorities expelled Pastor Mazhar Izzat Bishay, a member of the Free Evangelical Church of Aqaba, who is Egyptian by nationality. In November 2006, four Egyptian Copts resident in Aqaba were also deported after being interrogated about their membership of this same church. Muslims In January 2006, Jihad al-Momani, the former chief editor of the weekly magazine Shihan, and Hussein al-Khalidi, of the weekly al-Mihar, were arrested for having published the controversial cartoons portraying Mohammed. In February the two journalists were sentenced for “public denigration of the prophets” by a lower court. Following this, in May, they were sentenced to a minimum of two months in prison, but then immediately released on bail. The Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies, sponsored by the government, has continued to work in favour of dialogue between religions, in particular between Islam and Christianity. In January 2007, the Institute organised an international conference on a shared approach to reform in the various religious traditions. In February of the same

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year a seminar was held on the role played by the religions within the context of social and political modernisation. Others The members of the small Druze community (20,000 believers in all) continue to be without official recognition, but are free to perform their religious functions. The Baha’i community suffers from official and social discrimination.

JORDAN

Sources Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies

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KAZAKHSTAN

KAZAKHSTAN

AREA 2,724,900 kmq POPULATION 15,872,000 REFUGEES 4,285 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 42.7% Non religious 40.2% Affiliated Christians 16.7% Others 0.4%

Baptized Catholics 184,000

The attitude of Kazakhstan’s authorities to the right of freedom of religion remains ambiguous. On the one hand, they strongly defend it on paper, but on the other, they often breach it in practice. On several occasions, especially at the international level, Kazakh government leaders have made solemn promises in order to project an image of domestic tolerance and respect for religious freedom. Kazakhstan’s ambition to chair the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) as it is expected to do in 2010 is a driving factor behind these promises (Voice of Freedom, 3rd January 2008). In 2006, Kazakhstan hosted the 2nd Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions which seeks to promote interfaith harmony and dialogue. In his speech to the participants Kazakh President Nazarbaev even proposed the creation of an international centre for the study of world cultures and religions to be based in Astana itself, a centre intended to promote dialogue among the different religions and the world’s political leaders (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 13 September 2006). In an interview with the BBC (11th December 2006), he reiterated the importance of religious harmony for his country’s stability. Other top government officials followed suit. Yeraly Tugzhanov, head of the Justice Ministry’s Religious Affairs Committee, said at an OSCE-sponsored conference in Bucharest (Romania) on 7th June 2007 that his country was “an oasis of stability and religious harmony” without religious discrimination (AsiaNews, 9th June 2007). Similarly, Amanbek Mukhashev, deputy head of the government’s Religious Affairs Committee, said at another OSCE conference held in Warsaw on 28th September that “[t]oday we can declare with complete assurance that in Kazakhstan all the necessary conditions have been created for the full freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief” (Forum 18 News Service, 28th September 2007). Despite such encouraging statements of intent by government officials, the situation for many a religious group is far from rosy.

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While balanced in its original formulation, the 1992 law on freedom of conscience was made tougher by later changes, in particular by the amendments of 2005 on “national security” and the “fight against terrorism.” These make it illegal for unregistered groups to engage in religious activities and further curb missionary activities. Members of unregistered minority religious communities – unregistered either by choice or because of tough application procedures – are thus open to various forms of persecution, mostly involving heavy economic sanctions. In addition, some government initiatives ostensibly for “information gathering” purposes have turned into virtual slander campaigns against non traditional religious groups. Case in point: on 10th October 2006 President Nazarbayev approved the “State Programme of Patriotic Education of Citizens of Kazakhstan for 2006-2008” whose goal is to strengthen state supervision of religious activities, reduce the number of violations of the law on freedom of conscience, and prevent religious organisations from using their contacts with poor people to ensnare them into converting. The programme reaffirms the state’s support for traditional religious groups and highlights the dangers posed not only by extremist groups like Hizb-ut-Takhrir but also by groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Hare Krishna because of the “psychological influence of activist members of these associations and organisations on the consciousness of young people” (Forum 18 News Service, 3rd April 2007). These same groups are called dangerous in a pamphlet prepared by the Justice Ministry in 2006, titled “Ways to Escape Religions Sects” . The document itself was released to provide “legal support” to Kazakh citizens, and its readers are warned that many young people have joined religious sects like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptists and Ahmadiyah Muslims. Conversion to other religions is labelled “treason” to one’s “nation and faith” because religion is seen as “our spiritual life, present and future”. What’s more the brochure gives a series of steps people can take at various levels to fight against the influence of religious sects. It urges the Justice Ministry, the Muslim Spiritual Council, the mass media, government agencies, local officials, higher educational institutions, schools and parents to get involved in developing specific initiatives as set out in the brochure to protect the spiritual integrity of young people and counter the risk of abandoning one’s own faith (ferghana.ru, 9th June 2007). It must however be noted that there have been some positive changes in the last two years. For the first time in the history of the country, two religious festivities have been included in the Kazakh calendar, namely Christmas, according to the Orthodox calendar, and Kurbanaid, the Muslim feast of sacrifice (AsiaNews, 28th January 2006). Kazakhstan had hitherto never recognised religious holidays but had only celebrated politically-relevant days in pure Soviet fashion and in strict compliance with secular principles.

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A new law on freedom of conscience? A new law on freedom of conscience was supposed to come into effect in 2007, but parliamentary elections have delayed its adoption. Forum 18 News Service reported (21th February 2007) that it was able to view one of the draft proposals under consideration. This bill envisages that all religious activities by unregistered groups should be banned. Religious organisations would be separated into “associations”, if they have at least 50 adult members, or “groups” if they have fewer members. The latter would be allowed to perform religious ceremonies and rites as well as provide a religious education to their members, but not to publish or import religious literature, hold outdoor prayer services, ask for or accept donations or any other form of help, or engage in charitable activities. The draft law also strengthens the Religious Affairs Committee, since its consent would be required for foreign nationals to head religious communities in Kazakhstan or for places of worship of any kind to be built. Meanwhile other limits on religious freedom may come into effect as part of a new anti-terrorism law prepared by the National Security Committee (KNB), Kazakhstan’s secret police. Although these “changes are not going to affect believers” according to Askar Amerkhanov, deputy chief of staff of KNB’s Anti-terrorist Centre (Forum 18 News Service, 24th October 2006), the draft law is designed to tackle so-called destructive sects and organisations, whose activity is already banned in a variety of countries because they “exert a destructive influence on people’s personalities”, as Amerkhanov himself had previously said in an interview with the Kazakhstan Today news agency (15th September 2006). Among the “destructive groups” Amerkhanov was referring to are the Korean Grace Protestant Church and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Catholic community On 17th December 2006 Mgr Janusz Kaleta took office as the first Catholic bishop of Atyrau, a city some 2,000 kilometres west of the capital Astana (AsiaNews, 27th December 2006). On 7th July 1999 Pope John Paul II divided the Apostolic Administration of Kazakhstan into four jurisdictions with Atyrau as the smallest one. “Catholics in Kazakhstan are a tiny minority. In my administration, there are only about 26,000 Catholics, among a population of 2.2 millions. But we have already 5 fully functioning parishes, and another one is to open soon. Thanks to the Lord, we have many committed young people in our parishes,” Bishop Kaleta said during a visit to the international headquarters of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN News, 7th May 2007). For economic reasons “there are thousands of foreigners working here. We take care of them too,” he said. But “the first challenge is to deepen the faith of our people. But

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Protestants and other religious groups Despite the atmosphere of tolerance and stability the country’s top authorities want to create, some religious groups still suffer persecution. Protestant groups that belong to the Council of Baptist Churches, which includes more than 100 congregations across the country, face the greatest difficulties, since they refuse on principle to apply for registration. Even when a group wants to and is allowed to register, more often than not it is almost giving the state a blank cheque, handing them a virtual right to interfere in the internal affairs of each community. Officials can request very personal information like members’ ethnic origin, their level of religious education, or their family and work situation. In some regions the authorities ask for even more delicate information, like “links and contacts” with other congregations, the names of the “most influential and authoritative figures in the congregation,” and the names of “the most popular political parties and social organisations in the congregation” (Assist News Service, 11th June 2006). In the last two years many Baptist clergymen have been fined under articles 374 and 375 of the Administrative Code, which are intended to punish religious activities by unregistered groups. In some cases fines were pretty stiff, over € 600, this in a country where the average monthly salary hardly exceeds € 200. At times the Baptists have refused to pay the fines, rejecting them out of hand as unjust, only to have the authorities seize their property or get employers to withhold part of the offender’s wages to cover the cost of the fines. In the north-western city of Aktobe, Baptist preacher Andrei Grigoryev was fined five times for engaging in illegal religious activities and for repeatedly refusing to obey a court order ordering him to desist. Overall fines topped € 700 and so on 27th Febru-

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then comes the construction of new churches. We were looked upon as a sect, as long as the Mass was celebrated in private homes.” In an interview with Union of Catholic Asian News (19th March 2007), the Auxiliary Bishop of Karaganda, Mgr Athanasius Schneider, also talked about the situation of Kazakhstan’s Catholic community, saying that it does not have any particular problem and that it maintains good relations with other groups. However, he hastened to add that “we don’t do any missionary work like in Africa”. Instead “most of our newcomers are people of Catholic origin or other Christians, who were not practising their faith. Many were born in mixed-religion families. Our main work is to re-evangelize them, as their parents or grandparents were Christians.” There are “very few” local Catholics, he explained, “or they are of mixed parentage. […] We don’t evangelize among ethnic Kazakhs, who identify themselves with Islam, and we respect their feelings. Moreover we know that the Muslim clergy here are very sensitive about any missionary work among locals.”

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ary 2007 court officers seized some of his property, including his car and washing machine (AsiaNews, 14th March 2007). Sometimes the persistent refusal to pay fines has been punished with one or more days in prison. This was the case of Andrei Penner, head of a congregation in Karaganda. He refused to pay a fine of about € 300 in the fall of 2006 and ended up jailed for a day in March 2007. The fine was automatically deducted from his salary (Forum 18 News Service, 11th May 2007). Another Baptist clergyman, Rev Pyotr Panafidin, who refused to pay a fine of € 611, was held for three days in prison. The court authorised the authorities to seize his home to pay for the outstanding fine (Assist News Service, 1st March 2006). Similarly, Rev Fauzi Gubaidullin, head of a Baptist group in Shymkent, was sentenced to three days in jail because his 40-member strong community had met despite a ban imposed three months earlier by the authorities (AsiaNews, 14th March 2007). Yet his arrest did not stop the group from conducting its activities; instead they continued to conduct religious functions as before. In response the authorities seized their meeting place and sealed it off, leaving the owner, E. Sabirova, and her son homeless (AsiaNews, 26th July 2007). In the case of other religious groups the situation is getting worse because of tougher policies adopted by local authorities. In the Atyrau region for example, many religious groups have failed to register despite repeated attempts in the past five years to get them to do so. This is the case for the Jehovah’s Witnesses who had their latest application turned down because it failed to show the phone numbers of some members of the community (Forum 18 News Service, 12th December 2007). The Grace Presbyterian Church experienced something similar as well. Without proper registration papers, Jehovah’s Witnesses have had their hall raided by police with heavy fines imposed on all six members of the group, € 670 for community leader Aleksandr Rozinov, and € 335 for the five other members (Forum 18 News Service, 23rd July 2007).

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KENYA

Christians In November 2006, the government expelled two US Christian missionaries for distributing material deemed highly offensive to Muslims, including a comic book depicting the prophet Mohammed in hell. Around the same time, a number of Christian leaders warned against a new Christian fundamentalist political party which had set out to preach to the country against the illegal actions and widespread corruption of its ruling class. Called “Agano”, the new party was founded by a Presbyterian minister, David Githii, with the backing of three Christian-inspired parties. The initiative has divided Kenya’s Churches, with Pentecostal and Evangelical groups coming out in favour, whilst the Catholic, Anglican and Methodist Churches are clearly opposed, arguing that the new party might well aggravate the country’s already tense political situation. In April 2007 local authorities temporarily suspended a controversial land distribution programme in the Mount Elgon district following violent clashes that caused the death of a protestant clergyman, Rev. Benson Juma Macherewa, and wounded the brother of a member of parliament. According to Red Cross statistics almost 150 people have been killed on and around Mount Elgon since December 2006 as a result of the violence that has involved local communities, in particular the Sabaot Land Defence Force, which is opposed to the land redistribution. Muslims Muslim leaders continue to complain of discrimination, since the 1998 bombing of the US Embassy in Nairobi and the 2002 attack in Mombasa, with tighter controls on them in the granting of identity papers.

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AREA 580,367 kmq POPULATION 36,430,000 REFUGEES 265,729 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 200,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 79.3% Ethnoreligionists 11.5% Muslims 7.3% Others 1.9%

Baptized Catholics 9,063,000

KENYA

Under Article 78 of the Constitution of 1963 (as amended in 1997), freedom of religion is protected. Article 66 establishes special courts (Kadhi’s Courts) for Muslims in matters of family and inheritance law. Such courts have jurisdiction only in the interpretation of Islamic law and only where all parties involved are Muslims. Witchcraft is a criminal offence but is generally only prosecuted if it involves other crimes like murder.

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For similar reasons Kenyan Muslims denounced the government in November 2006, demanding explanations as to why it was conducting a census of imams and regular mosque-goers in some parts of the country. At a press conference in Mombasa, the vice president of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims, Alhaji Abdillahi Kiptanui said that the initiative by provincial administrations was unjust and demanded that village headmen not be questioned about the number and identity of the imams in the mosques. In January 2007 Kenya’s Muslim organisations called on police leaders to release all the Muslims (mostly Somalis) who had been arrested a few days earlier on suspicion of links to international terrorism but against whom no specific charges had been brought. Having received no reply, leaders of the Muslim Rights Forum filed a petition with the courts. Among those arrested were several women, including the wife of Fazul Mohamed, the alleged mastermind of the 1998 attacks in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi (this according to the Forum co-chairman). The previous year, in February 2006 to be exact, police used tear gas and fired shots in order to disperse a demonstration by Muslim in downtown Nairobi. The demonstration had been organised in protest against the cartoons published in Denmark, which they regarded as offensive to Islam. A few thousand participants and demonstrators burnt Danish and US flags and stepped on them in front of Kenya’s foreign ministry building. Traditional beliefs and sects June 2007 was a tragic month for clashes between the police and outlawed organizations. According to local police at least 112 people died that month in clashes between law and order forces and these groups, including the sect of Mungiki: According to official figures, police killed 73 people suspected of being members of Mungiki, while 28 civilians were killed, in error or vengeance, by these sect members, who beheaded their victims. Apart from that, some 11 police officers were among those killed. More clashes took place in early July 2007. On 2nd July police killed 21 members of this sect. So far the police have arrested 3,379 Mungikis, and have reassured the population that they intend to bring order to the areas controlled by the sect very soon. However, some human rights organisations have criticised the police for excessive use of force. The Mungiki sect is inspired by ancestral African rituals and sees itself as the heir to the Mau-Mau movement of the 1950s, which fought for Kenya’s independence against British colonial rule. They are mostly young people from the poorest slums on the city’s outskirts. Formed in the 1980s, the Mungiki sect was outlawed by the authorities because of its involvement in extortion rackets and violence. Back in 2003 the Catholic Church raised the alarm about the dangers posed by the sect.

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In February 2007 some 20 students from a secondary school in eastern Kenya were sent home for not being circumcised. They were allowed back to school only after they could prove that they had been circumcised and that the circumcision had healed. The decision was taken because school authorities feared that uncircumcised pupils would be victims of bullying by their fellow students. Circumcision is not compulsory in order to attend state schools, but is a widespread practice among most of the country’s ethnic groups.

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Sources AMECEA (Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa) Il Corriere della Sera, 13th May 2006 ICN Independent Catholic News, 12th March 2007 L’Unità, 26th January 2007 MISNA, 4th November 2006 and 11th April 2007 Fides, 26th September 2007 and 3rd July 2007 Vatican Radio, 8th November 2006 and 7th November 2007 swissinfo, 10th February 2006 and 13th February 2007 ZENIT, 2nd March 2006

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KIRIBATI

KIRIBATI

AREA 726 kmq POPULATION 102,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

The 1979 Constitution established total religious freedom (Art.11) which is in actual fact respected. Foreign missionaries are present and operate freely. Religious groups do not need to register. During the period addressed by this report, there were isolated incidents involving religious groups considered as foreign which tried to establish communities in various villages and the more distant islands. They were opposed by local religious leaders, many of whom warned them against proselytising activities. There are no reports of violent incidents also because the new groups often chose not to operate in areas where they were not welcome.

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 94.4% Baha’i 5.2% Others 0.4%

Baptized Catholics 57,000

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In the last two years there have been no significant changes in terms of religious freedom in North Korea, despite greater openness by Pyongyang’s communist regime towards the Catholic Church and Protestant missionaries who, because of their humanitarian work, have been able to enter the country more easily. Religious practice remains indeed strictly banned. In North Korea only the personality cult of Kim Jong-Il and his father Kim Il-Sung is permitted. The communist regime has always tried to hinder the practice of religion, especially by Buddhists and Christians. The faithful are required to join partycontrolled organisations. Unregistered believers and anyone involved in missionary activities are frequently subject to brutal and violent persecution. Since the communist regime was established in 1953 about 300,000 Christians have disappeared and of the priests and nuns that did live in North Korea at the time nothing is now known – they are assumed to have been persecuted to death. At present, some 80,000 people are thought to be languishing in labour camps, subject to starvation diets, torture and even death; seemingly down from 100,000 last year. No one can say whether these figures (provided by NGOs operating in the country which want to maintain their anonymity) are accurate or not, or if so, give reasons for the drop. Former North Korean officials and ex-prisoners have said that Christians in re-education camps or prisons are treated worse than other detainees. According to a secret document sent to all military barracks around the country in September 2007, religion “is spreading like a cancer inside North Korea’s armed forces, whose mission is to defend Socialism”. For this reason it “must be eradicated without delay since it comes from our enemies around the world”. The document was made public by a member of the “Committee for the Democratisation of North Korea”, a group of political exiles and refugees that had it translated and released. “We should not look, listen, read the documents, broadcastings and video or audio materials made by the enemy. The enemy is using radio and TV to launch false [religious and anti-socialist] propaganda through well-made, strategic news and intrigue,” the booklet warned. “They are placing spies within internation-

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AREA 120,538 kmq POPULATION 23,912,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Non religious 71.2% New religions 12.9% Ethnoreligionists 12.3% Affiliated Christians 2.1% Others 1.5%

Baptized Catholics

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al delegations entering our borders to spread their religions and superstitious beliefs”. This material “is like poison that corrupts socialism and paralyses class consciousness” even among our soldiers, and “now more than ever” soldiers must extirpate it and stand on guard to prevent its return. In North Korea the state has defined 51 social categories. Anyone practising a religion that is not under government control is self-evidently at the bottom of the social ladder with fewer opportunities for education, employment and food assistance and constantly subject to brutal violence. The authorities have claimed that the country enjoys religious freedom which is protected under the Constitution. According to official government figures there are 10,000 Buddhists, 10,000 Protestants and 4,000 Catholics, but these estimates refer only to members of officially sanctioned associations. In Pyongyang there are three churches, two Protestant and one Catholic. These two Protestant churches being used to spread the regime’s propaganda and the pastors within them liken the “dear leader” Kim Jong-Il to a demi-god. In the one and only Catholic church there is no North Korean priest, but group prayers are held once a week and, in exceptional cases, religious functions are performed by ethnic Korean priests, but of foreign nationality. Hunger and religious persecution are pushing a great many North Koreans to flee the country. If captured they are often sentenced to death or forced labour. An agreement between China and North Korea has made a bad situation even worse since Chinese leaders have in practice agreed to treat North Korean refugees as “illegal immigrants” and will repatriate any caught on Chinese territory, by force if necessary. A 28-year-old North Korean refugee identified only by the pseudonym Park Sun-ja to protect her identity gave evidence to an international conference about human rights violations in North Korea. She was quoted by LifeSiteNews as saying that infanticide and forced abortion are common practices in North Korean detention camps “and carried out more brutally if the mother is a religious believer, whatever her religion”. What she has to say is shocking. “I heard the cries of both mother and child through the curtain (at a hospital). And through the partially open curtain, I witnessed the nurse covering the infant’s face with a wet towel on a table, suffocating it. The baby stopped crying about ten minutes later,” Park said. “All the prisoners there believed that all infants were killed immediately upon delivery and wrapped up in a piece of cloth before being burnt at a nearby hill,” she said, adding that the usual method used to induce early delivery of the child was by injection. “I cannot even imagine how she [the aforementioned woman] may have felt,” Park said. “I heard that these kinds of acts were done before, but once I saw them with my own eyes, I didn’t feel like I was living in a civilised society.”

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Park was caught in China in 2000 and was sent for two months to the Shinuiju Provincial Detention Camp, where she saw the infanticide take place. She managed to escape successfully to South Korea in 2002. Catholic Church On several occasions Benedict XVI has mentioned our “North Korean brothers” and invited the world to pray for them. “I am […] aware of the practical gestures of reconciliation undertaken for the well-being of those in North Korea,” the Pope said during the ad Limina Apostolorum visit by the Korean bishops in December 2007. “I encourage these initiatives and invoke Almighty God’s providential care upon all North Koreans,” he added. He was referring to the many charitable initiatives undertaken by the Church in South Korea on behalf of the population of the North. But something has changed since last year: the attitude of the North Korean regime. Whereas avowedly Christian workers were once treated as Western spies, they are now welcomed. As part of this “new attitude” the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Pyongyang has welcomed the building of the Korean People’s National Reconciliation Centre in Paju, Gyeonggi-do province, near the border with North Korea. This project was decided by the archdiocese of Seoul to “promote relations with the North Korean Church” and “favour a friendly approach” to the North’s inhabitants. The communist regime called it a “positive” idea. The centre will include a two-storey building, one serving as a seminary, the other for liturgical use with an expiatory church, a small shrine and an auditorium. The seminary, which will be able to house about a hundred people, includes a study area and a religious museum. The National Reconciliation Committee, chaired by Bishop Kim Un-hwi, is in charge of the project and has recently selected the architect to design the structure. The first drawings are already available for public viewing. The project will cover an area of 2,200 pyong (a little under a hectare) and will be built to reflect North Korea’s oldstyle sacred architecture as it existed before division. North Korean Church architecture is known as an ‘inculturated architectural style’ because it relies on traditional Korean concepts of architecture. Additionally, thanks to the commitment of Catholics from the South, North Korea’s Rason International Catholic Hospital was extended. According to AsiaNews, the medical facility is located in Hamgyeongbuk-do province in the east of the country. The hospital which opened its doors in 2005 has been built with the assistance of the Catholic International Cooperation Medical Service thanks to the cooperation between the Congregation of St. Ottilien of the Benedictine Order and the Catholic Church of Korea. The three-story building covers an area of 25,000 m2 and is

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equipped with diagnostic and therapeutic equipment. It has 100 beds and employs 80 doctors, nurses and medical staff. “Catholic hospitals give hope for peace and co-operation. I hope that this hospital in particular may pave the way towards further co-operation,” said Notker Wolf, O.S.B, Abbot of the Congregation of St. Ottilien, on the day of its inauguration. “That a hospital can open in North Korea with the help and assistance of the Church is a happy occasion,” said Mgr Paul Ri Moun-hi, Archbishop of Daegu (South Korea), head of the Catholic foundation funding the project. “The effort of the Catholic Church in favour of reconciliation and unity of the two Koreas is an important mission not only for the Korean population but also for peace and humanity as a whole.” However, despite the Church’s efforts, no one should think for a minute that the communist regime is making its work any easier. The situation for the Catholic Church in North Korea remains appalling. Since the end of the civil war in 1953, the three local ecclesiastical jurisdictions and the whole Catholic community have been brutally wiped out by the Stalinist regime. Not a single local priest was left alive and all foreign clergymen were expelled. In the early years of persecution by Kim Il-sung, North Korea’s first dictator, an estimated 300,000 Catholics vanished. Yet the Pope has kept alive the clergy assigning sedi vacanti et ad nutum Sanctae Sedis (i.e. vacant sees, under the administration of external bishops appointed by Rome) to South Korean ordinaries. At present, in addition to Cardinal Cheong of Seoul, who administers the diocese of Pyongyang, Mgr John Chang Yik, Bishop of Ch’unch’on in the South, is the administrator for Hamhung, and Fr Simon Peter Ri Hyeong-u, Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of Waegwan, is the administrator for Tokwon in North Korea. In order to underline the persecution by the North Korean regime, the Annuario Pontificio, the Vatican’s Pontifical Yearbook, still lists Mgr Francis Hong Yong-ho as bishop of Pyongyang. Although he has not been seen since 10th March 1962, he has never been officially declared dead (If he were alive, he would be 101 years old). As of today there are no Church institutions, nor resident priests in North Korea. Following the inauguration of the first Orthodox church last August in the North Korean capital, Catholics are the only community without a minister for their faith. Officially, the number of Catholics stands at 800, far fewer than the 3,000 recently acknowledged by the government. The so-called North Korean Catholic Association, an organisation created and run by the regime, still claims to represent local Catholics, but the Holy See has always discouraged visits by its leaders to Rome because of continuing serious doubts about their legal and canonical status. There are strong indications that they are actually Communist Party officials and not Catholics at all.

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The only Catholic church has no priest but does host a weekly group prayer. But such places of worship are nothing but “show pieces” for the few tourists who manage to visit the country. Other Christian denominations In December 2005, four North Korean Orthodox Christians have been studying for three months in the Russian city of Vladivostok to update their ministry. The group included a priest, two deacons and a student of sacred music. They were staying at Svyato-Nikolsky Cathedral for their studies, which included theoretical explanations and practical examples of Slavic Orthodox liturgy. The group was led by Peter Kim Chkher, chairman of the North Korean Orthodox Commission, and includeed the two deacons Theodore and Ioann and Kim En Chang, a graduate from the Gnesiny Music School. The Orthodox Commission was set up by the North Korean government in 2002. Fr Dionisy Pozdnyayev, an Orthodox priest from the Moscow Patriarchate, who has been ministering to foreigners living in the North Korean capital on the invitation of the North Korean government, calls the Commission “a sign of official recognition for Orthodoxy.” The four members invited Archbishop Veniamin of Vladivostok and Primorye to the consecration of Pyongyang’s new Trinity Church which took place in 2006. The ground for the new church was blessed on 24th June 2003 by Orthodox Archbishop Kliment Kapalin. North Korean representatives said at the time that it was “important” for Orthodox believers in Pyongyang to have the opportunity to practise their faith and expressed “hope” that building the church would strengthen ties between Russia and North Korea. For the Russian Ambassador to North Korea, Andrei Karlov, the church marked “the return of Orthodoxy to Korea after a long break”. In the early 1900s some 10,000 Koreans converted to Orthodoxy in cities like Seoul (South Korea), Wonsan (North Korea) and many villages as a result of the work of Russian missionaries. But Japanese colonial rule and the Stalinist regime brought evangelisation to an end. Eventually, missionary activity did start again in South Korea which now has four Orthodox churches. The delegation that came to Vladivostok is not the first of its kind to arrive in Russia from North Korea. Four North Koreans have been studying from 2003-2005 at the Moscow Patriarchate’s Theological Seminary, whilst two Russian students from the Moscow Theological Academy have been studying Korean language and culture at Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung University. Fr Dionisy said that the four Korean students in Vladivostok are concentrating on the study of Russian (including Church Slavonic, which is used in the liturgy) and the catechism so that they can prepare others for baptism.

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Patriarch Aleksij II of Moscow and All Russia has approved the choice of Vladivostok as the place to train the Korean clergy. Thanks to this “bridge,” a delegation of Russian Orthodox Christians, including clergymen and members of the Church hierarchy, was able to celebrate Pentecost with the small Korean Orthodox community. According to a statement issued by Orthodox diocese of Vladivostok, the “visit to the capital of North Korea coincides with the celebration of Pentecost. On this day, the first Orthodox temple, which was opened in Pyongyang in August 2006 and consecrated in honour of the life-giving Trinity, celebrates its dedicatory feast.” Many experts view this unexpected openness as a sign of Pyongyang’s “desperate need” for the support of the international community. As a result of disastrous agricultural and economic policies, the country is on the verge of collapse. The population is living on only a third of what the United Nations considers a human being’s minimum daily calorific intake. But despite these problems, Kim Jong-il has maintained an attitude of seeming indifference to the situation and continues to tout the “victory of the Socialist system” in the country. Thus Russia’s help like that of China has become the dictator’s only way to save face whilst at the same time allowing North Koreans to survive.

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KOREA, REPUBLIC OF

AREA 99,268 kmq POPULATION 48,500,000 REFUGEES 118 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 40.8% Ethnoreligionists 15.6% Buddhists 15.3% New religions 15.2% Confucians 11.1% Others 2%

Baptized Catholics 4,682,000

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The Constitution of 1948 of the Republic of Korea (amended several times until 1988) guarantees freedom of conscience (Article 19) and freedom of religion (Article 20) for all citizens. It recognises no State religion and officially upholds the principle of the separation of Church and State. The law does not require religious organisations to register; from an organisational point of view they are completely autonomous. Religion cannot be taught in public schools but there is total freedom in private schools. The only religious statutory holidays are Christmas and the Buddha’s birthday. In the country Christians (Catholics and Protestants) outnumber Buddhists. Small groups belonging to other religions are also present. There are no problems insofar as religious freedom is concerned, either involving the authorities or between private citizens.

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KUWAIT

KUWAIT

AREA 17,818 kmq POPULATION 2,532,000 REFUGEES 38,159 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 83% Affiliated Christians 12.7% Hindus 2.8% Others 1.5%

Baptized Catholics 300,000

The Constitution proclaims Islam as the State religion and the Shari‘a as the “main source of the legislation” (Article 2). The 1962 Constitution also decrees the absence of discrimination. Article 29 affirms that “all men are equal before the law in human dignity and public rights and duties, without distinction as to race, origin, language or religion”, while Article 35 states: “Freedom of conscience is absolute. The State protects the holding of religious ceremonies according to current customs, provided that these do not disrupt public order or oppose morality”. In recent years however, there have been assertions and denials regarding the level of real tolerance, since the government does indeed pose restrictions on the exercise of these rights, in particular for the followers of the non-monotheistic religions. The penal code establishes the death penalty for apostasy in Articles 96 and 167-172, a fact that has given rise to numerous controversies in the Arab press, since some citizens had declared themselves to be Christians. Seven Christian Churches are recognized, albeit in an entirely informal manner, of which three – the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church and the National Evangelical Church of Kuwait – enjoy a privileged status compared to the other four, which are however permitted to operate in this country. As far as other cases are concerned, there is a degree of tolerance even with regard to minor denominations. All of them, however, are forbidden from any missionary activity among Muslims, just as the schools are not permitted to provide instruction in religions other than Islam. The training of priests is likewise forbidden within the country, as is the distribution of religious material, with the exception of one company that imports books and is permitted to sell religious literature. On 6th March 2006, Parliament passed a new law on the press, rescinding legislation in force since 1961. From the mid-1970s, the government had refused all licenses for new newspapers, the approval of this new law on the press marks a decisive step forward in the liberalisation process. In particular, the law forbids the detention of journalists on trial before the court has passed a final sentence, unlike current legislation that still allows preventive imprisonment. Furthermore, this law prohibits the revocation of such licences unless this has previously been

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Christians In December 2006 a member of parliament criticised a state orphanage for having accepted Christmas presents and for having hung Christmas cards on the walls during a visit by an American military delegation. A number of Kuwaiti citizens described the parliamentarian’s attitude as intolerant. The Kuwaiti daily newspaper al-Watan published a long interview with Maronite Bishop Béchara Rai, of Biblos (Lebanon), on the occasion of his visit to the country to participate in an interreligious forum on the figure of Christ, organised by the Movement for Islamic Harmony. The bishop praised Kuwait’s religious tolerance and expressed appreciation for Kuwait’s attitude to the churches. Asked what he thought of the extremists, Bishop Rai answered, “they are against religion because they are political movements that distort religion” and added that he had read about the protests in Kuwait against the celebration of the Christian Christmas, but was satisfied by the manner in which the authorities had reacted to this intolerance. On 13th December 2007, when receiving the new Ambassador of Kuwait, the Pope addressed the situation of the Catholics in this country. “I cannot fail to mention in this regard – said Benedict XVI to Ambassador Suhail Khalil Shuhaiber – the many Catholics living and working in Kuwait, who can freely worship in their own churches. Your nation’s Constitution rightly upholds their religious freedom. This fundamental right, grounded in the inviolable dignity of the person, is fittingly considered the cornerstone of the whole edifice of human rights”. Muslims In recent years there has been an improvement in the situation of the Shiite minority. The government has authorised the building of new mosques. The construction of new places of worship had in fact been the main request presented by the Shiites who had complained that there were only 30 Shiite mosques in the emirate, compared with 1,300 Sunni ones. However, at the end of 2006 and during 2007, there was renewed tension between the two communities, which some observers saw as a reflection of the denominational

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specifically ordered by a court, while the judicial authorities are permitted to order the suspension of publication for a maximum of two weeks during their investigations. As for sanctions to be applied to those writing against Allah, the prophets, and the descendents and wives of Mohammed, the law specifies imprisonment, plus a fine of between 17,000 and 70,000 US dollars. However, the possibility has still been retained, under the current penal code, of applying still more severe sentences against anyone inciting others to subvert the current form of government.

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violence in nearby Iraq. In order to improve the situation, there were many interventions by the ruling family, emphasising the equality between the two communities. During the 2006 Ramadan, a Shiite minister sparked controversy by bringing in to Parliament a prayer book containing statements considered offensive by the Sunnis. A number of conservatives requested the creation of a committee to establish behavioural rules based on a specific interpretation of Islam. In mid May 2007, the Minister for Education, a woman, Nouriya Al-Subeeh, declined to wear a veil in parliament. This gesture sparked criticism among her ministerial colleagues, who believed that the Islamic Law must be respected. However, the intellectuals in the country sided with her, representing her as an example of all those women who are the victims of male power. Sources al-Watan AsiaNews L’Osservatore Romano Siena University’s Observatory of Constitutional Law

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KYRGYZSTAN

Stricter laws In recent times there has often been conflict and violent reaction on the part of the local Muslim population against proselytising activities by groups considered “non-traditional” – especially against Protestants, and mostly in the south of the country. This has resulted in a need to review current legislation on freedom of worship, especially as far as the definition of some of the restrictions on missionary activities and the implementation of greater control over religious groups are concerned. On 12th July 2007 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

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AREA 199,900 kmq POPULATION 5,190,000 REFUGEES 723 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 6.8% Non religious 27.9% Affiliated Christians 10.4% Others 0.9%

Baptized Catholics 1,000

KYRGYZSTAN

Ever since Soviet hegemony came to an end, Kyrgyzstan has been considered an oasis of tolerance among the Central Asian republics. In the course of the last two years however, great political instability and the widespread presence of fundamentalist Islamic groups have resulted in the authorities acknowledging the need to increase control over religious organisations, both so as to prevent the growth of Islamic extremism and to stop the acts of violence by the Muslim population against religious groups engaged in public missionary activities and proselytism. The country’s political situation had been characterised by great instability since 2005, the year in which public protests resulted in the removal of President Askav Akayev, who was replaced by Kurmanbek Bakiev. Since then conflict between the new President and many previously elected members of parliament, as well as ever-present discontent in the population, have resulted in an extremely volatile climate, with constant paralysis of government activities and frequent mass protests. Parliamentary elections held in December – which resulted in 100 percent of seats being granted to the President’s political party and his allies, because of an electoral law approved two months previously – did not calm down the situation at all, but instead led to fears, even at international level, that this might result in a slide into authoritarianism. “There is a risk, expressed by analysts and by the opposition, of an authoritarian regime within this region, which until now represented an exception of liberalism” (L’Osservatore Romano, 17th-18th December 2007).

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reported that the State Religious Affairs agency was analysing five draft laws on this subject. As reported by the Forum 18 News Service on 12th July 2006, Shamsybek Zakirov, advisor to the director of the State Religious Affairs agency, confirmed the intention to amend the Bill on freedom of worship as quickly as possible saying: “I hope that the new Draft Bill will be as close as possible to international standards. For us, however, it is important to take into account not only the international laws but also the reality of our own country.” On another occasion reported by the RIA Novosti Agency on 16th March 2007, Zakirov added: “We are not Europeans. Western missionary activities can rock the boat here.” As reported on 12th July by the Interfax Agency, Secretary of State Adakhan Madumarov has also confirmed the need for restricting religious freedom in Kyrgyzstan: “Freedom of worship must have clearly defined limits, that cannot be overstepped, whatever the religion one belongs to. There is a need – continued Madumarov – for the introduction of a coherent approach, so that each person knows his rights and his duties”. A decree dated May 2006 acknowledges Islam and the Russian Orthodox Church as “traditional religious groups”. In the meantime, a new Constitution, effective since 30th December 2006, defines the Nation as a united, social democratic and sovereign state, based on the law; the word “secular” has been eliminated from the definition. Catholics A small minority in this country, Catholics live and work without great difficulty and have good relations both with the Muslim and the Orthodox populations. With two decrees, dated 18th March 2007, the Pope elevated this country to an Apostolic Administration and appointed as its first bishop the Jesuit Nikolaus Messmer, former parish priest of the only Catholic church in Kyrgyzstan, the church of Saint Michael the Archangel. Initially built in 1969 as a one-story building by the German minority that was forcibly relocated to Central Asia after Stalin had ordered them to be deported from the Volga region together with the Poles, the Lithuanians and the Koreans, the church was enlarged in 1981 with the addition of a second floor, since the number of the faithful had increased. This new Apostolic Administration includes three parishes and serves 30 communities spread all over the country, each with about 30 faithful. The priests – six Jesuits and two diocesans – visit the communities in turns while the nuns – Franciscans – are very active in their social work and mainly provide medical and legal aid.

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Protestants The most critical situation is the one experienced by Protestant groups. In the course of the last two years, the state’s commitment to guaranteeing adequate freedom of worship has clashed with the new rise of Islamic extremism. Growing hostility towards Protestant groups, preaching to citizens of Kyrgyz ethnic origin and Islamic religion, has led to an escalation of violence, ending in the most extreme case with the murder in December 2005 of Saktinbai Usmanov, a Kyrgyz who had converted to Christianity (as reported by Forum 18 News Service on 17th February 2006). Many Protestants attribute the changed climate to the rise to power of the new Kyrgyz leader. Shamsybek Zakirov has however denied these claims, stating that “the problems with religious minorities were already present before Akayev was deposed. They have now reached a critical point and we must intervene with stricter provisions […] especially due to the recent and rapidly strengthening positions of Islamic extremists in the south of the country”. Zakirov has said that he is working “between two fires”: “At almost every meeting, the people from the south of the country ask us to put a stop to Christian propaganda. […] I myself have often been described as ‘an enemy of Islam’ for having allowed a Protestant church to register. […] The problem with protestants is that the actively work to spread their faith. We have no such problems, for example, with members of the Orthodox faith and the people have a positive attitude towards them. If we ask the Protestants to stop preaching to the Muslims it is mainly because we are worried about their safety.” It is in the South, in cities such as Tashkumur, Karakul and Tereksu and in other areas not far from Jalalabad, that there are more frequent cases of clashes between Muslims and Protestants. On 28th July 2006, in the southern village of Karakulja, in the Osh region, over eighty Muslims attacked a home and beat up the protestant pastor Zulumbek Sarygulov, threatening to kill him and his relatives. Muratbek Zhumabayev, the imam of the local mosque, as reported by AsiaNews on 2nd October 2006, stated that: “The faithful are extremely annoyed by the fact that Sarygulov has opened a church in our village. Here we are all Kyrgyzs and we have no need for Christian churches”. Janybek Zhakipov, the pastor for the Church of Jesus Christ in Jalalabad, the one most attended by the Protestant community in Kyrgyzstan with more than ten thousand faithful of whom 40 percent are of Kyrgyz ethnic origin, told the same source that he too had been subjected to pressure to put an end to the community’s activities, after an official from the Committee for Religious Affairs had shown him a petition signed by over 500 local Muslims, asking for his church to be closed.

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Islam The State has an ambivalent attitude towards Islam. On one hand the Islamic tradition is considered a fundamental element in the creation of a stronger sense of identity among the Kyrgyz people, while on the other hand there is a constant preoccupation with trying to restrict demonstrations of excessive religiosity and keeping a tight rein on the emergence of extremist groups. The increasing influence of the Islamic religion on political life is attributed by many to the ascent to power of Kurmanbek Bakiev, who comes from the city of Jalalabad in the south of the country, in an area from which there is greater pressure for a more openly religious society. An analysis published by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting on 18th September 2007 shows how this approach has prompted conflicting reactions from international observers. Some consider it a danger to the secular nature of the state and fear that might lead to a progressive Islamisation over time, while others have praised it, seeing in it an appropriate remedy for the absence of values and sense of identity affecting the Kyrgyz people. Tursunbay Bakir-Uulu, the ombudsman for human rights and a devout Muslim, emphasised that the reinstatement of religious values in public life could lead to great benefits for a healthier and more ethical society. “We welcome people’s interest in spirituality, in God and in religious history. If society is lacking in moral values it becomes governed by corruption, crime and the mafia”, he said. According to Kadyr Malikov, an analyst with the Institute for Analysys and Strategic Forecasting, as reported by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting on 8th December 2006, institutions must necessarily be reformed so as to allow the Kyrgyz authorities greater influence over the country’s religious environment. “Since the years of independence, Islam and the religious situation have in a way been neglected […] but a religious rebirth is quickly spreading through all levels of society, and the young are above all becoming ‘islamised’. The State’s role is not to interfere in religious affairs […] but to facilitate Islam’s growth in a positive manner and create the framework within which this can take place”. It was perhaps within this framework that the Kyrgyz government, as reported by Human Rights Without Frontiers on 16th August 2006, intended to introduce religious instruction into secondary schools. According to the Minister for Education, Dosbol Nur Uulu, this is a measure enacted against the recent reappearance of religious extremism, and is addressed at discouraging the young from attending “religious organisations of dubious origin”. As a report published on 26th March 2007 on the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website stated, the Kyrgyz parliament voted against a Draft Bill which would have decriminalised polygamy, a proposal also supported by the Ministry of Justice itself. In

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Control over the financing of NGOs As reported by AsiaNews on 26th January 2006, the government has also started to check up on non-governmental organisations, and in particular on the funding they receive from abroad. For some time now the government has feared that these groups might threaten state security; hence controls have increased, especially with regards to those engaged in political and religious activities. Edil Bailasov, leader of the pro democracy and civil society group, stated that “In these last few days the media has often debated the role played by NGOs and accused these of being at the service of the United States or western donors”. Many people believe that NGOs played a fundamental role in the “revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine in recent years and there is a fear that they wish to incite public protests so as to bring a pro-Western leader to power.

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March 2007, the same source reported that the Kyrgyz authorities had decided to allow Muslim women to use passport photographs in which they wore the (Islamic) headscarf to cover their heads, thereby revoking the pre-existing ban on this custom. However, requests presented by parents protesting against the directors of some schools who did not want to allow girls wearing the hijab, the traditional Islamic veil, to attend lessons, were rejected. As reported by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting on 4th October 2007, these parents judged this provision as being a violation of the constitutional principle of freedom of worship; educational and state authorities however defended this choice, considering that in state schools it should be a priority to ensure that existing educational rules be respected as far as school uniforms were concerned, while allowing privately run religious schools to accept pupils expressing their religious beliefs also through their clothes.

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LAO PEOPLE’S DEM. REP.

LAO PEOPLE’S DEM. REP.

AREA 236,800 kmq POPULATION 6,173,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Buddhists 48.8% Ethnoreligionists 41.7% Non religious 5.4% Affiliated Christians 2.1% Others 2%

Baptized Catholics 15,000

Article 30 of the Constitution of 1991 provides for religious freedom. However, in practice the government has restricted this right on the basis of a constitutional principle which bans any activity that might cause divisions among citizens. In line with such restrictions, the Prime Ministerial Decree (n. 92) on religious practice was issued in 2002 requiring government approval (via the Lao Front for National Construction, an organisation of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party or LPRP) for almost all religious activities (including among other things, proselytism, printing religious material, buying or building places of worship, contacts with foreign religious groups). Government control is facilitated by the broad powers invested in the police and in judges who can arrest and hold defendants in prison without trial for given periods of time. Since 1991 the country has been governed by a “centralised democracy” led by the LPRP (heir to the Communist Pathet Lao movement, which once persecuted religion). Despite some economic opening, Lao society and religious life remain under tight government control. Christian groups are particularly targeted because they are seen as offshoots of Western imperialist nations and not as part of the state system. Things are not necessarily better for other religions though; for instance, in 2007 two Buddhist monks were arrested in Bolikhamsai province for being ordained without government authorisation. Proselytism by foreign missionaries is banned, but many carry out social activities within private groups. Distributing religious material can lead to arrest and expulsion. In early 2006 two South Korean Christians were arrested and expelled for “proselytism”. Catholics The ordination of Sophone Vilavongsy, a Lao and an Oblate missionary of Mary Immaculate, took place on 16th June 2006, the first priest to be ordained in Laos for 30 years. The ceremony had been set for 8th December 2005 but at the last moment the government denied the necessary permit without explanation. Eventually the ceremony went ahead, but under certain limitations such as few participants. Celebrations for the event were also scaled down.

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On 9th December 2006, Peter Wilaiphorn Phonasa and Luke Sukpaphorn Duangchansai were also ordained as priests. On 29th December 2007 Benedict Bennakhone Inthirath, an Oblate and the first parishioner in Pakxan to become priest, was consecrated in Pakxan, in front of a crowd of over 3,000 people (UCA News). Again in 2006, the authorities allowed the construction of two new rural churches in Ventiane province. Conversely, the harsh persecution of ethnic Hmong Catholics has continued. The government does not even recognise them as Lao citizens. Many have fled to Thailand, but Human Rights Watch has complained several times that the Thai authorities have, in cooperation with their Lao counterparts and in violation of international agreements on the rights of asylum seekers, sent Hmong refugees back to Laos where they have faced mistreatment, torture and prison. A similar fate awaits the more than 6,000 Hmong in the Phetchabun camp (Khao Koh in Thailand) whose repatriation is expected this year without any supervision by international agencies. Protestants On 22nd December 2005 a Protestant pastor, Aroun Voraphon, was killed in Pakading near Paksane (Bolikhamsai province) after celebrating a pre-Christmas religious service. The reasons for his murder is still unclear. The police inquiry focused on money but the Lao Movement for Human Rights (LMHR) expressed doubts about the official explanation and noted that “His face was swollen and bore the marks of having been beaten,” and his body “had been stabbed several times with a knife in the region of the heart, and his throat had been cut” (AsiaNews). This clergyman had been arrested in 1996 and detained for more than a year because of his religious activities. In some areas the local authorities have put a great deal of pressure on Protestant groups to force them to repudiate their faith, threatening them with arrest or expulsion from their villages. Arrests have been made in the provinces of Luang Namtha, Oudomsai, Salavan, Savannakhet, Vientiane and Bokeo, with some believers spending months on end behind bars. In some areas the faithful have even been prevented from gathering for religious ceremonies and have been forced instead to take part in “re-education” sessions. In December 2006 in Luang Namtha five Protestants were arrested for building a church without a permit. They were released on 20 January 2007 after signing a statement repudiating their faith. Many Protestants belong to minority ethnic groups like the Mon-Khmer and the Hmong – groups which have never been absorbed by the central power so that ethnic rivalry is added to religious persecution. On 1st April 2006 the village chief of Tabeng (Salavan) ordered a man called Lapao to repudiate his faith; when the latter refused he was arrested. Two Christian families were also expelled (Christian Aid Mission).

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On 11th August 2006 two Christian leaders, A-Kouam and A-Vieng, were arrested in Savannakhet, to prevent them from “spreading the Christian religion in the area, especially among the ethnic minorities” (Lao Movement for Human Rights, LMHR) In many villages like Nakun in Bolikhamsai province and Xunya in Luang Namtha, religious services are not allowed in private homes. Yet at the same time, believers are refused permission to build their own church. An exception was made in 2006, however, when four churches were permitted to reopen in Bolikhamsai, and another in Vientiane province. In Xunya, in March 2007, permission was refused for a Christian funeral. Two months later, in May, Christian marriages and funerals were permitted, but without the presence of other faithful. In Nakun and other villages, those who refused to sign a statement of repudiation were threatened or even forced to leave. The persecution against the Christian Hmong people is harsh and systematic. Compass Direct News reported the killing of 13 of them at the end of July 2007. After running away, many of them were beaten at the end of a veritable manhunt by Lao soldiers and an additional 200 soldiers brought in specially from Vietnam. About 200 Hmong from the village of Sai Jerem were imprisoned. On 21th February 2008, 58 people from 15 families were arrested in Bokeo district. The next day a Christian Hmong leader was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for organising unauthorised meetings. In Nam Heng village (Oudomsai province) in early 2006, lands belonging to Protestant families were seized and given to other residents. Two ethnic Brou Protestants were released, again in early 2006, after being kept almost a year in prison in order to get them to repudiate their religion. Two ethnic Khmus were detained in November 2006 for taking part in a Protestant celebration near Vientiane; they were held for three weeks and forced to pay a fine of US$ 3,000. In November 2006, 13 other Khmu Protestants were arrested in Khon Khen village. Three of them, seen as leaders, were still in prison almost a year later, yet without being notified of any specific charge against them. On 26th November 2006, the Rev Van Thong, head of the Lao Evangelical Church, and 11 other pastors were arrested for having organised a meeting with some Western Christians. They were eventually released about a year later, between October and December 2007 (Voice of the Martyrs). On 18th March 2008, Lao police arrested eight ethnic Khmu Protestant pastors as they were travelling to Thailand for a meeting.

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LATVIA

The Constitution of 1992 was significantly amended in 1998 with the addition of Chapter VIII on fundamental human rights. Article 99 recognises that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. It also states that the Church shall be separate from the State. In practical terms, the principles embodied in this article are implemented by the appropriate legislation. The notion of “traditional religions” is incorporated into law, thus enabling groups so defined to enjoy certain administrative and tax advantages. Other groups that apply for registration (which is not compulsory) can benefit from other tax advantages, including, in some circumstances, access to public funds. All issues relating to State-Church relations are regulated through the Ecclesiastical Council, which includes representatives from traditional religions: namely Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, Adventists, Old Believers and Jews. No cases of violation of the principles of religious freedom have been reported.

AREA 64,600 kmq POPULATION 2,298,000 REFUGEES 29 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 66.9% Non religious 32% Others 1.1%

Baptized Catholics

LATVIA

435,000

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LEBANON

LEBANON

AREA 10,400 kmq POPULATION 3,817,000 REFUGEES 50,337 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 90,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 53% Muslims 42.4% Non religious 4.5% Others 0.1%

Baptized Catholics 1,836,000

There is no State religion. Article 9 of the Constitution establishes the State’s respect for all religions and guarantees their legislative and judiciary autonomy on subjects such as marriage and the family as well as succession. Such religious discrimination as there is in the country is a result of the denominational political system, which assigns the highest public appointments to the various communities according to well-defined criteria: the presidency of the republic to a Maronite Catholic, the presidency of the Council of Ministers to a Sunni Muslim, the parliamentary Speaker to a Shiite. Religious communities are furthermore represented in parliament according to fixed quotas. In spite of its discriminating characteristics, this denominational system guarantees the participation of all the country’s elements in the government, consolidating an unusual parliamentary tradition in a region dominated by various kinds of dictatorships. However, the “National Council for the Abolition of Political Sectarianism” established by the Taif Agreements (1989) which aims to evaluate the competence rather than the religion of candidates, has not yet been set up. Lebanon however remains a leader in the Middle East in regard to respect for religious freedom, with the various religious groups able to organise their own schools, associations and religious courts. The only legal marriages are religious, although the state recognises civil marriages entered into abroad. In addition to the 18 religious communities that have official recognition, the Baha’i, Buddhist and Hindu communities have the freedom to practice their faith with no interference from the government. General political overview 2006-2007 During the period covered by this report, Lebanon has experienced a period of real and serious tension In July 2006 the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and the assassination of another eight by Hezbollah guerrillas triggered a terrible war between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite movement that lasted for thirty days. The conflict caused the death of about 1,200 Lebanese, mainly civilians. During this conflict many places of worship (Shiite mosques and Christian churches) suffered severe damage. The war was followed by an institutional crisis that

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Christians On 5th February 2006 a furious crowd of over 20,000 people set fire to the building housing the Danish Consulate in Beirut, in protest against the cartoons on Mohammed. The Lebanese police used tear gas to disperse the crowd, leaving almost 30 people wounded. The protesters also attacked other buildings and shops in the Achrafiyeh district, the Christian majority area, and threw stones at a church. Lebanon’s Grand Mufti, Mohammad Rashid Qabani, asked everyone to remain calm. “We do not wish”, he said, “for the expression of our condemnation to be used by some people to give a distorted image of Islam”. Throughout the period in question, the Maronite bishops, headed by Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir have expressed their views on the situation in the country. In the communiqué issued at the end of their monthly assembly in March 2006, the bishops noted that one section of the population was supporting President Lahoud “at all costs” and defending the legitimacy of his three-year extension of office, decided during the Syrian occupation, while another section was calling for him to be removed from office. This, they said, “has paralysed political life in this country, caused enormous damage at all levels and ruined institutional life”. Always supportive of dialogue between the people of Lebanon, the bishops wrote that “the president is the only one who can judge whether his remaining in power or resigning would be right for the country or would damage reconciliation. He must bear in mind that he is responsible before God and history”. In June 2006, in closing the Maronite synod, Cardinal Sfeir warned against “aggressive visions” that “can never be elements for building a country faithful to its histori-

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blocked the activities of the government led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and has continued to affect political life in this country up to the drafting of this report. On 11th November 2006, in fact, all five Shiite minsters resigned from the government in opposition to the parliamentary majority decision to grant the international court the authority to investigate the murder of Rafic Hariri. These resignations succeeded in undermining the “constitutional legitimacy” of a government in which one of the country’s main communities, the Shiites, was thereby not represented. In December 2006 these resignations were followed by a sit-in organised by the opposition in the centre of Beirut, which paralysed (and is still paralysing) the capital’s economic life. At the end of 2007 the country was still without a president of the republic (a Maronite Catholic), following the expiry of Emile Lahoud’s extended term of office on 24th November. Though in agreement upon the “consensual” candidature of General Michel Suleiman, Commander in Chief of the army, both the majority and the opposition remain entrenched in their own positions with regard to the relative weight of their roles in the future government of national unity.

LEBANON

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cal vocation”. In their lengthy concluding statement, the bishops expressed their participation in the suffering of their people, asking all parties to continue to search for a path that was fair and worthy of the noble history of the Lebanese people, once again emphasising the need to respect and defend its historical, spiritual and Christian identity and appealing against the violence of recent years. In this context, Sfeir welcomed the Vice-President of the Higher Shiite Council, Sheik Abdel-Amir Qabalan, who spoke of the need for the commitment of Christian and Muslim leaders in order to “renew the country and put an end to the tensions”. During the war, Israel also bombed Christian areas, such as Jounieh and Byblos, in order to destroy bridges linking them to the rest of the country. Among the many media centres affected was Radio Mbs, a Catholic station broadcasting 14 hours of prayers each day, as well as Mass in Arabic; this was partially destroyed by Israeli bombs on the evening of 23rd July. The radio’s founder, Marie-Sylvie Buisson, a member of the Community of Emmanuel, explained that the radio station had “covered Lebanon, Syria, South Turkey, Eastern Iraq, Northern Palestine and Jordan”. At the beginning of August 2006, a group of Maronites damaged the headquarters of the Christ Bible Baptist Church in Ajaltoun, in the Kesruwan district, and remonstrated with Pastor Raymond Abou Mikhail. The group was protesting against the fact that the premises were being used as a place of worship and not as its administrative headquarters. In an article published in the Lebanese press, the local patriarchal vicar, Monsignor Guy Paul Noujaim, challenged the right of this particular group to operate within an exclusively Maronite area. “There are no Baptist believers in Ajaltoun”, wrote Noujaim, “and the rules of the Council of Middle Eastern Churches (of which the Baptist Church is not a part) forbids proselytism within the Christian communities”. The president of the Supreme Council of Evangelical Churches in Syria and the Lebanon challenged the request to close down this location. “We have the right, said Salim Sahyouni, to pray in a church, to pray in an apartment and to pray outdoors”. In a meeting in October 2006 with representatives from the political and religious world, Cardinal Sfeir deplored “the danger threatening the Christian presence in the Lebanon, due to the divisions within the Christian community”. “People do not listen”, he added “to the appeals of the religious leaders and they take no notice of an Apostolic Exhortation made in 1997, which can be summarised as an appeal to rebuild the Christian social fabric”. The patriarch discussed the issue of freedom with his guests, describing it as a very precious legacy of the thought of John Paul II, and severely criticised certain schools of thought that were, he said, destroying freedom under the shadow of “fanaticism, fundamentalism and violence”. For his part, Maronite Archbishop Béchara Rai of Jbeil expressed his concern and his “profound sadness” over the statements of Hezbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, “who contin-

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ues to assert their right to carry arms, while Christians continue to suffer the tragic consequences of the conflict between Israel and the Party of God”. Also in October, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt emphasised the “historical relationship” with Christians and recalled the “historical reconciliation of the Mountain” in 2001, between Druze and Christians, which allowed the return of the Christians to the villages they were evicted from during the civil war. On that occasion – added Jumblatt – they rang the bells of all the churches. “Now, God willing, the bells of the churches of Kfar Matta, Obeih and Brih will ring out once again”. But the years of absence have created a number of problems in relation to the restitution of property to those who were evicted, problems which in some cases make such a theoretically possible return impossible in practice. At the end of January 2007 the UCIP website (International Catholic Union for the Press) in the Lebanon was hacked into, and all its contents were deleted and replaced with material in Arabic. This was the second Christian website to be attacked in Lebanon in the space of two weeks. On 13th January the website of the Council of Middle Eastern Churches was deleted and entirely replaced with extremist Islamic propaganda material. The Arab press attributed this attack to unidentified “non-Christian extremist movements”, while the director of the UCIP offices in Beirut, Father Tony Khadra, was rather more explicit, speaking of “an attack on the shared values of coexistence between Christianity and Islam”. The website was the local Catholic Church’s ‘window’ and in addition to explaining official Church teaching, also provided in-depth analysis of social and cultural events in Lebanon and reported on initiatives for Islamic-Christian dialogue. Father Khadra believes that this last aspect was the underlying reason for the attack on the two websites. He lamented the massive damage done and the loss of practically irreplaceable archive material collected at the cost of great sacrifice during the years of war in Lebanon. On 6th July 2007, in an interview with daily newspaper as-Safir, Maronite Bishop Béchara Rai of Jbeil (Byblos) spoke about the “Islamisation schemes” for the country. He deplored the fact that the Christians were the ones who paid the price for an agreement between the Shiites and the Sunnis, just as they paid the price for the conflict between them. Bishop Rai criticised the government for having decided, by Ministerial Decree No. 377 of 9th June 2007, to cancel the feast day on Good Friday, without even discussing the matter with the religious authorities. He also accused the government of behaving as though Lebanon was “a theocratic Islamic State”, in choosing to sign the “Charter of children’s rights in Islam”, as stated in Decree 636 and published in the official Gazette on 31st May 2007. “With this decree, said Rai, the government is ignoring the presence of the Christians and infringing Article 9 of the Constitution, the coexistence pact and the particular and specific character of Lebanon, transforming it into an Islamic state and society”. Bishop Rai called on the government to withdraw

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this decree – which has been presented to Parliament as a draft bill – and so to safeguard Lebanon’s role as a place of encounter and dialogue between different cultures and religions. Muslims The political crisis between the opposition and the ruling majority has at times assumed the character of a latent conflict between Shiites and Sunnis. Speaking in February 2007 at the remembrance service for a young Shiite killed in clashes between Hezbollah and the (Sunni) Future Bloc, headed by MP Saad Hariri, Sheik Abdel-Amir Qabalan, who is vice-president of the Higher Shiite Council, addressed the political leaders and told them to listen to the voice of their consciences forbidding murder and violence. Qabalan illustrated the figure of the ideal religious leader who must be “impartial, tolerant, generous, peaceful and able to forgive”. He called on politicians to do their work in a manner that would spare the country a new wave of violence, “that might mean the end of a country’s history”. He expressed his desire dialogue to resume among the Lebanese people themselves, as the only way of building a better future for all the citizens of Lebanon. Refugees A tragedy within the tragedy is the situation of the Iraqi refugees (between 40,000 and 50,000 of them) who have come to Lebanon and to whom the Lebanese authorities refuse to grant even temporary legal status. The Iraqi refugees, many of them Christians, are therefore left with only two choices: prison or returning to Iraq. This injustice is exposed by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report of December 2007 entitled: “Rotting here or dying there”. “Iraqi refugees in Lebanon live in constant fear of being sent to prison”, explains Bill Frelick, HRW director for emigration policies. “Those who are arrested can only avoid being imprisoned indefinitely if they agree to return to their homeland”. But for many of them returning home means certain death. Various reports have been published on the conditions faced by Iraqi Christians in the Italian weekly magazine Tempi. “Prior to 2003 the Chaldean Christians who had taken refuge in the Lebanon numbered just a few dozen families. Today Chaldean Bishop Michel Kassarji of Beirut has to care for 800 families (4,000 -5,000 people) almost all living as illegal immigrants. Lebanon hosts Palestinian refugee camps dating from the 1948 conflict, but has never signed the 1951 International Convention on Refugees and hence does not accept foreign refugees on its territory, other than those to whom the UN has granted a temporary permit while waiting to resettle them in another country. Only a few hundred Chaldean Iraqis enjoy this status, while all the others risk arrest and deportation. “The vicissitudes of Chaldean Iraqis in the Lebanon are paradoxical”, explained Kassarji. “They travel to Lebanon because they know there is a strong

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Christian minority here and that the head of state is a Christian. They soon discover how things really stand. Crossing the border illegally costs between 200 and 300 US dollars per person, but once they have entered they constantly risk arrest for having entered the country illegally. If caught, they spend between 3 and 5 months in prison waiting for a trial (though I have met Iraqis who have spent a whole year in jail), then after sentencing they are deported. The director of national security contacts the Iraqi Embassy and organises their repatriation. I often receive phone calls, from Lebanon and from Iraq, from relatives of people who have been arrested, asking me to intercede. I always go to the prisons, even if they are far from Beirut and near the border where they crossed. I have also sent an open letter to the head of State pleading the case for these people trying to reach safety, but so far without result”. On 18th December 2007 the judicial authorities charged 31 people linked to Al Qaeda with planning an attack on a church and other Christian locations in the city of Zahle, in the Beqaa Valley, and with possessing arms. The public prosecutor has called for the death penalty for 14 of them. Eighteen of the accused, (Lebanese, Syrian and Saudi nationals), had been arrested in previous months, while in the north of Lebanon there had been clashes between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-islam. The other 13 are still free, including their leader Salahuddin Mohammad Saleh, alias Abu Ahmad.

LEBANON

Sources al-Bawaba as-Safir AsiaNews Avvenire Compass Direct News Tempi Vatican Radio

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LESOTHO

LESOTHO

AREA 30,355 kmq POPULATION 2,291,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

The right to religious freedom is fully acknowledged by the 1993 Constitution. Article 13 devotes considerable space to freedom of conscience and religion, setting out in detail constitutional guarantees for their exercise. Religious groups are permitted to operate without registering, but if they do not do so they lose a range of benefits, especially fiscal ones. The Catholic Church runs about 600 schools, both primary and secondary, equivalent to a little under 40 percent of the total number, thus making it the foremost educational institution in the country, with more schools than the state.

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 91% Ethnoreligionists 7.7% Others 1.3%

Baptized Catholics 1,116,000

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LIBERIA

AREA 111,369 kmq POPULATION 3,636,000 REFUGEES 10,466 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Ethnoreligionists 42.9% Affiliated Christians 39.3% Muslims 16% Others 1.8%

Baptized Catholics 307,000

LIBERIA

Liberia is a secular state and Article 14 of the 1985 Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. All religious groups are obliged to register and sign a statement outlining the objectives of their organisation. The government allows religious instruction in schools. Religious instruction, particularly Christian, is available in state schools, but courses are not compulsory. During the period covered by this report, Liberia has witnessed two successive administrations, namely the National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL), in office from October 2003 to December 2006, and the democratically elected government under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who was inaugurated into office on 16th January 2006 – the first woman in Africa to be elected President. A number of prominent international personalities were present at the President’s swearing-in ceremony in Monrovia. In 2006 former dictator Charles Taylor, in exile in Nigeria since 2003, was arrested and handed over to the International War Crimes Tribunal, and accused of massacres, mutilations and reduction to slavery of tens of thousands of civilians. These crimes were perpetrated by the militias of the United Revolutionary Front during a civil war that lasted 14 years and caused the deaths of about 250,000 people. In July 2006, for security reasons, and as an anti-terrorism provision, the police asked Muslim women not to wear a veil in public, without however forbidding it. This resulted in objections from Muslim religious leaders, who considered this request discriminatory. The government punishes severely all ritual killings, which are still widespread, above all in rural areas. Sources Radiocapital VITA

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LIBYAN ARAB JAMAHIRIYA

LIBYAN ARAB JAMAHIRIYA

AREA 1,759,540 kmq POPULATION 5,870,000 REFUGEES 4,098 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 96.1% Affiliated Christians 3.1% Others 0.8%

Baptized Catholics 104,000

Libya does not have a Constitution and therefore there is no explicit legal provision protecting religious freedom. The government however is tolerant towards religions, with the exception of ultra-extremist Islamic groups which are repressed or powerfully opposed. 97 percent of the population is Sunni Muslim. Islam is the equivalent of a State religion and therefore totally integrated in the country’s social fabric. In spite of this the government controls and strictly regulates the Islamic religion so that it does not in any way interfere with the political dimension of the country. The government opposes Islamic extremism with all possible means. Two bishops (one in Tripoli and one in Bengasi) estimate that the Catholics in this country number 50,000 – all of them are foreigners. The Catholic clergy minister primarily in the larger cities, particularly providing help in hospitals and orphanages as well as helping the elderly and the disabled. One clergyman in Tripoli and a bishop, who is resident in Cairo, lead the small Anglican community. There are no places of worship for the faithful of the Hindu, Buddhist and Baha’i religions, although the followers of these religions can practise their faith in private homes and display their religious symbols in the markets and in their windows. In February 2006, Libya was the scene of many riots, directed in particular against Italian targets, after the Italian government’s former Minister for Reforms, Roberto Calderoli, had appeared on television wearing a T-shirt portraying the satirical cartoon on Mohammed, at the centre of many protests coming from the Muslim world. The protests in the Libyan city of Bengasi resulted in the church and convent of the Franciscan Friars Minor being set on fire. Bishop Magro, Vicar Apostolic of Bengasi, and four monks from this community were obliged to take refuge in Tripoli. Also in Bengasi, protesters attacked the Italian Consulate, even causing the death of 11 people during the riots on 17th-18th February. Although generally tolerant of other religious groups, after these events the government, in the person of Colonel Ghaddafi, expressed intolerance towards other religions. On 10th April 2006 the satellite TV channel Al Jazeera broadcast a

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speech by the Libyan leader, given on the anniversary of Mohammed’s birth. Ghaddafi dwelt at length on issues surrounding the blasphemous cartoons, inviting the West to change “its mistaken persuasions”. In his speech, the Colonel also sent Europe a message, stating “we do not need swords or bombs to spread Islam” because “we already have 50 million Muslims there” who “within ten years or so will transform Europe into a Muslim continent”. On 29th December 2006, however, on the eve of Eid, the Muslim festival of sacrifice, and the New Year, Ghaddafi organised a meeting in which over 500 people took part. According to Bishop Martinelli, Vicar Apostolic of Tripoli, those invited to the meeting included “the Christian community of the various denominations and nationalities, together with their priests, led by the Catholic bishop, plus Libyan Muslim members of the People’s General Congress, and various different religious and cultural figures of the country”. During the meeting Colonel Ghaddafi emphasised that the message of the two faiths, Islam and Christianity, must commit the two communities to a real dialogue, which must help today’s society rediscover the sense of God, respect for human rights and a solution to the problems of poverty and peace. According to Bishop Martinelli “Ghaddafi had wanted to offer the two communities from Tripoli – Muslim and Christian – a friendly and convivial experience […], emphasising the richness of the message provided by these two faiths, which required reciprocal respect.” On March 9th 2007, the small Christian community of Tripolis celebrated the reopening of the church of Saint Mary of the Angels, built by the Franciscans in the 17th Century and now owned by the local Anglican community. For the local Christian community, the reopening of the church for worship, represented an important sign of openness on the part of Colonel Ghadaffi’s regime. Sources Ag radicale, 11th April 2006 ZENIT, 26th February 2006 AGI/AFP, 21st August 2007 Fides, 15th January 2007 Vatican Radio, 22nd March 2007 swissinfo, 7th March 2007 AGI, 11th March 2007

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LIECHTENSTEIN

LIECHTENSTEIN

AREA 160 kmq POPULATION 34,000 REFUGEES 283

In compliance with the Principality’s Constitution, the Catholic Church is the national church and as such benefits from the State’s full protection. Other religious communities are also financially subsidised by the government, however. In the course of 2007, the authorities of the Principality approved a separation between the civil and ecclesiastical institutions and a constitutional amendment has been drafted to this effect. There were no significant incidents in relation to the issue of religious freedom.

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RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 93% Non religious 3.9% Others 3.1%

Baptized Catholics 27,000

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LITHUANIA

AREA 65,200 kmq POPULATION 3,535,000 REFUGEES 688 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 87.6% Non religious 12% Others 0.4%

Baptized Catholics 2,757,000

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The Constitution of 1992 of the Republic of Lithuania guarantees full religious freedom (Article 26) in a very detailed manner, going so far as to guarantee parents and guardians the constitutional right to take care of the religious education of their children and wards as they see fit. Article 43 recognises the “churches and religious organisations that are traditional in Lithuania,” which “have the rights of a legal person.” They can receive public funding for their activities and are free to teach and set up their own schools. The same article defines, that “there shall not be a State religion”. Churches and religious groups present in Lithuania for at least 300 years are defined as “traditional Lithuanian religions” for the purpose of implementing constitutional principles. Religious practice is also protected in law from all forms of discrimination, incitement to religious hatred, and interference in religious ceremonies. All forms of discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs are penalised. In 2006 the Inter-Ministerial Committee for the Coordination of Investigations into Religious Groups (more commonly known as the “Anti-Sects Committee”) concluded its activities saying that there was no need for special legislation even with regards to magical circles and groups of healers since existing laws were adequate for the task.

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LUXEMBOURG

LUXEMBOURG

AREA 2,586 kmq POPULATION 460,000 REFUGEES 2,737 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 93.9% Non religious 4.5% Others 1.6%

Baptized Catholics 393,000

The Constitution of 1868 guarantees both freedom of religion and of public worship, under Article 19, and therefore also the right to express one’s religious opinions, except where offences are committed in the exercise of such freedom. At the same time, no one may be forced to take part in any way whatsoever in the acts and ceremonies of a religion or to observe its days of rest. Religious marriage has no legal status and must by law be celebrated after the civil ceremony. The Napoleonic Concordat of 1801 with the Holy See is still in force, albeit supplemented and changed by constitutional provisions and other later amendments. In addition to the Catholic Church, three other religions are recognised by the State: the Jewish religion, the Protestant churches and the Russian Orthodox Church, their ministers being supported by the State. Article 22, which regulates relations between the State and the Church, establishes that “the State’s intervention in the appointment and installation of heads of religions, the mode of appointing and dismissing other ministers of religion, the right of any of them to correspond with their superiors and to publish their acts and decisions, as well as the Church’s relations with the State shall be made the subject of conventions to be submitted to the Chamber of Deputies for the provisions governing its intervention”. In state schools there is an option to choose between Catholic religious instruction or lessons in ethics. There have been no reports of significant institutional changes or incidents relating to the subject of religious freedom during 2006 and 2007.

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MACEDONIA

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AREA 25,713 kmq POPULATION 2,350,000 REFUGEES 1,235 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 790

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 63.7% Muslims 28.3% Non religious 8%

Baptized Catholics 19,000

MACEDONIA

Articles 16 and 19 of the Constitution of 1991guarantee the right to religious freedom, a right which is generally respected. Relations between the various religious denominations are friendly, in spite of the existence of a long-running dispute between the Serbian and Macedonian Orthodox Churches, which has intensified in recent years, since the Serbian Church refused to acknowledge the full independence of the self-proclaimed Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Macedonia which has its seat in Ohrid, and the tensions between the Orthodox majority and the Roman Catholic and Greek-Catholic minority. The Governement continues to impose restrictions to the Serbian Orthodox Church – which are also enshrined in the law on religious communities and groups. Already, back in 2004 this church was denied the registration that is required for all religious communities. Zoran Vraniskovski, who in that same year became Archbishop Jovan of the Serbian Orthodox community in Macedonia and Metropolitan of Skopje, was sentenced to prison in 2005 for inciting religious and racial hatred, a sentence later suspended, in March 2006. Archbishop Jovan is regarded by many human rights organisations as a prisoner for religious reasons. A number of Jewish communities, as well as other religious groups, have continued legal proceedings to obtain restitution of their properties, confiscated by the Yugoslav communist government On 20th May 2007, unidentified individuals set fire to the mosque in Obednik. This was an isolated incident and caused little damage.

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MADAGASCAR

MADAGASCAR

AREA 587,041 kmq POPULATION 18,917,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 49.5% Ethnoreligionists 48% Muslims 2% Others 0.5%

Baptized Catholics 5,576,000

The Constitution guarantees religious freedom. Following the re-election of President Ravalomanana at the end of 2006, on 4th April 2007 a constitutional referendum was approved which, among other amendments, eliminated the explicit separation between State and Church. This, as President Ravalomanana commented, did not however indicate an intention to lessen the juridical protection of religious freedom in this country, but rather to sanction Christian principles in the daily life of the State. Although there is no reliable official data, about half the population is Christian. The Catholic Church is the most numerous, followed by the Reformed Protestant Church of Jesus Christ (FJKM) and then the Lutheran and Anglican churches. A significant portion of the population professes the indigenous traditional religions. President Ravalomanana is also the Vice-President of the FJKM, one of the four main Christian faiths, which has prompted allegations that the interests of State and Church are not always entirely separated. Numerous groups of foreign missionaries work freely in the country. Various faith-based organisations, some with international links, are involved in health and social services, development projects, schools and higher education. The law requires religious associations to register with the Ministry of the Interior in order to obtain the necessary legal status to receive direct bequests and other gifts. In order to register, religious associations must have at least 100 members and an elected administrative board of no more than nine members who must all be Malagasy citizens. In May 2007 the Minister of the Interior decided to deport Father Sylvain Urfer, a French priest, who had been in Madagascar for 33 years. The Malagasy administration in fact cancelled the priest’s residence permit and forbade him to re-enter Malagasy territory. No official reason was given by the government when the missionary was deported, in spite of appeals over the next few days by the Catholic Episcopal Conference, the Organisation of official Malagasy Churches (FFKM) which represents Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans and Lutherans) and by the Observatory of Public Life (SEFAFI) of which this priest was a member. The Catholic bishops of Madagascar asked

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President Ravalomanana for an explanation as to the reasons for his deportation. They also reacted to Ravalomanana’s statement, made on 18th May, when the President, returning from a week long visit to the People’s Republic of China, had said that missionaries and men of the Church, just like ambassadors, should not interfere with the country’s internal policies, especially political ones, or they would be “sent home”. The SEFAFI publicly asked the government for explanations, emphasising that Father Urfer had not been allowed legal representation after learning of his deportation, and also reminded people that, according to the law on immigration, deportation can be implemented by the Ministry for the Interior “if the presence of the foreigner in the country is a threat to public order or security”.

MADAGASCAR

Sources MISNA, 27th April 2007 Madagascar Tribune, 14th May 2007 MISNA, 29th May 2007

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MALAWI

MALAWI

AREA 118,484 kmq POPULATION 12,760,000 REFUGEES 2,929 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 76.8% Muslims 14.8% Ethnoreligionists 7.8% Others 0.6%

Baptized Catholics 3,620,000

The Constitution guarantees religious freedom and the government generally respects this right, protecting it from all forms of public and private abuse. In 2007, a ruling by the Supreme Court confirmed that religious freedom is a right that cannot be limited or restricted. During 2006 and 2007 there were no reports of religious discrimination, however, there were some tensions between Christians and Muslims. Circa 80 percent of the population is Christian, and the Roman Catholic Church has the most adherents, followed by the Presbyterians (Church of Central Africa Presbyterian, CCAP). There are also small minority groups of Anglicans, Baptists, Evangelicals and Seventh Day Adventists. There are no particular requirements for having a religion officially recognised, however, religious groups must register with the government, presenting detailed documentation on the organisation’s structure and mission so that it may be examined by the Ministry of Justice. During the period addressed by this report, there were no indications of the government refusing to register any particular religious group. The government usually respects the holy days both of Christians and Muslims. The country’s President, Bingu wa Mutharika, is a Catholic, while the Vice-president professes the Islamic faith. Many members of the government are Muslims. On this subject, many state schools offer the opportunity to follow a Christian-based course in “Bible Knowledge”, or a course in “Religious and Moral Education” that includes Muslim, Hindu, Baha’i and Christian material. Both courses are optional. In 2006 there was conflict between the government and Rastafarian leaders after all hairstyles involving long hair were banned in state schools. Rastafarians, who consider Rasta dreadlocks a fundamental expression of their religiosity, had described this as discriminatory and had threatened to take legal action. The government had answered stating that the prohibition concerned long hair in general and could not be considered as prejudicial to religious rights. In 2007 there was no repetition of this conflict.

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In the years addressed by this report, there were no indications concerning social discrimination based on religious practices or beliefs. There was occasional tension between Christians and Muslims, increased however mainly by political issues, such as an attempt by the President (who is a Christian) to remove from office the Vice-president who is a Muslim. One violent episode took place in June 2006, when an unknown attacker detonated a bomb in a church in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, injuring 24 people. There is still no information on the attacker or the reasons for this attack.

MALAWI

Sources farmstreet.org.uk, 23rd June 2006

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MALAYSIA

MALAYSIA

AREA 329,758 kmq POPULATION 26,640,000 REFUGEES 32,658 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 47.7% Traditional chinese religions 24.1% Affiliated Christians 8.3% Hindus 7.3% Buddhists 6.7% Others 5.9%

Baptized Catholics 837,000

The legal system and the danger of the Shari‘a law for non-Muslims too In the last two years there have been more and more cases that have highlighted the contradictions inherent in a dual justice system in which Shari‘a Laws have increasingly applied even in cases involving non-Muslims. In Malaysia two sets of laws co-exist side by side – the secular (constitutional) law and Islamic law (Shari‘a), which is theoretically applied to Muslims in matters of marriage, inheritance and property – but the two have often come into conflict and this has tended to erode religious freedom. If political leaders do not clearly define the boundaries between the two, there is a real fear that – in many spheres – Shari‘a will gradually take over as the basis of legislation, at the expense of the federal Constitution. Established when the country was still under British rule, the Constitution is quite confusing. It does guarantee full religious freedom, and emphasises that “No person shall be required to receive instruction in or take part in any ceremony or act of worship of a religion other than his own” (Art 12, s. 3), and that “[f]or the purposes of Clause (3) the religion of a person under the age of eighteen years shall be decided by his parent or guardian” (Art 12, s. 4). Article 11 provides that every person has the right to profess and practise his religion. Article 3 declares Islam to be the State religion. An Ethnic Malay is defined as “a person who professes the religion of Islam, habitually speaks the Malay language, and conforms to Malay custom.” Unless a Shari‘a court accepts someone’s conversion, abjuring one’s faith means losing one’s civil rights. In practice this means that Muslims are not allowed to convert to another religion, since apostasy is viewed as one of the worst sins, punishable by death. The Sedition Act, introduced during British colonial rule, is currently being used to curb anti-government dissent, incitement to racial hatred, and any questioning the rights of the majority Sunni Muslim community. Mahathir Marina, wife of former Prime Minister Mahatir Mohamad, has criticised the atmosphere of fear that surrounds the debate about Islam’s place in Malaysia, where “it has become difficult for anyone, except for clerically-trained Muslims, to talk about Islam”.

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Conversions from Islam: the Lina Joy case In Malaysia “it would be extremely difficult to exercise freedom of conscience in the present environment,” said Lina Joy on 30th May 2007 after the Federal Court rejected her plea to have her conversion to Christianity recognised. “I am disappointed that the Federal Court is not able to vindicate a simple but important fundamental right that exists in all persons; namely, the right to believe in the religion of one’s choice and, equally important, the right to marry a person of one’s choice” (AsiaNews). Born Azlina Jailani in 1964, she began attending a church in 1990. In 1998 she decided to be baptised and take the name of Lina Joy. In 2000 she applied to have her religious affiliation in her Identity Card (compulsory under Malaysian law) changed, turning first to the National Registration Department and then to the Court of Appeal. Only with such a change could she marry her fiancé, a Christian of Indian origin. Both bodies turned down her application and so in 2005 she went to the Federal Court. Lina’s prob-

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For several decades now the country has been experiencing a progressive process of islamisation under the leadership of the United Malays National Organisation or UMNO, the leading party in the governing coalition government, which has tended to support Islam in order to favour ethnic Malays. In several states local legislatures have adopted laws to check or restrict conversions and punish anyone who “persuades, influences or incites a Muslim to leave Islam for another religion” with fines that can reach up to 10,000 ringgit (US$ 2,653) or sentences of up to a year in jail. The government has introduced restrictions on the application of those articles in the Constitution that favour religious freedom, especially for non-Muslims. It finances Muslim religious associations to a tune that far exceeds what it gives to non-Muslims. Through its regulatory powers it can impose long delays or issue only few permits to non-Muslims for building their churches or temples. Unauthorised places of worship are demolished. The authorities are also opposed to the presence of internal sects within Islam, claiming that “their extremist visions may jeopardise national security.” The Internal Security Act (ISA) has given them the power to arrest the members of any of these small groups, should they deem them dangerous. Mosques are under state government rather than federal government control. And state religious authorities are in charge of appointing imams to local mosques and imposing what the latter can say in their sermons. Proselytising by non-Muslims among Muslims is banned, but allowed by Muslims among non-Muslims. The Shari‘a’s encroachment has began to worry all religious groups, and above all the members of the majority Muslim community, who are denied the right to convert; but also, of course, those of the minority communities such as the Christians and Hindus.

MALAYSIA

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lem is that as an ethnic Malay she is ipso facto classified as Muslim and therefore “cannot change religion.” In fact Malaysian law lays down that everything relating to matters of faith involving ethnic Malays – including conversions – falls within the purview of the Shari‘a (Syariah in Malay) courts, not the civil courts. The conflict between Shari‘a and civil law is evident in Lina Joy’s case. The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion but Shari‘a law bans conversion to any other religion whilst punishing apostates with forced ‘rehabilitation’, prison and hefty fines. It is very likely that Lina Joy will have to emigrate in order to live a normal life. Chief Federal Court Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim immediately and strongly backed the position of the Federal Court. “To say that she is not under the jurisdiction of the Syariah Court – because she no longer professes Islam – is not appropriate,” he told The Star daily, adding that the way one leaves a religion is set by the religion itself. At the same time, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, who is concerned with the country’s international image, admitted that problems between non-Muslim Malaysians and Islamic courts are an issue the government “must deal with”. For quite some time now the Christian community has been calling on the authorities to reiterate the supremacy of the Constitution over Islamic law. Mgr Paul Tan Chee Ing, SJ, head of the Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM), a leading organisation in the struggle to stop Shari‘a’s encroachment and prevent it from being enforced on non-Muslims, cannot hide his frustration. “To deny anyone the basic human right to choose his or her religion, usurping God’s power and violating a fundamental right concerned is something inhuman and uncivilised”, he told AsiaNews. Teresa Kok Suh Sim, a Catholic of Chinese origin and Member of Parliament for the Democratic Action Party (DAP), has urged the government “to take immediate measures to amend the federal Constitution so that it is clear that the jurisdiction of civil courts comes before that of the Syariah court.” In official statements the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Sikhism (MCCBCHS) and the Council of Churches in Malaysia (CCM) took similar positions. Lina Joy and her family have been subjected to grave threats during the trial. The parish community of Our Lady of Fatima in Brickfields, where Lina Joy was baptised, was told that it too was facing charges. According to the bimonthly Harakah (16th-31st August 2006), a man by the name of Taib Hisham accused the church because the woman’s baptism violated the Constitution which states that “State law and in respect of the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur and Lubuan, federal law may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the religion of Islam.” Taib’s action was backed by some leaders of the youth wing of the Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS) and some Islamic NGOs. One of Lina Joy’s attor-

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Burial Shari‘a has also been used to meddle in how people bury their dead. A Christian who died in late November 2006 was almost buried in an Islamic ceremony despite his family’s objections. Rayappan Anthony, who passed away at the age of 71, had converted to Islam in 1990 in order to elope with a Muslim woman in a second marriage, at the same time changing his name to Muhamad Rayappan Abdullah. His relatives maintained however that he had returned to Christianity in 1999, when he was baptised again. He did inform the National Registry Office and other agencies of the change, so that by 2003 he was classified as a Christian under the name Anthony, but he had failed to inform the Religious Affairs Department. When he passed away in hospital on 29th November 2006 from diabetes, a neighbour who knew about his earlier conversion to Islam informed the Religious Affairs Department. An Islamic tribunal eventually ruled that the remains of the Christian man had to be handed over to the Islamic Affairs Council in Selangor. The family opposed the move and, after the issue became a national case, successfully recovered his remains, thanks to the intervention of the Malaysian government. Islamic law and the family: the Subshini case Polygamy is legal in Malaysia and a man can have up to four wives. But often men divorce their first wife only after marrying a second. Under Islamic law a woman has custody of her children under 12, but if she abjures Islam or fails to practise the Islamic religion she loses custody and the children are given to her husband’s mother, i.e. the children’s paternal grandmother, because children are considered Muslims at birth since their mother was Muslim when they were born. If a married woman converts to Islam, even her children become Muslim, this following a decision by the Federal

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neys, Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, a member of the Malaysian Bar Council, was also subjected to an intimidatory campaign that included circulating flyers calling for his death. Under Islamic law if a person’s conversion from Islam is not recognised, then he or she must undergo “re-education”. This is what happened to Revathi Massosai, also known as the ‘Hindu Lina Joy’. Born after her parents converted to Islam, she said she was raised by her grandmother as a Hindu. In March 2004 she married a man called Suresh in a Hindu marriage ceremony, but soon after the Malacca State Islamic Department told her to apply to the state’s Islamic Syariah Court for recognition of her new religion. She did as she was told but was then sentenced in January 2006 under Shari‘a law to 100 days in a rehabilitation centre in Ulu Yam, later extended by an extra 80 because she was not showing any sign of repentance. Now her daughter is living with the Muslim grandmother who was given custody whilst her husband is still waiting to be re-united with his wife.

MALAYSIA

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Department in Kuala Lumpur. But if an ex-Muslim woman with children wants to marry a non-Muslim she runs the risk of being accused of Zina, or illegal sexual relations, and could end up in prison. In March 2007 Malaysian media reported the case of a woman of Indian origin who sought to prevent her husband from gaining custody of their children after he converted to Islam and petitioned an Islamic court for divorce. According to Shari‘a law, children are given to the “better party” in cases of separation, namely the Muslim party, i.e. the father in this case. The children are thus bound to be raised as Muslim. Muhammad Shafi Saravanan Abdullah converted to Islam in May 2006, later filing for divorce from his wife, R. Subshini, before an Islamic tribunal. The woman turned to the Court of Appeal to have her case heard by a civil court, but was turned down. Still on 30th March 2007 she was granted the right to appeal to the Federal Court, Malaysia’s highest tribunal. If she loses here she would be the first non-Muslim to have to go before an Islamic Court. Ms Subshini, 28, wants alimony from her husband and custody of their two children, aged three and one. “Both want to dissolve their marriage,” said Court of Appeal Judge Suryadi Halim Omar, “but the appellant’s objection, merely on the grounds that the Shari‘a Court was set up only for Muslims, makes no sense.” For Judge Omar, Muhammad Shafi has every right to have his marriage annulled by an Islamic tribunal rather than a civil court. In early 2006 Malaysia’s Prime Minister Abdullah had pledged to resolve the issue of clashing legal systems but so far there has been little progress. The government is examining draft legislation that would amend the marriage and divorce laws to protect the rights of the children children of non-Muslim spouses, but the authorities have so far shown no inclination to change the law regarding those who wish to leave Islam. Steps to “protect” Islam The aforementioned cases have generated a heated public debate. Groups of Muslim professionals and students have organised themselves into groups devoted to the “defence of Islam”. This has forced the government to act in order to lower tensions, fearful that they might cause social unrest and actions by Islamic extremists. In July 2007 a number of Muslim lawyers joined forces to form an association to defend Islam from what they call a series of attacks “against the religion.” The group calls itself the Peguam Pembela Islam (PPI) and wants to correct “wrong ideas” about the prophet’s religion. The group’s pro tem chairman is a former Bar Council president, Zainur Zakari, who said the group’s aim was to correct “misconceptions” about Islam and defend, as a matter of priority, ethnic Malays and their “Islamicity”. Taking their cue from the PPI, 50 groups of Muslim clerics, students and professionals soon after formed their own association to protect Islam “from the attacks of the civil courts”. Through a tight-knit network of ulema and religious scholars, the Pembela Islam (or

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Defenders of Islam) has launched a national campaign against the use of civil courts as a “way out of Islam”. Evidently Islamic conservatives seem afraid that if judges allow people to “abandon” Islam this might open the floodgates to many requests by Muslims to change religion. For many extremists legal battles like Lina Joy’s are an insult to Islam and its principles. Such groups are not alone; the authorities have also decided to take some initiatives for the “protection and development of the Islamic religion.” In June 2006 The Straits Times reported that the northern state of Kelantan had offered a prize to anyone who married and converted to Islam any members of the Orang Asli, an indigenous seminomadic group. The offer included cash payments of about US$ 2,700, a monthly subsidy of US$ 270, free housing and a car for any Muslim who was able to wed a member of this largely animist community. At the moment Kelantan is the only Malaysian state that is governed by the PanMalaysia Islamic Party, an extremist Islamist party that is in the opposition at the national level. In Kelantan too, state authorities have come up with other measures to discourage conversions of Muslims. In July 2007 it adopted the harshest anti-conversion law in the country. According to this law, anyone who converts a Muslim is punishable of up to five years in prison, flogging and a fine of almost US$ 3,000. Hitherto the law had imposed two years in jail and a fine equivalent to about US$ 1,400. In the last two years the issues of religious freedom and minority rights have been at the centre of the political debate, inflaming public opinion. In July 2006 Prime Minister Abdullah called for an end to discussions about the relations between the country’s religions, because they caused “tensions in a society where different faiths co-exist” like Malaysia’s. He openly attacked an inter-faith forum called Article 11 and called on its organisers to stop all their activities. According to the UMNO’s Supreme Council, the prime minister was concerned about the issues that might be discussed in the forum. The name Article 11 refers to the article in Malaysia’s Constitution which defines religious freedom. The group brings together 13 NGOs involved in the defence of the Constitution against the encroachment of the Shari‘a. Minority concerns In an appeal to Malaysia’s lawmakers in April 2007, Mgr Paul Tan Chee Ing, SJ, chairman of the Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM), said that every means should be used to uphold “the Constitution and the rights of non-Muslims,” insisting that “matters involving civil liberties and the family should come under the jurisdiction of civil courts rather than Islamic tribunals.” For the CFM “it is troubling to note […] that what is clearly stated in the Federal Constitution, namely that Shari‘a courts shall have jurisdiction only over persons professing the religion of Islam, is now being extended, by a court decision, to include non-Muslims”. The CFM was not alone in its

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protest. The Malaysian Consultative Council for Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST) expressed its support for the appeal. On that first week of April 2007 the CFM organised a national prayer campaign in favour of minority rights. “The non-Muslim communities are not prepared to accept the ‘trickery’ of the civil courts, in forcing people to go before Shari‘a courts”, the prelate said. Minority religions also organised various prayer campaigns in favour of religious freedom. During Holy Week 2007 Catholics decided to light candles in their churches to “symbolise that the religious freedom, which came to this world with the crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ, will once more shine out in our country.” This initiative, which was part of a broader campaign promoted by the MCCBCHST, received the support of all non-Muslim groups. In a document signed by its chairman Monsignor Tan, the CFM urged the government to review the legislation affecting religious freedom and reaffirm the civil courts’ jurisdiction so that all Malaysians may be guaranteed the right to choose their religion. The situation of the Christians The government tends to discourage but not ban the distribution of printed or audiovisual material with a Christian content. But late last year and early this year, Malaysia’s Catholic weekly Herald was caught up in a storm. The Minister of Islamic Affairs, Abdullah Mohd Zin decreed that the word Allah could not be used in relation to the Christian God. He added that the word Allah could be used only by Muslims, because its use by non-Muslims “may arouse sensitivity and create confusion among Muslims in the country,” The Star daily quoted him as saying. And yet the minister’s statement came just after the Herald had its permit renewed to publish ‘without restrictions’ in English, Malay and Chinese. The editor of the Herald, Fr Lawrence Andrew, told AsiaNews that the absence of restrictions implicitly meant that they could use the word Allah. It should be pointed out, as many experts note, that the word Allah was in use among Christians for many centuries before the rise of Islam and that Allah is the common term employed to refer to God in Malay. According to scholars and academics, Christian Arabs have used the word Allah for centuries across the Middle East and that it was Islam that borrowed the term from Christianity. It has been used by Christians in Malaysia ever since the 19th century. Earlier, in 2002, an injunction had been issued against the Herald, but the Prime Minister at the time, Mahatir Mohammed had intervened in favour of the paper. For Fr Andrew the fear that the use of the word by Christians might “create confusion among Muslims in the country” is baseless, since “the publication is only for internal use and we don’t have any Muslim subscribers”. The Catholic Church has asked the Supreme Court to give a ruling on the matter. The Evangelical Church of Borneo (Sidang Injil Borneo) has also appealed to the Court,

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since it too received an injunction ordering it to stop importing Christian books that contained the word Allah. The case has risked increasing tensions between ethnic and religious groups. A Sikh leader told Singapore’s New Straits Times that his community also uses the world Allah to refer to God. Political analyst Farish Noor published an article on his website arguing that the issue is just an “empty problem” that might however undermine the moderate Islamic vision of current Prime Minister Abdullah.

MALAYSIA

Hindus Hindus suffer from grave restrictions in both religious and social domains. Ethnic Malays dominate political life in the country, while the Chinese are very influential in the economy, whereas the Indians, mostly Hindus, perform the most menial tasks. In 2006 and 2007 Indo-Malaysians began voicing their concerns, demonstrating for equal rights and respect for religious freedom. On 25th May 2006 they organised a protest against the demolition of their temples ordered by the government. About 50,000 according to The Sun newspaper, gathered in front of Kuala Lumpur City Hall and threatened legal action against the government and local councils for “destroying private property”. According to the activists who organised the rally, hundreds of temples have been destroyed in the last 15 years as a result of Malaysia’s creeping “islamisation.” Complaints like these are rare however, in this country which for a long time has boasted of its “inter-racial harmony” and its “attention to the minorities”. P. Uthayakumar, the lawyer who has been actively representing Hindus, has reported that in the period between February and May 2006, seven Hindu temples were destroyed in various parts of the country.

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MALDIVES

MALDIVES

AREA 298 kmq POPULATION 317,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 99.2% Buddhists 0.7% Affiliated Christians 0.1%

Baptized Catholics

---

Article 7 of the country’s 1998 Constitution defines Islam as the State religion. The Constitution also restricts all political, judicial and administrative positions to Muslims. The government enforces Shari‘a law and has banned every public expression of other religions. Similarly, conversions from Islam are outlawed. Civil law is subordinate to Koranic law and the teaching of Islam is compulsory in school. Christians are estimated at just over 0.1 percent of the population and have to practise their faith in hiding to avoid detention, forced “re-conversion” or loss of citizenship. Foreign tourists are permitted to practise their faith in private, as long as no locals are present. Importing Bibles or any Christian literature is banned, except single copies for personal use. According to Open Doors, an elderly Christian man was arrested in August 2006 and sent to a drug rehabilitation centre. And in March 2006 the Maldives Ministry of Fisheries urged locals to tear down a market built with funds from the British charity Maldives Aid, a “Christian missionary” group. In order to avoid its demolition, the group donated the structure to the population on 3rd May 2006. In September 2007 a bomb exploded in Sultan Male Park, a major tourist landmark, injuring 12 foreign tourists. It was blamed on Islamic extremists who want tourists out of the country, guilty in their eyes of bringing habits “contrary” to Islam. But the local population wants to preserve the lucrative tourist industry. President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom issued a decree banning foreign imams from entering the country; similarly, he has prohibited women from covering themselves form head to toe and has decided that foreign madrassas (Islamic schools) and seminaries cannot be recognised as educational institutions. In early October 2007 police raided an island about 100 kilometres south of Male, considered a stronghold of Islamic extremism. Clashes were reported, with police arresting some 50 people. Sources www.persecution.org Political Resources on the Net

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MALI

311

AREA 1,240,192 kmq POPULATION 14,153,000 REFUGEES 9,203 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 81.9% Ethnoreligionists 16% Affiliated Christians 2% Others 0.1%

Baptized Catholics 241,000

MALI

The Constitution guarantees freedom of worship, defining this country as secular and allowing all religious practices that do not undermine peace and social stability. During the period addressed by this report, there were no indications of abuse or discrimination based on religious beliefs. In spite of the country being a secular one, the government, before reaching potentially controversial decisions of national importance, usually consults a “committee of wise men” which includes the Catholic Archbishop, the Protestant one and the leader of the Muslims. The government requires all associations to be registered, therefore also religious ones. Registration however does not involve any juridical advantage or other benefits. The Ministry for Territorial Affairs has the power to stop publications that offend other religions; however there have been no reports of censorship with regard to magazines or publications of a religious character. The government allows the various groups to undertake proselytising activities. Missionary groups operate freely within the country. On this subject, a Vatican Radio news bulletin in April 2007, reported that shortly before the presidential elections, won on 3rd May by former President Amadou Toumani Toure, every bishop had sent a letter to his diocese in which he first of all acknowledged that Mali is an example of democracy in Saharan Africa, and that there have been many and varied experiences bearing witness to the country’s political maturity, also emphasising the real efforts undertaken since the 1990s in creating a new state. However, the bishops also emphasised that the policies of the state had not always been without fault, hence their invitation to implement better policies which have regard for the population. At the same time the bishops reminded the laity that the politicians must not be left without help, but supported in their work by the people. The form of Islam practised in the country is tolerant towards the religious minorities, and the generally friendly relations between the various groups have thus contributed to religious freedom. Followers of different faiths can coexist within one and the same family and also attend the religious ceremonies of other groups without any problems.

MALI

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On 31st May 2007, ACN reported the initiative and practical cooperation between Rencontre et Foi, a centre run by Father Joseph Stamer of the White Fathers, and the Institute for Christian and Islamic Education (IFIC), a department of the PISAI (Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies) in Rome, now moved to Africa. The objective is to train qualified personnel to be in turn used as educators in a vast range of different sectors – as priests, teachers of religion, lay people and members of the national or diocesan commission for Islamic-Christian dialogue. On 18th May 2007, Benedict XVI held an audience for the bishops of Mali at the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo. From the very beginning of his speech, the Pope did not deny “the difficult human and spiritual situations” which make the Church’s normal pastoral work a challenge demanding courage. Among other comments, Benedict XVI addressed relations with Muslims, who in Mali represent 90 percent of the inhabitants. The Pope expressed his satisfaction for the “cordial relations” entertained by Catholics with the Islamic world. And he repeated that for friendship to be real, “it is legitimate that the proper identity of each community be visibly expressed in mutual respect”, so as to encourage real “peaceful coexistence”. Sources ACN News Vatican Radio

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MALTA

Article 2.1 of the Constitution establishes that the Roman Catholic Apostolic Religion is the official religion of the Republic of Malta. The authorities of the Catholic Church, states Article 2.2, consequently have “the duty and the right to teach which principles are right and which are wrong”, and Article 2.3 states that the teaching of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Faith must be available in all state schools as part of the compulsory curriculum, although it is possible to opt out. Article 32 guarantees all citizens basic individual rights and freedoms, whatever their race, origin, political opinion, colour or gender may be, on condition that the public interest is respected. These rights specifically include the right to “life, freedom, security, enjoyment of property and protection of the law, freedom of conscience, free speech and freedom of assembly as well as peaceful association and respect for private and family life”. There are no reports of significant institutional changes or other noteworthy events in relation to religious freedom during 2006 and 2007.

AREA 316 kmq POPULATION 432,000 REFUGEES 3,000 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 98.3% Others 1.7%

Baptized Catholics

MALTA

406,000

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MARSHALL ISLANDS

MARSHALL ISLANDS

AREA 181 kmq POPULATION 56,000 REFUGEES ---

Article 2 (Bill of Rights) of the 1979 Constitution recognises full religious freedom. It is not compulsory for religious groups to register and foreign missionaries present in the country are allowed to operate freely. There are private schools run by the Catholic Church, the United Church of Christ, the Assemblies of God, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Baptist Church and also by other groups. There is no religious instruction in state schools. Christmas, Good Friday and Gospel Day are national holidays.

INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 96.6% Others 3.4%

Baptized Catholics 5,000

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MAURITANIA

315

AREA 102,532 kmq POPULATION 3,139,000 REFUGEES 30,471 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 99.1% Ethnoreligionists 0.5% Affiliated Christians 0.3% Others 0.1%

Baptized Catholics 5,000

MAURITANIA

In November 2006 the first general elections were held in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania since President Taya was removed from power by a military coup on 3rd August 2005. The great novelties in these first free elections in Mauritania were the 20 percent quota reserved to female candidates and the free access to independent candidates, among them moderate Muslim elements. On 24th June a national referendum had already approved the text of the new Constitution, which partially amends a number of articles in the 1991 version, including the oath sworn by the president. Although a decree of 1981 forbids slavery, there are many people in this country who have been released from slavery and continue effectively to suffer discrimination in the eyes of the law, in the workplace and in their social lives, due to the fact that they were previously slaves. This has also been said by Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, leader of the campaign against slavery and a candidate in the 2006 elections (he came fourth among the 19 candidates), who tried unsuccessfully to ensure that this issue was added to the Constitutional Charter. The law governing family matters is the Shari‘a. The Islamic religion is taught in both private and state schools. In July 2003 a new law basically restricted freedom of expression, transforming all mosques into state organisations controlled by the Ministry responsible for Islamic worship. The Bible can neither be printed nor sold; however, possession of one is not officially punished by the law. To this day, no religious group other than Islam has been officially recognised. The ZENIT Agency published a note, detailing the explanation given below by a Catholic bishop in Mauritania on the difference between an Islamic and an islamist republic and citing this country as an example of the former. Bishop Martin Happe of Nouakchott, explained that since Mauritania is an Islamic and not an islamist republic, Catholic bishops are welcome in the country and there are no restrictions imposed on the social work of the Church in education and healthcare. He also added that “in a country like Mauritania, where Islam is practically the only thing shared by the various ethnic groups, Catholics and

MAURITANIA

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Muslims must accept and respect their respective diversities”. In 2006 the diocese of Nouakchott celebrated its 40th anniversary. Sources Il Giornale Mondo e Missione Reuters ZENIT

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MAURITIUS

317

AREA 2,040 kmq POPULATION 1,250,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Hindus 44% Affiliated Christians 32.6% Muslims 16.9% Others 6.5%

Baptized Catholics 312,000

MAURITIUS

The 1968 Constitution, amended in 1996, guarantees full religious freedom (Article 11). Religious groups present in the country before independence (e.g. Catholics, Presbyterians, Seventh Day Adventists, Hindus and Muslims) were recognised by parliamentary decree and receive public funding. New groups must apply for registration. Missionary groups must obtain permission, both for the group and for each individual. Last year 11 permits were refused out of the 226 requests presented by missionaries. Sometimes foreign missionaries are forbidden from staying for more than five years, a period that would allow them to obtain citizenship. The religious groups affected are permitted to allow new missionaries to travel to the country to replace them. There is a strong correlation between ethnic origin and religion (most Indians are Hindus or Muslims, the Chinese are Buddhists or Catholics, Creoles and those of European descent are generally Catholics), a factor that can contribute to conflicts between the various communities, especially between the Hindu majority and the Christian and Islamic minorities. In March 2007 the Supreme Court banned the Hidayat-ul-Islam mosque, situated in the residential area in the city of QuatreBornes, from using loudspeakers for the muezzin’s daily call to prayers, because this violated rules for noise prevention. There were widespread protests from the Islamic community with street protests. This event led to a public debate on tolerance and religious liberty. The problem was resolved when the authorities and the Islamic community agreed to a limit on sound level for the loudspeakers.

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MEXICO

MEXICO

AREA 1,958,201 kmq POPULATION 104,870,000 REFUGEES 1,616 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 5,500

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 96.3% Non religious 3.1% Others 0.6%

Baptized Catholics 96,370,000

Mexico changed its president in July 2007, with the election of the centre-right PAN candidate. The extremely narrow victory by Jesús Calderón, who had stood against the populist leftwinger, Manuel López Obrador, sparked off powerful political confrontations. During the electoral battle, the Mexican episcopate had emphasised the need to recognize religious liberty for all denominations and to provide the necessary means for the teaching of religion in the state schools (Fides, 28th April 2006). The bishops firmly underlined the need to promote reconciliation, respect one’s political adversaries and prevent outbreaks of violence (L’Osservatore Romano, 11th-12th September 2006). However, the political climate had become very heated and there was even an assault on Cardinal Norberto Rivera, the Archbishop of Mexico City, by militants of the leftwing opposition PRD party, while he was celebrating Mass in the cathedral (ZENIT, 6th November 2006; Radio Giornale Vaticano, 6th November 2006). It was an event repeated a year later, when militants burst into the cathedral during Mass, attacking the faithful, and the priests and the President of the Cathedral Chapter, D. Rubén Ávila Enríquez, as they shouted insults against Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Rivera (Vatican Radio, 20th November 2007; Fides, 26th November 2007; ACI Prensa, 19th November 2007). At the same time the secularist tradition in Mexico continues to produce clashes between the civil and ecclesial spheres – as for example the announcement by the Mexican Senate that it would debar from their priestly functions any member of the clergy accused of the abuse of minors – thereby contravening the law regarding religious associations and public worship (ZENIT, 26th February 2007; Vatican Radio, 27th February 2007). On the other side there have been a few initiatives by private citizens, claiming the right of equality in religious liberty, and protesting at the restriction in the rights of priests, solely on the grounds of their ministerial role. (ACI Prensa, 25th July 2007). With regard to the defence of life: on 24th April the legislative assembly of the federal district of Mexico City approved the amendment of Article 144 of the Penal Code, thereby permitting abortion up to the 12th week of gestation. Prior to the

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MEXICO

approval of this law, the Church, in the person of the Archbishop of Mexico, Cardinal Norberto Rivera, had published a document stating that, in accordance with the teaching of Church, any person who legislates against human life, and all who promote and work to provide abortion, would thereby incur the penalty of excommunication (Noticias Globales, 26th April 2007).

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MICRONESIA, FED. S.

MICRONESIA, FED. S.

AREA 702 kmq POPULATION 110,000

Article IV (Declaration of Rights) of the Constitution of 1978 guarantees total religious freedom. The government funds private schools run by religious groups. Public schools offer no religious education. Missionaries of various faiths can operate freely. Religious groups have their own schools, radio stations and a cable TV network.

REFUGEES 2 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 93.1% Ethnoreligionists 3.5% Others 3.4%

Baptized Catholics 60,000

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MOLDOVA, REPUBLIC OF

321

AREA 33,831 kmq POPULATION 3,590,000 REFUGEES 151 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 68.8% Non religious 24.6% Muslims 5.5% Others 1.1%

Baptized Catholics 20,000

MOLDOVA, REPUBLIC OF

Article 31 of the Moldovan Constitution permits full freedom of religion. There is no established State religion, although the Moldovan Orthodox Church enjoys greater privileges than other religions and denominations. Registration is compulsory for religious groups, and legislation puts restrictions on non-registered groups, such as the prohibition to buy land or other property, or the withholding of permits needed to build churches or seminaries, rules that are at times circumvented by presenting requests in the names of individual members of the community. Relations between religious groups are usually cordial, although for years there has been a dispute between the two main Orthodox communities in the country. On 13th April 2006, a priest of the Orthodox Church of Bessarabia (an autonomous metropolis within the Romanian Orthodox Church) and a number of his parishioners in Foresti – a town in the north-east of the country near the border with Ukraine – were attacked by local police and by members of the Moldovan Orthodox Church (under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church that was introduced by the Soviet occupiers after 1945) who were trying to enter the church and disrupt their religious activities (U. S. State Department: Report on International Religious Freedom, 14th September 2006). In January 2007, the government started a fund-raising campaign for historical churches and monasteries, administered by the Moldovan Orthodox Church. By September about ten million lei had been collected, the equivalent of about US$ 750,000. Throughout 2006 the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints continued to report problems in registering. However, they did obtain registration in December that year. The government has repeatedly refused to register Islamic organisations such as the Spiritual Organisation of Muslims in Moldova, set up in 1992 in Kyiv, and the Muslim Central Spiritual Board of Moldova. On 28th June 2007, however, the Supreme Court of Justice ordered the authorisation for the first of these organisations to be verified, which reported that it had received continuous threats from the police and new problems were encountered with the Ministry of Justice in the course of the year. On 19th May 2007, for example, the police filmed Islamic believ-

MOLDOVA, REPUBLIC OF

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ers during Friday prayers, in an attempt to prove that there were legal violations in their activities. The court however rejected these accusations as unfounded. On 11th May 2007, the Moldovan Parliament passed a law addressing many problems linked to religious issues. According to reports in the local press, on 18th June President Vladimir Voronin returned the law to the assembly to be reviewed, criticising the fact that the new law did not consider the Orthodox Church as the country’s “traditional” religion, and that it simplified registration for non-traditional religious groups. By the end of September no final decision had been reached. The Transnistria region, situated between the eastern bank of the River Dniester and the Ukrainian border, has declared itself a breakaway republic and the area not controlled by the government. The authorities continue to deny registration to a number of minority groups, even threatening their members. In mid September 2007 (reported Forum 18 News Service) a restrictive bill for regulating groups in this region was presented to Parliament. Should it be approved, it would prevent all religious communities not affiliated to existing and registered groups from obtaining legal status for ten years. This would also mean that they would not be permitted to publish books or newspapers, open religious educational centres, or invite foreign religious personnel. On 4th April 2007, the European Council exhorted the Moldovan government to adopt legislation clearly setting out the rights of religious groups. Between 8th and 11th February, after a policeman had interrupted one of their study sessions, members of the Evangelical community were arrested and interrogated in Vadu Lui Voda – a seaside village on the right bank of the River Dniester, near Chisinau – challenging their right to hold religious services and the fact that they had invited a foreign speaker. On 19th March 2007, five tombstones in the Jewish cemetery in Chisinau were overturned; similar incidents have taken place in previous years. In this same location, on 15th January that same year, the headquarters of the daily paper Timpul (The Times) were attacked by about twenty people thought to be members of the Moldovan Orthodox Church, who threw eggs at the windows of the offices in protest against articles published by the newspaper, which had criticised a “caste” of local politicians.

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MONACO

Article 9 of the Constitution of the principality establishes that the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion is the religion of the state. Article 17 guarantees that the Monegasques – citizens of Monaco – are equal in the eyes of the law and there are no individual privileges among them. Article 23 guarantees “religious freedom, its public exercise, as well as the freedom to express one’s own opinions on all subjects”, with the exception of “the repression of crimes committed during the exercise this freedom” and also guarantees that “no one may be constrained to participate in the activities and ceremonies of a religion or to observe its days of rest”. There have been no reports of significant institutional changes or notable incidents relating to religious freedom during 2006 and 2007.

AREA 1 kmq POPULATION 32,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 93.2% Non religious 4.4% Others 2.4%

Baptized Catholics

MONACO

29,000

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MONGOLIA

MONGOLIA

AREA 1,566,500 kmq POPULATION 2,580,000 REFUGEES 5 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Non religious 39.7% Ethnoreligionists 31.2% Buddhists 22.5% Muslims 4.8% Affiliated Christians 1.3% Others 0.5%

Baptized Catholics 300

Under Articles 9, comma 2, and 16, comma 15, of the Constitution of 1992 freedom of religion is recognised, separating organised religion from political activities. Religious education is not allowed in State schools, but the government does allow foreign missionaries into the country. Each religious group must register and only those that are registered can engage in apostolate activities (but offering economic incentives or other forms of pressure are banned). The government can limit the number of places of worship and priests, and does in fact do so, relying on its regulatory authority to control these places. Since registration requires a letter of approval by local city councils or other local authorities, local governments in practice exercise a discretionary power over places of worship because approval by the Justice and the Internal Affairs Ministries is usually a formality. Applicants who want to register must provide the names of those who are in charge of such places as well as the names of the faithful. A Filipino prelate from the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (CICM) arrived with two confreres in 1992 to open the Mongolian Catholic mission. Today, 64 missioners from 18 countries belonging to nine religious congregations and a Korean diocese, together with six lay missioners from three countries, serve the local Church. Meanwhile the number of Catholics in the country has reached 415 with 70 more Mongolians baptised in 2007. The year 2007 also marked the 15th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Mongolia. As of September 2007 there were 391 registered places of worship, of these 217 were Buddhist, 143 Christian and 24 Muslim. Still, some Christian groups have complained that sometimes it can take years for local officials to approve their application; at times the latter think that there are too many churches or are willing to authorise a church as long as a Buddhist temple is also built. In March 2006 three unregistered churches in Tov province and one in Selenge province were ordered to stop their activities.

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MOROCCO

325

AREA 446,550 kmq POPULATION 31,524,000 REFUGEES 786 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 98.3% Affiliated Christians 0.6% Others 1.1%

Baptized Catholics 23,000

MOROCCO

According to the Moroccan Constitution, “Islam is the State religion, guaranteeing freedom of religious practice for everyone” (Art. 6). Faced with the ambiguity of this wording, which is vague with regard to the freedom to choose one’s own religion, everything becomes a question of interpretation. This interpretation is the competence of the King, as the “Commander of the faithful”, as is the responsibility of safeguarding respect for Islam. In 1962, King Hassan II had provided his interpretation of this Article, stating that the Jewish and the Christian religions could be practised in total freedom, since these are religions recognised by Islam. This, however, he specified, does not mean that Muslims are free to change religion or move over to any other form of worship. But the Penal Code does not establish any punishment for voluntarily and freely chosen apostasy, which is not therefore considered a crime. The same Penal Code does however punish proselytising, but does not punish that of the islamic proselytism. Article 220 establishes a sentence of between six months and three years in prison as well as a fine of between 100 and 500 dirham for anyone attempting to make the faith of a Muslim waver, attempting to convert him to another religion, or use persuasive means to exploit his weakness or his needs – or the utilisation for this end of educational or health institutions, hostels or orphanages. In addition to Muslims, only autochthonous (Moroccan-born) Jews are considered as having full Moroccan citizenship, due to their centuries-old presence in this kingdom. Currently, they number no more than 4,000 – whereas on the eve of independence in 1956 there were about 200,000 of them. As such, the government provides them with financial aid for their schools as well as tax and customs exemptions. Moreover, a number of Jews hold important appointments. One in fact, André Azoulay, was appointed Royal Advisor by Hassan II, an appointment renewed by the current sovereign, Mohamed VI. Equally, the former Minister for Tourism, Serge Berdugo, who plays an important role within his community, has been appointed the King’s ambassador-at-large. Finally, Jews have their own courts, competent as far as civil law is concerned. As far as Christians are concerned, it is estimated that there are currently about 50,000 in the country out of 30 million inhabi-

MOROCCO

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tants. Most of them are Catholics and foreigners of some 70 different nationalities, but there are also some neo-Protestants, especially Evangelicals, among Moroccan Christian converts. The Catholic Church enjoys official recognition based on a Letter Patent II sent by King Hassan to Pope John Paul II on 30th December 1983. Hence the Catholic Church can publicly and freely carry out its pastoral activities and legally own property for its work in the educational sector. A new school was opened in Casablanca in 2007. The government also grants the Catholic Church a number of fiscal and customs exemptions. The ringing of church bells has however de facto been forbidden since 1960. Furthermore, selling Bibles in Arabic is not permitted, though French, English and Spanish translations are allowed. Finally, Catholic and Protestant places of worship are closely guarded by police following terrorist attacks in Casablanca in 2003. The Catholic Church rigorously abstains from anything that might be considered evangelising activities. In fact, according to Monsignor Vincent Landel, Archbishop of Rabat, “The idea that one might violate the laws of Morocco is not even to be entertained” (Aujourd’hui le Maroc, No. 978, 1st September 2005). Hence the following order was given to the Trappist monks residing in Midelt, in the Atlas Mountains: “Avoid all unnecessary provocation or excessive visibility in these troubled times”. (Tel Quel, 14th–20th January 2006). The attitude of some neo-Protestant groups of American origin is a different one. They claim to have converted a few hundred Moroccans, now said to be over a thousand. Some have become ministers. For example, the organisation called Arab World Ministries, present in Morocco, has the goal of announcing the Good News of a Saviour to the Muslims of the Arab world, in obedience to the command of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to preach the Good News to all mankind (Maroc Hebdo, No. 723, 8th–14th December 2006). While the law does not establish punishment for those who have converted to another religion, such converts do suffer strong social ostracism. Baptised Muslims find themselves obliged to practise their faith in private homes and secret locations and not in the churches or temples. On 28th November 2006, the trial court in Agadir sentenced an Evangelical Coptic tourist, Sadek Noshi Yassa, an Egyptian of German nationality, to six months in prison and a fine of 500 dirham. He was arrested in that city while trying to distribute Christian books to young people, after managing to engage them in a discussion on the subject of religion. Books and CD-ROMs urging people to convert to Christianity were confiscated from his house (Maroc Hebdo, No. 723, 8th–14th December 2006). There are also about 400 native Baha’is living in Morocco. They do not however enjoy legal status because the government considers their beliefs heretical. After having

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been persecuted at length during the 20th century for proselytism, they are now permitted freedom of worship although, on the basis of a decision taken by King Hassan II in 1983, this religion may not be practised publicly. In exchange for a peace agreement with the Kingdom, the Baha’is are committed to refraining from proselytism. There is also a small expatriate Hindu community present in Morocco. They are permitted to cremate their dead and organise religious ceremonies. Finally, according to a dahir (legal decree) dated 4th March 1960, a female Muslim Moroccan citizen may not marry a non-Muslim unless he converts to Islam. This provision is based on a verse of the Koran that establishes this prohibition (cf. Koran 2, 221). In order to be able to marry her, the future husband must submit documentation, in Arabic, testifying to his conversion. Moreover, a Christian or Jewish woman who marries a Muslim loses all right to inherit from her husband and to custody of their children, should she separate from him or be widowed.

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MOZAMBIQUE

MOZAMBIQUE

AREA 801,590 kmq POPULATION 20,774,000 REFUGEES 2,767 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Ethnoreligionists 50.4% Affiliated Christians 38.4% Muslims 10.5% Others 0.7%

Baptized Catholics 4,466,000

Article 9 of the 1990 Constitution defines Mozambique as a “secular state”, and Article 78 guarantees religious freedom together with the right for religious denominations to pursue their own objectives and to own what is necessary for the pursuance of these objectives. In 2007 the government approved certain important measures, including, for example, the restitution to religious organisations of the places of worship confiscated by the Marxist regime in 1977. Religious instruction is strictly forbidden in the state schools, but allowed by law in private schools. Relations between the various religious groups are reasonably peaceful, although the Muslim leaders claim that they are not sufficiently represented within government institutions. In December 2006, the bishops of Mozambique expressed their alarm at the increasing climate of violence, which has spread from the cities to the interior of the country, with banditry, armed robberies and revenge killings. In their analysis of the country’s social and economic problems, the bishops emphasised the high levels of unemployment that are pushing young people into delinquency, leading them to live by stealing or fall victim to drug addiction. According to the bishops, corruption among public officials is also contributing to a weakening of social cohesion and undermining peace within the nation. In November, Brazilian Jesuit Father Waldyr dos Santos and Portuguese voluntary aid worker Ilda Neto Gomes were murdered in the Jesuit residence in Angonia, Tete province, by an armed gang that had entered the house to burgle it. Although the bishops have expressed their satisfaction as to the good relations between State and Church, especially as far as the educational sector is concerned, they have also emphasised their right to express an opinion on such issues as legislation on the family, abortion and divorce. In October 2006 the government of Mozambique entrusted the Salesian congregation with the management, programming, direction and development of all activities for the professional formation of teachers in the country. It did so with the formal inauguration, on 17th October 2006, of the Don Bosco Higher Institute of Formation for Professional Teaching and Manage-

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ment, a state institution run by the Salesians. The Salesian International News Agency confirmed that this centre is the only one of its kind and that lessons would begin in June 2007. Under this scheme, about 80 Spanish school teachers were able to travel to this African country as short-term voluntary workers.

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MYANMAR

MYANMAR

AREA 676,578 kmq POPULATION 52,650,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED 503,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Buddhists 72.7% Ethnoreligionists 12.6% Affiliated Christians 8.3% Muslims 2.4% Others 4%

Baptized Catholics 646,000

The situation for human rights and religious freedom is getting worse in Myanmar. Last year was the year of the so-called “Saffron Revolution”, when in August and September Buddhist monks led a peaceful movement against the abuses and repressive policies of the military regime that has run the country with an iron fist since 1962. Following the monks’ lead thousands of people took to the streets. But by the end of September the military junta could no longer tolerate street protests and unleashed its forces against the protesters, especially targeting Buddhist monks and monasteries. Official figures put the death toll at ten – 31 at least according to United Nations sources – but the real number will probably never be known. NGOs have talked about hundreds of dead and thousands of arrests across the country. Still, one consequence of the violence was to remove the veil the military used to claim that they respected and protected Buddhist communities, thus showing it to be just a propaganda exercise by the generals. In fact, in a country where monks are immensely respected and have great sway over the population, the military regime has traditionally used them whenever it felt the need to do so. Thus state media outlets have often been keen to publish photos which show the military making large donations to the most famous pagodas or standing side by side with some of the most important religious leaders. And yet whenever the monks did not toe the official line, the junta has never hesitated to persecute them. Laws The current military government, known as the State Peace and Development Council, has led the country without a Constitution since 1988. Under its rule there has been no law to guarantee religious freedom, but members of religious groups that have registered with the authorities can formally practice their faith. The junta has effectively imposed great restrictions and has closely controlled the activities of every community to ensure that human rights and democracy remain forbidden topics. For instance, minorities face great obstacles if they want to build, repair or buy places for worship. Some local authorities have gone so far as to destroy existing facilities. Although

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Situation of the Christians Events in September 2007 raised great concern among religious minorities. The Catholic Church, which backed the monk-led movement, told members of the clergy not to take to the streets. “We told our priests and nuns not to take to the streets but to pray instead because we are a minority and to carry on with our work – we must be cautious,” Mgr Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of the former capital of Yangon, told AsiaNews. “Of course our faithful were free to join the protests, but in our hearts we were close to the Buddhist monks as well. In late September and in October in Yangon there were raids every day against monasteries at 2 or 4 am. Anyone who tried to get close to the monks to offer them some water or food was arrested.” Benedict XVI was also deeply affected by the September violence against civilians and monks. In the last Angelus address he made that month he made an appeal: “I am following with great trepidation the dramatic events of the last few days in Myanmar and wish to stress my spiritual closeness to that dear people at a time when it is going through such a painful trial. As I reassure you of my intense and concerned prayer I urge the whole Church to do the same, truly hopeful that a peaceful solution [to the crisis] can be found for the good of the country.” Mgr Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, reiterated that same appeal in his 1st October address to the 62nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly. Myanmar Christians are particularly persecuted because they belong to certain ethnic minorities like the Karen, who have been fighting the central government for recognition and the right to self-determination. Hence the military regime has tried to limit evangelisation as well as the importation and distribution of Christian books. Since the 1960s all religious and non-religious publications have been subject to controls and censorship. Although limited consignments of religious literature in minority

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officially there is no State religion, Theravada Buddhism is promoted, especially among the ethnic minorities. Indeed, being Buddhist is a prerequisite for public service employment or promotion through the military ranks. In the mid-1960s, under General Ne Win’s rule, the military expelled almost all foreign missionaries and nationalised every school and hospital they ran. By the same token men and women religious cannot vote. All organisations, including those based on religion, must register in order to be able to buy and sell property or open a bank account. Leaders of religious groups registered with the Interior Ministry and approved by the Religious Affairs Ministry can move more freely than those that have no official recognition. Identity cards, which both Burmese nationals and foreign residents must carry at all times, indicate the bearer’s religious affiliation. Myanmar passports also show religious affiliation.

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languages have been occasionally allowed without prior approval by the censorship board, it is still illegal to import Bibles written in local languages. “Whilst we can pray, celebrate Mass and recite the Rosary, there is no true religious freedom,” said some Yangon Catholics. Indeed priests cannot talk about or pray for peace, justice or the respect of human rights, and the community lives in terror and fear, aware that anyone might be arrested or tortured. “We are all subject to the law,” lamented the same anonymous Catholic source, “but the junta is above it and uses every method to silence the population.” The hold the military has over the country has obstructed the local Church from exercising its apostolate, creating difficulties regarding its relationship with the universal Church. The difficulties in setting up new parishes mean that in some areas a single priest is in charge of vast areas. In some places the parish priest can only meet his parishioners three times a year, so only on those occasions can he offer them the Eucharist. According to the annual Report on Religious Freedom published by America’s Department of State, Christians in Chin State have bitterly complained that since 1997 the government has prevented them from building a single church. In cities like Yangon and Mandalay the authorities have allowed Christian communities to build new centres, but only if they agreed not to hold services within or avoided putting religious symbols on view. Despite the restrictions under which it lives, the Burmese Church is growing. There are a lot of vocations and conversions among the animistic minorities, and many priests and nuns go abroad in missions among non-Christians. Situation of the Buddhists In 2007 a virtual persecution campaign was unleashed against Buddhist religious because of the peaceful anti-government marches they started in August, first as protest against gas price hikes and later in favour of reforms, peace and democracy. In response Buddhist leaders from the All Burmese Monks Alliance called on every monk to boycott offerings made by military people, a type of protest so significant that it is tantamount to excommunication. When the junta’s reaction to protests and marches came, it was utterly violent. On 26th September soldiers fired on crowds in Yangon. Eyewitness accounts cited for weeks by news agencies and dissident websites outside the country (Democratic Voice of Burma, Mizzima News and The Irrawaddy) told stories of ransacked monasteries, burning at night. Altogether at least 6,000 people were arrested. For thousands of years, Buddhist holy sites have always been respected. The generals’ outrage was thus unprecedented: convents and pagodas were assaulted, ancient Buddhas were decapitated to extract precious gems, monks were killed or arrested. In an attempt to put down the protest movement, the authorities in early October summoned

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the abbots from the country’s major monasteries and ordered them to move their communities from the cities into the countryside, effectively shutting them down. For monks, who depend on alms for a living, this was a lifetime sentence to an existence of even greater than usual privation in the country’s remotest and most deprived areas. The government above all fears the activity of the novices, because of the leading role they played in the demonstrations. This explains why they also ordered the closure of all seminaries and the return of all their students to their village of origin. Among the cities Yangon, centre of the protest movement, and Mandalay were the hardest-hit. Overnight on 26th September, the Ngwekyaryan Monastery in the old capital was ransacked and vandalised. Money and jewels that had been donated to the institution disappeared and about a hundred monks were arrested. The BBC reported that many monks were shipped off to prisons in the northern part of the country. Some pro-government sources said that in a week of repression some 4,000 monks had been rounded up in Yangon alone. Official sources claimed that only ten people died in the incidents, but human rights activists put the real number closer to 200 with another 1,000 or more who simply disappeared. Monasteries as well as protesters’ and opposition leader’s homes in Mandalay were raided throughout the month of October as well. On 8th October, AsiaNews reported that “persecutory” measures were imposed on monasteries. Parallel to that the government waged a smear campaign against the monks who, according to state media outlets like The New Light of Myanmar, did not “follow Buddha’s teachings,” but instead violated “his laws and thus deserve to be punished” – as common criminals, not as political prisoners, however, they hastened to stress. In an evident attempt to discredit the monks and portray them as “hotheads” manipulated by Western powers, with the United States as the leading culprit, official media repeatedly ran stories about the alleged discovery of pornographic material and condoms in monasteries. At the end of October the authorities shut down the Maggin Monastery in the town of Thingangyun, near Yangon. Two monks, six novices and two lay people who lived in the compound were thrown out. Mizzima News reported they were moved to the Kaba Aye Pagoda. The monastery was believed to be close to the National League for Democracy (NLD), the opposition party led by Nobel Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for many years. Maggin Monastery was well-known for treating HIV/AIDS patients from Yangon. With the place now closed, patients have been moved to Wai Ba Gi Hospital in the town of North Okklapa, not far from the old capital. By the time its doors were locked soldiers had already raided it four times since September. Its abbot U Indaka, a former political prisoner, is still held at an unknown location, but he is not alone; other Maggin monks are behind bars because of the September protests. In October the Dalai

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Lama expressed his solidarity for Burmese monks, calling on the junta to refrain from using violence. Analysts believe that the anti-monk violence has caused a rift in the army, this in a country with very deep religious roots. Situation of the Muslims Muslims face the same restrictions as Christians do as far as publishing religious literature and building places of worship are concerned. They continue to suffer persecution at the hands of the military, in particular the Rohingya minority in Rakhine State. In early 2007 Muslims living in this state fixed a mosque damaged by bad weather only to see their repair work torn down by the authorities once the latter found out.

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NAMIBIA

The secular nature of the State is confirmed in the introduction to the 1990 Constitution, and Article 21/c guarantees freedom to freely practice and express one’s religion. Article 20/4 also establishes the right to run private schools on condition that students are accepted whatever their race, colour or beliefs. Religious organisations do not have to register and are free to operate if in compliance with current legislations. Sources Afrobarometer Surveys Political Resources on the Net

AREA 824,292 kmq POPULATION 2,336,000 REFUGEES 6,525 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 92.3% Ethnoreligionists 6% Others 1.7%

Baptized Catholics

NAMIBIA

405,000

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NAURU

NAURU

AREA 21 kmq POPULATION 10,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Article 11 of the Constitution of 1968 of this small democracy recognises full religious freedom; however, this right can be limited to the extent that a “law makes provision which is reasonably required […] in the interests of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or public health”. The government has used this possibility to control and limit the activities of some foreign religious groups like the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, sometimes prompted by the local Catholic and Protestant Churches. Between 2000 and 2007 no Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon missionary was allowed into the country. The government discouraged the proselytising activities of these groups for the stated purpose of preventing possible dissentions within families. At the end of 2007 these restrictions were lifted. Religious groups must in any event register to operate. The Catholic Church and two long-standing Protestant denominations, the Nauru Congregational Church and the Kiribati Protestant Church, are officially recognised.

Affiliated Christians 75% Non religious 20.5% Traditional chinese religions 10.5% Baha’i 9.4% Others 5.1%

Baptized Catholics 3,000

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NEPAL

337

AREA 147,181 kmq POPULATION 23,890,000 REFUGEES 130,681 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 50,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Hindus 75.5% Ethnoreligionists 9.4% Buddhists 8.2% Muslims 3.9% Affiliated Christians 2.4% Others 0.6%

Baptized Catholics 7,000

NEPAL

The provisional Constitution promulgated on 15th January 2007 guarantees freedom of religion but explicitly prohibits all apostolate activities, on pain of fines, prison terms and, for foreigners, expulsion. Personal conversion is possible. The previous Constitution of 1990 defined the country as a “Hindu kingdom”, albeit without making Hinduism the State religion. With some restrictions, all religious groups enjoyed widespread tolerance. The last two years have seen momentous changes in the country, with democracy restored, an armistice between the government and Maoist rebels, who eventually joined the provisional government, the proclamation of a secular and democratic state and the progressive loss of all the powers of the king. On 24th April, after 19 days of consecutive street protests by hundreds of thousands of people involving violent clashes with the army and leaving at least 18 dead, King Gyanendra, by now isolated and antagonised by just about everyone, restored the parliament which he had dissolved on 1st February 2005, handing over power to a coalition of the seven parties formerly in parliament at the time of its dissolution. On 18th May 2006 parliament declared Nepal to be a secular state, stripping the king of all executive power, including that of commander-in-chief of the armed forces. In June 2007 the parliament also decided to abolish the 238-year-old monarchy. For Hindus the king of Nepal is the reincarnation of the god Vishnu. The decision was welcomed by the country’s religious minorities, especially the Christian and Muslim communities, above all because it meant the right to assembly and to freely practise one’s faith, something hitherto not formally recognised under the Hindu monarchy, although accepted in practice. By contrast, it sparked strong protests among Hindu groups, not only in Nepal but also in neighbouring India, who even called for the issue to be put to a referendum. There have been continuing street protests since then, for example on 25th May 2006, when tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in the streets of Birgunj brandishing tridents and yellow flags, shouting slogans against democratic parties. Or again, on 19th September in Kathmandu, when thousands of them demanded the restoration

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of the Hindu monarchy. In August 2006 Hindus and Maoists clashed in the city of Bhairahawa. On 26th May 2006 Maoist rebels and the government signed an armistice and on 21 November 2006 a peace accord, bringing an end to the civil war that had raged since 1996, causing great economic losses and more than 13,000 deaths. However, the Maoist rebels later failed to live up to their promise to dissolve their army and decommission their weapons. Consequently they remain an armed threat, still intimidating people with violence. And as the United Nations pointed out in a critical note in February 2007, the Maoists have yet to discharge thousands of forcibly-conscripted child soldiers. On 1st April 2007 the seven-party coalition and the Maoists formed a provisional government and parliament that will stay in power till the election of a Constituent Assembly which will draft the new Constitution. However, the Maoists have forced a delay in the election, first scheduled for June 2007, then for November and now set for 10th April 2008. At the end of 2007 the government approved four new religious and ethnic holidays to honour the country’s minorities, namely Christmas, the Nepalese festival of Losar (the Tibetan New Year celebrated by the Janaajati and other ethnic groups), Chhad (which is celebrated by Nepal’s Madhesi people) and an Islamic holiday. Christian-run educational institutions have existed in the country for quite some time, including fully-recognised schools and a university, albeit on the condition that non Hindu religious teachings not be taught. Now the new secular state has also recognised Muslim and Buddhist schools. The state has even decided to make a contribution of 9,000 Nepali rupees per school, and will additionally pay for teacher salaries. It will require, though, that non-religious textbooks also be used, in English and Nepalese, from a list approved by the country’s Education Board. Catholics Mgr Anthony Sharma, appointed Nepal’s first Catholic bishop in May 2007, told AsiaNews that for years Catholics “were not allowed to go out of the [Kathmandu] valley,” by direct order of the king, who allowed men and women religious to teach but banned all kind of missionary and evangelising activity. But now the royal decrees are no longer law, so Catholics are free to carry out any activity. “Now the situation is different and the king cannot do anything to stop our activities. The people see us and join us,” the prelate said. Other Christian communities On 25th April 2007 a Hindu fundamentalist group called the Nepal Defence Army (NDA), whose goal is to restore the Hindu monarchy, threw a bomb against the

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“Grace Children Home”, an orphanage in Birganj run by a Pentecostal community. The NDA has accused the school administrators of converting children and getting funds from pro-Maoist organisations. One of the 80 war-orphaned children living in the facility was wounded. Praban, one of NDA’S local co-ordinators, told AsiaNews that “the Christian owners of the home are obviously converting Hindu and Buddhist children from the hills and mountains to Christianity. […] The bomb was a warning against their nefarious project.” Orphanage administrators have dismissed all the charges, saying that their work “is to help and educate poor children who have lost their families.” Christians have also complained about the Maoists for frequently extorting money from churches, threatening retaliatory action against the faithful and their property. In October 2006 the Maoists shut down the Kashi Gaun Church in the village of Kashi (Gorkha), taking advantage of a dispute that pitted the church against local residents. After the intervention by the Nepali Inter-faith Council, the residents were persuaded that there could not be any restrictions on religious freedom and in February 2007 the Maoists agreed to the re-opening of the church.

Hindu discrimination Upper caste Hindus continue to discriminate against members of lower castes as well as foreigners, despite a constitutional ban on such treatment. In many Hindu temples clerics have prevented Dalits from entering, going so far as to physically assault them in order to keep them out. The police have usually been reluctant to arrest those responsible for such acts of violence. In April 2007 in Parbat district Dalits were denied the right to take high school admission exams. On 4th March 2007 more than 100 Dalit families had to flee their village in Rautahat district as a result of clashes with upper-caste Hindus. They were only able to return home a few days later, and only after police intervention.

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Muslims Following the murder in early September 2007, in Kapilvastu district, of Mohit Khan, a Muslim leader and politician as well as former head of an anti-Maoist group, an angry crowd of Muslims began street fighting, burning cars and more than 200 Hinduowned homes. A Hindu car driver was butchered in the street. The mob also set fire to more than 20 public buildings and slaughtered a policeman, Hasan Puri. Many businesses were also looted. In retaliation, Hindus attacked Muslim homes, destroyed two mosques and set fire to many homes. Only after several days did police regain control of the situation. In the final toll more than 150 people were wounded and five headless bodies, believed to be Hindus, were found in local fields. Anyone able to flee to neighbouring districts did so because they did not feel safe even in their own homes.

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NETHERLANDS

NETHERLANDS

AREA 41,526 kmq POPULATION 16,340,000 REFUGEES 86,587 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 80.4% Non religious 14.2% Others 5.4%

Baptized Catholics 4,883,000

The very first article of the Constitution establishes that “all persons in the Netherlands shall be treated equally in equal circumstances” and that “discrimination on the grounds of religion, belief, political opinion, race or sex or on any other grounds whatsoever shall not be permitted.” Article 6 guarantees that “everyone shall have the right to freely profess his religion or belief, either individually or in community with others, without prejudice to his responsibility under the law”, though Parliament can establish “rules concerning the exercise of this right other than in buildings and enclosed places […] for the protection of health, in the interest of traffic and to combat or prevent disorders.” Christians The cultural pressure caused by relativism results in problems of legal discrimination of Christians. For example, a Christian person who applies for a medical function and declares not to be available to assist on abortion or euthanasia will not be admitted. Neither is a person working in civil service able to refuse to register a gay-couple in a civil wedding. Muslims There are more and more groups of former Muslims who are calling on the authorities to protect those who have changed religion from the violence of the fanatics. They are in fact accused of being apostates, among other things because they do not follow the rules of Koranic Law and indeed criticise them. One particularly significant case was that involving Ayaan Hirsi Ali. A former liberal Member of Parliament, of Somali origin, she was also the script writer for the film “Submission” about the repression of women in Islamic culture. After receiving death threats and being given police protection after the director of the film “Submission”, Theo Van Gogh, was assassinated by an Islamic extremist in November 2004, Ali left Holland in 2006 to settle in the United States. The government in The Hague had guaranteed to take care of the ex-member of parliament’s security during her first year in the United States, e.g. until October 2007.

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In March 2006 the Dutch equal opportunities commission judged as “indirectly discriminatory, on religious grounds” the refusal by the regional educational centre in Utrecht to allow Fatima Amghar to follow its teaching programmes. Initially, the woman had been excluded from these courses because her religious beliefs, as a Muslim woman, forbade her from shaking hands with men over the age of 12. Judaism Between July and August 2006, coinciding with the Israeli-Lebanese war, the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel enumerated various instances of violence against Jewish targets.

NETHERLANDS

Sources Mark Mardell, Dutch MPs to decide on burqa ban, 16th January 2006 Muslim Woman Wins Case Vs. Dutch school, Associated Press, 28th March 2006 Sam Wilson, Dutch Imams “Leaving in Droves”, BBC News, 19th January 2007 Toby Sterling, Group for Ex-Muslims Expands Across Europe, Associated Press, 11th September 2007

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NEW ZEALAND

NEW ZEALAND

AREA 270,534 kmq POPULATION 4,140,000 REFUGEES 2,740 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 83.5% Non religious 13.6% Others 2.9%

Baptized Catholics 499,000

All rights relating to religious freedom are recognised in Part 2 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act of 1990, which was amended in 1993. There is no State religion and religious groups are not required to register with the authorities, but doing so allows them to take advantage of tax benefits. Political parties based on religion are allowed. Many schools are run by the Catholic Church and other Christian groups and receive public funds. The law prohibits religious education during school hours, but it is standard practice to allow religious meetings and prayer upon request. In 2006 the Education Minister proposed a bill that would ban all religious activities in schools, arguing that non-believers might feel compelled to participate in them in order not to feel excluded. However, the proposal met with strong opposition from political leaders and bishops, who said that any prohibition was unfeasible and unnecessary. In the end the draft law was withdrawn. Traditional religious beliefs and magical practises are still widespread. Catholics The Church complained after a TV station broadcast in February 2006 a cartoon from the South Park series that it deemed offensive because it showed a statue of the Virgin spraying blood, explaining that it was not a miracle but menstrual blood. It filed a complaint, calling the episode “tasteless, crass and ugly”, but its request was rejected, first by the country’s Broadcasting Standards Authority, and then in August 2007 by the High Court, which based its decision on the principle of freedom of expression. Muslims In July 2005 the mosque and Islamic cultural centres in the city of Auckland were hit by acts of vandalism and offensive graffiti. Some people interpreted these atypical acts as a reaction to an attack by Islamic fundamentalists in London that same month, which were also condemned by New Zealand’s Muslim

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community as a “despicable act […] senseless, shameful and totally against the teachings of Islam,” a “barbaric act against humanity”. Mgr Patrick Dunn, Bishop of Auckland, immediately expressed his total “solidarity”, assuring “the Islamic community of Auckland that we are with you in thought and prayer”.

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NICARAGUA

NICARAGUA

AREA 130,000 kmq POPULATION 5,530,000 REFUGEES 184 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 96.3% Others 3.7%

Baptized Catholics 4,928,000

This country in Central America has been one of the few to regain a few areas of liberty. On 26th October 2006, the National Assembly approved the abolition of Article 165 of the Penal Code, which had decriminalised therapeutic abortion. This legislative measure was supported by a group of 200,000 Nicaraguans, headed by the episcopal conference and the representatives of the Evangelical Churches (Noticias Globales, 27th October 2006). However, those opposed to life tried to put pressure on people through disruptive acts, such as the violent intrusion into the Cathedral of Managua (ACI Prensa, 1st October 2007). The measure was a delicate one, since the country was under pressure from the European Union and the United Nations to give in to their own anti-life policies. The following month, Daniel Ortega the former leader of the Sandinista Front and former president of the country in 1979, was once again elected – this time democratically – as Head of State. However, he has regularised his situation, by marrying the woman with whom he had been living, and voted for the abolition of the abortion law (Mondo e Missione, November 2006). With this change of image and behaviour, he appears to have left behind his past attempts to create a communist-style state in the country. Sources ACI Prensa Mondo e Missione Noticias Globales

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NIGER

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AREA 1,267,000 kmq POPULATION 13,039,000 REFUGEES 319 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 90.7% Ethnoreligionists 8.7% Affiliated Christians 0.6%

Baptized Catholics 19,000

NIGER

Religious freedom is recognised by the 1996 Constitution which, in Article 4, establishes the separation between religion and the state, while Article 23 guarantees freedom of religion and worship. The law forbids political movements that are affiliated to a particular religious creed, and religious instruction is not allowed in state schools. On 9th January2006 the small Catholic community celebrated its 75th anniversary of bearing witness to its faith in a country that is almost entirely Muslim. The first Catholic communities were established by Christians arriving from neighbouring countries such as Benin, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Togo. Over time, a number of immigrants have settled in Niger and brought up families that are still, at least to some extent, seen as foreigners and adherents of a religion that is extraneous to the local culture. They do however have good relations with the local authorities, partly this is attributable to the way in which the Catholic Church has upheld human dignity. In the last two years in particular, Catholic nutrition centres have played a major role in distributing food to people suffering from the famine that has for some time now been afflicting the country. In 2006 and 2007 the government tried various ways of promoting dialogue between the various religions, including setting up a Ministry of Religious Affairs. In 2006 two rallies organised by Muslim activists were stopped and dispersed by the police, using force. One of the two rallies was a protest against women’s rights as approved by the Maputo Protocol, which they considered to be in contradiction to the Islamic religion. In Niger there is also a problem linked to arranged marriages between families, which sees children of 10 years age already married and which, in a break with the past, has been condemned by a number of traditional leaders, who have asked the authorities to intervene in this matter. In October 2006 PeaceReporter claimed that 150,000 Mahamid Muslims had been expelled from the country in Eastern Niger. According to Idy Baraou, the BBC’s correspondent in the capital, the Mahamids, who are part of Niger’s military and commercial élite, are often socially discriminated against.

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NIGERIA

NIGERIA

AREA 923,768 kmq POPULATION 138,330,000 REFUGEES 8,460 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 1,210,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 45.9% Muslims 43.9% Ethnoreligionists 9.8% Others 0.4%

Baptized Catholics 20,957,000

Government policies, new laws Nigeria’s Constitution recognises freedom of religion, including the right to express and spread one’s religious belief and the right to convert to another religion. Chapter 1, Section 10 of the Constitution says that the “Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion.” However, Nigeria is a member of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and, since 2000, 12 of its 36 states (Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara, all in the North) have begun enforcing Shari‘a or Islamic Law not only in civil matters like family law as practised until then, but also in criminal matters. Zamfara State has also set up a Religious Affairs Ministry and an Imam Council. In principle Shari‘a law does not apply to non-Muslims in civil and criminal matters, nor should it in apostasy cases. Yet the lives of many non-Muslims in Nigeria have, in various ways, been impacted upon wherever Shari‘a is enforced. In Kano State for instance alcohol cannot be consumed in public and the distribution of alcoholic beverages is banned; in other states alcohol can only be consumed inside federal buildings like military barracks or police stations. In Zamfara State public transport, schools and health facilities are strictly segregated by sex. Shari‘a states extensively fund mosque building and pilgrimages to Mecca. They do the same for Christian churches and pilgrimages to Jerusalem but only to a significantly lesser extent. Many Christian churches in northern Nigeria and some Muslim groups in the south complain that the local authorities use building regulations in order to deny them permission to build new places of worship. In some Shari‘a states those accused of an offence can choose whether to be tried under Shari‘a-inspired laws or under secular law. This choice, however, isn’t given in all States, and in at least five states appeals are pending against Shari‘a sentences which impose the amputation of limbs or death by stoning.

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School situation Nigeria’s Constitution does not make religious education mandatory in state-run schools, but in many Shari‘a states Muslim students are required to attend religious classes. Students from other religious backgrounds have the right to request education in their own religion. But few in the northern states can teach “Christian Religious Knowledge”. Similarly, few teachers can teach “Islamic Religious Knowledge” in the south. Rev. Fr. Albert Ebosele of Sokoto dioceses said that Christian students in High Schools in Sokoto State are compelled to dress in the Islamic dress code (hijab) for school.

Intolerance and Discrimination The most widespread acts of religious intolerance and discrimination have been against the Christian communities in the more Islamised states of northern Nigeria (almost invariably coinciding with the 12 Shari‘a states). They include false charges of blasphemy made against Christian students and teachers, which force them to withdraw from the schools where they study or teach; the withholding of permits to Christians for building churches and cemeteries; the demolition of allegedly “illegal” Christian places of worship; the abduction and forced conversion of teenagers, especially girls, who are then given in marriage to Muslim men; discrimination against Christians in the public sector and in the provision of state services; intimidation and death threats against Mus-

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Inter-faith Dialogue Inter-faith dialogue is being actively practised, thanks to initiatives by non-governmental organisations like Kano’s Inter-Ethnic Forum and Kaduna’s Inter-Faith Mediation Center and Muslim/Christian Dialogue Forum. In both Kano and Kaduna sectarian violence has been high. In 2004 some 700 people died and many church buildings were destroyed in clashes between indigenous Muslims and Christian immigrants. In June 2007 incoming President Umaru Yar’Adua said that he would set up an Advisory Inter-Faith Council including Christians and Muslims to prevent inter-communal violence. In April the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), an organisation that represents all Christian Churches, and the National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) had released a joint statement calling on their respective communities to practice mutual tolerance in the upcoming electoral campaign. In June 2007 the newly-elected president set up a National Haj Commission. He also said that he would create a similar commission for Christian pilgrimages. The deputy chairman of the presidential committee for Christian pilgrimage confirmed that point on 1st October 2007.

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lim converts to Christianity; the trial of Christians in Shari‘a courts, even though they have the right not be judged by such tribunals; the imposition on Christian female students of the Islamic dress code in state schools; the manipulation of the admissions criteria for state schools and universities, so as to favour only Muslims. Rev. Fr. Albert Ebosele of Sokoto diocese which encompasses Sokoto, Katsina, Kebbi and Zamfara States averred that indigenous Christians in these States marginalized in appointments to political offices. Christians are often not promoted in their places of work and their juniors are made their bosses. Converts under Threat Rev Nuhu Mamman, an ECWA pastor in Kebbi State, reports that as a result of threats against converts in the northern part of the state, his community has had to move many of them to other parts of Nigeria. Both the Reverend Mamman and Adamu Sunday Peni, deputy secretary of CAN’s Kebbi chapter, have denounced the forced conversion of Christians to Islam in several places in Kebbi. In Borno State Christian converts from the mostly Islamic Kanuri and Shuwa ethnic groups have been persecuted and their lives have been threatened. Fr. Timothy Barga of Maiduguri diocese said that Christians are not allowed to hold public rallies or prayer conventions and they cannot freely acquire land for Church buildings. Fr. T. Barga added that it is nearly impossible to find a single indigenous Kanuri Christian as he/she will be killed for being a Christian. Discrimination in the workplace and in school Rev. Fr. David Helon stated that the indigenous Christian people of Bauchi State are highly marginalized in terms of employment, admission into schools, political appointments and Christian dominated villages are often neglected in the provision of basic amenities like pipe borne water, electricity, surfaced roads and clinics. Rev. Fr. Moses Maaji in the diocese of Maidiguri, said that anybody bearing a name of Christian origin will not be given employment with Yobe State government. As such, Christians who are indigenous to Yobe State either change their names or use the Hausa version (i.e. Moses is Musa in Hausa) before they can gain employment. So they use Musa instead of Moses, Ishaku instead of Isaac, Mariyamu instead of Mary, in a bid to conceal their Christian identity, so that they can secure employment. Even after this, they will have to continue to hide their religious identity so that they are not sacked. Rev. Fr. Habila Musa of Kano diocese reported that in Kano State, the people of the State who are Christians have to change their English Christians names to Hausa equivalents in order to be recognized as indigenous. He said in Kano State, the common notion is that no one who is Christian can be indigenous to Kano. If you are a Christ-

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Shari‘a applied to Christians In Kano State Rev Murtala Marti Dangora, District Church Council secretary for the Evangelical Church of West Africa, complained that Hisbah police have forced Christian women to submit to the Islamic dress code and stopped them from travelling by motorbike taxis. Suleiman Wurno, an attorney in the city of Bauchi, has reported that many Christians in the city have been tried by State Islamic courts, an allegation also made by Rev Joseph Hayap, CAN secretary in Kaduna, and Elder Saidu Dogo, general secretary of the latter’s northern Nigeria chapter. On 4th August 2006 the Borno Shari‘a High Court took away custody of three girls from their divorced father, because he had had converted to Christianity, and granted it to the relatives of the girls’ mother, who had abducted them in November 2004. Abductions for the purpose of conversion In 2006 and 2007 dozens of cases were reported of the abduction of Christian children and adolescents in the states of Bauchi and Sokoto, for the purpose of conversion and

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ian, you automatically lose your rights and privileges as an indigenous person of the state. James Kagbu, a professor at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria (Kaduna State) and secretary of the university’s Joint Chapel Council, has condemned university policies that favour Muslim students and exclude Christian applicants. In just a few years such policies have turned an institution where Christians were three times the number of Muslims into a Muslim-dominated place where Christians represent only 7,000 students out of a total of 25,000. Rev Ali Buba Lamido, Anglican bishop of Wusasa in Kaduna State, has complained that predominantly Christian residential areas have been neglected by local government authorities who have failed to build roads, clinics and waterworks. Rev Adamu Sunday Peni, CAN deputy secretary in Kebbi State, condemned the exclusion of Christians from state government appointments. In the entire state public service there is only one non Muslim top official. Pastor Sati Riba of the Redemption Power Ministry also complained that only one of the state’s 12 permanent secretaries is Christian. Rev. Fr. Moses Maaji, a priest of Maiduguri diocese who works in Potiskum, Yobe State (Yobe state is part of Maiduguri diocese) said that in 2006, the Commissioner for Education told them at a meeting with school proprietors that any School belonging to a Church will not be approved by the Yobe State Government. Fr. Maaji said that anything that presents Christianity is highly hated by Yobe State Muslims and authorities.

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forced marriage. In Sokoto State a boy was able to flee and make his way home after six months of captivity. Churches demolished and building permits denied by the authorities In January 2006 demolition orders were served on the leaders of 14 churches in the city of Gusau, Zamfara State, signed by State Governor Alhaji Ahmed Sani. “We cannot get land, because there is a deliberate government policy to deny Christians land to build churches,” said Rev John Garba Danbinta, Gusau’s Anglican bishop. The ECWA too has been denied the right to build its own churches in five cities in the state, but “Gov. Sani, in the six years since introducing Shari‘a in the state, has used public funds to build 70 mosques, but not even a single church has been constructed by this government” said Rev Barnabas Sabo of the ECWA. Fr. Albert Ebosele of Sokoto diocese said that Christians cannot buy land for building Churches in Sokoto. Sometimes, the certificates of occupancy of Christian Churches are revoked and the land seized by the government like the case of the Catholic Church in Kankia. Conversion from Islam to Christianity is not allowed as such converts will be killed. Rev Canon Bala Williams, an Anglican priest, speaking the day after the election of Umaru Yar’Adua as Nigeria’s president, pointed out that when he had been governor in Katsina state, the new president had introduced Shari‘a law and therby “impinged on Christian liberty”. Indeed, “we have not been allowed to worship freely, as churches have been denied places of worship,” Williams said. He added that in “the GRA (Government Reservation Area), for example, it is not possible to get land for places of worship by Christians.” In Charanchi and Bakori Anglicans were denied the right to use two church buildings built three years ago. The ECWA has also had one of its churches demolished in Dutsima and the state government threatened to relocate all the churches in the city of Katsina to its outskirts. More generally, Christians in Katsina State complain that ethnic Hausa converts have suffered from persecution, that Christians suffer from discrimination in public sector employment and that Christian female students are forced to adhere to the Islamic dress code. In Sokoto State Christian Churches have complained that they are not allowed to buy land to build their places of worship and that they are denied building permits when they have bought land. The (Pentecostal) Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA), the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) and the Catholic Church have complained that they have had churches and shrines demolished.

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Acts of Violence Between 18th and 24th February 2006 Nigeria was rocked by interreligious violence that left at least 157 people dead. The initial cause was a protest by Muslims against cartoons satirising Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper. On 18th February a mob of Muslim extremists gathered in front of the palace of the Sheikh of Borno, in Maiduguri, to protest against the Muhammad cartoons before going a rampage against Christians across the city, murdering 57 and destroying 55 churches. On 20th and 21st February 28 people, including 25 Christians, were slaughtered in Bauchi; two local churches were also set ablaze. In Katsina the local Catholic Bishop’s residence was torched. On 23rd February in Kontagorta (Niger State), ten Christians were murdered and nine churches set ablaze. On 24th February young Christians in Enugu and particularly in Onitsha retaliated by killing 80 Muslims. On 15th March the Catholic bishops released a pastoral letter on the events in which they criticised the federal government. “The destruction of life and property in the name of religion dishonour Nigeria,” they wrote. “In some cases in which churches, mosques, shops and homes were set ablaze and innocent people were attacked and brutally killed by mindless murderers, police officers who are supposed to uphold the law did not go to their rescue.” No one in Nigeria “should feel at risk because of religion, language or tribe. We declare that the failure by security agencies to ensure life and property is a failure of the government. When the government fails to fulfil its responsibilities in such issues, people are provoked into seeking justice on their own.” Fr. Timothy Barga said Rev. Fr. Michael Gajere, a Catholic priest of Maiduguri diocese was killed and burnt in his Church compound in Maiduguri in the wake of a crisis resulting from Muslim protests against the Muhammad Danish cartoons in February 2006. His house and his Church were completely razed down. The Catholic bishop’s house located on Railway Road was also burnt including all his belongings. On 20th February 2006 Florence Chukwu, a high school teacher in Bauchi (Bauchi State) was injured and was almost lynched by Muslim students who accused her of desecrating a copy of the Koran because she had taken away a copy of the book from a female student who was reading it during English class. The charges led to a riot in the city and ended with the killing of 20 Christians and the torching of two churches. On 12th June 2006 the homes of four Christian teachers on the campus of the Government College in Keffi (Nasarawa State) were set ablaze after a teacher of History and English was accused of insulting the prophet Muhammad when he punished a Mus-

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In November 2007 the Kano State government ordered the demolition of four churches in the city of Kano, two belonging to the Pentecostal Church and two to the ECWA, in order to build a highway and a hospital.

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lim student. The teacher, who fled to Abuja, was eventually arrested and later charged, after being released. On 19th and 20th September 2006 a group of Muslim extremists injured six Christians, destroyed ten churches as well as the residence of the Anglican bishop, 10 homes and 40 shops owned by Christians in the city of Dutse (Jigawa State) following riots sparked by allegations that a Christian seamstress had blasphemed against Muhammad during an argument with clients. About a thousand Christians sought refuge in military barracks and police stations. The woman was arrested. On 21st March 2007 Evangelical teacher, Christianah Oluwatoyin Oluwasesin, was murdered by a group of Muslim students in a high school in Gandu (Gombe State) after she was falsely accused of desecrating a copy of the Koran. Two days later an ECWA church was set ablaze in the same town. Sixteen people were arrested for Cristianah Oluwasesin’s murder but were later released. On 28th September 2007 organised aggression by Muslem extremists and students caused the death of 19 Christians (including three Catholics), injuring another 61. In their rampage they also destroyed ten churches (one Catholic), 36 homes and 147 shops owned by Christians in the city of Tudun Wada, Kano State. The violence began at a public high school at which the handful of Christian students (14 out of a student body of 1,500) were accused of drawing a picture of Muhammad on a mosque wall. The priest of St Mary’s, the Catholic Parish church destroyed in the riot, was among the injured. On 11th and 12th December 2007 Muslim extremists set ablaze three Pentecostal churches and ten Christian homes in Bauchi (Bauchi State). Two mosques were burnt in retaliation. The clashes, in which six or ten were killed (accounts vary) had started when two foundation blocks of a high school mosque under construction were pulled out. Rev. Fr. David Helon, the Coordinator of Interreligious Dialogue for Bauchi Diocese, said that on 2nd February 2008 four Protestant Churches were burnt and the interior furnishings (alter cloths, pews and sacred images) in a Catholic Church were removed and burnt. This happened in Yala town of Bauchi State. He also stated that in Bauchi state Christians are often not compensated for their Churches burnt during religious riots. Sources ACN International Compass Direct News HRWF International ICN News IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks)

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NORWAY

Islam In August 2007, in an attempt to promote reciprocal understanding, and also greater tolerance within the various confessions, the Church of Norway’s Council for Ecumenical and International Relations and the Islamic Council of Norway, signed a statement supporting the right to convert from one religion to another. The text also states that “We reject violence and wish to work against it, as well as fighting discrimination and harassment of those who wish to convert or have converted from one religion to another”.

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AREA 323,877 kmq POPULATION 4,650,000 REFUGEES 34,522 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 94.3% Others 5.7%

Baptized Catholics 54,000

NORWAY

Religious freedom is guaranteed by Article 2 of the Constitution, which also establishes that the Evangelical-Lutheran Church is the State religion and obliges those professing it to “bring up their children in the same”. The King himself is obliged to belong to this religion, protect it and preserve it. Due to the recent separation between State and Church in Sweden, implemented in 2003, there is currently an ongoing debate – with Parliament expected to thrash out its implications by 2008 – aimed at promoting a clearer distinction between religious and civil institutions. Remaining within the state institutions also results, for the Lutheran Church, in a limitation of its autonomy, exposing it for example to decisions by the equality and anti-discrimination Ombudsman, who is currently being asked to decide on the legitimacy of the actions of the Lutheran bishop of Oslo, who has refused to admit as ministers those who openly declare their homosexuality. All other registered religious communities receive state subsidies in proportion to the number of their members and there are no restrictions on residence permits for foreign missionaries. The Christian majority does however have to face a number of challenges, in particular those posed by the humanist association and the Islamic community, who are challenging the contents of the compulsory religious and ethical instruction for students between the ages of 6 and 16. An age-old national controversy on this subject has now reached the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Council, resulting in a number of changes in the ministerial educational programme but without however resolving this conflict.

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Statements apart, the customs of the Muslim community and Norwegian customs – as regards family law, self-determination for women, educational freedom – remain divided by a real abyss. The author Hege Storhaug, who in addition to her literary activities also works on a daily basis for the humanitarian organisation Human Rights Service, supporting the rights of immigrant women, has become the representative of this unease and has denounced the risk of Koranic Law supplanting Norwegian civil law. However, also within the institutions there are now many signs of concern and attempts to contain what is perceived as an Islamic invasion, in a country that has a little more than 4.5 million inhabitants. So, although girls are not forbidden from wearing the Islamic veil in schools, attempts to ban clothes that entirely cover the body, such as the burqa and niqab are advancing slowly. Judaism Although there are few Jews in Norway, members of the Jewish community have suffered a number of attacks on synagogues and cemeteries, in particular during the Israeli-Lebanese war in the summer of 2006. On that occasion, even the internationally famous author Jostein Gaarder bitterly criticised the people of Israel, and was seen by many as anti-semitic. Sources National Panel Recommends Separation of Church and State, Associated Press, 9th February 2006 Norway Opens Hearings on Church-State Separation After 469 Years, Associated Press, 24th April 2006 Separating from the state, Il Regno – Attualità, No. 18-2006 Hege Storhaug, Men størst av alt er friheten. Om innvadringens konsekvenser, Kagge Forlag, Oslo 2006, pp. 302 Muslimer og kristne anerkjenner retten til å skifte religion, Islamsk Rad Norge Katia Jansen Fredrikssen, Sharia in Norwegian Courtrooms?, Isim Review, Autumn 2007 Hege Storhaug, Tilslørt. Avslørt. Et oppgjør med norsk naivisme, Kagge Forlag, Oslo 2007, pp. 178

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OMAN

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AREA 212,457 kmq POPULATION 2,580,000 REFUGEES 7 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 87.4% Hindus 5.7% Affiliated Christians 4.9% Others 2%

Baptized Catholics 72,000

OMAN

The Basic Law of the state, dated 1996, establishes Islam as the State religion and the Shari‘a as the source of the law. Freedom to practice religious rites is guaranteed provided these are in compliance with tradition and do not disturb public order. Article 29 of the penal code establishes prison sentences for all who blaspheme God, or the prophets, or against religion. At times this article is used to restrict religious freedom. The Sultan has given land to the Christian and Hindu communities, made up almost exclusively of immigrants, so they may build their own places of worship. Non-Muslim religious communities are free to keep in touch with their coreligionists outside the country. The publication of non-Islamic religious material is forbidden although the authorities tolerate it being imported from abroad after prior inspection by them. The authorities control the contents of the Friday sermons to ensure that they do not address political issues or subjects not in harmony with government policies. Each month the Ministry for Awqaf (Religious Endowments) and Religious Affairs establishes the parameters for sermons and the imams are expected to strictly respect them. Apostasy is not considered a crime by the law of this sultanate, but those who convert from Islam to another faith have many problems since Family Law forbids apostate parents from having legal parental authority. The Law does not forbid proselytism, but, in the event of protests, the Ministry for Awqaf and Religious Affairs does act against groups and individuals who engage in it. Seminars on ecumenical dialogue are tolerated to the extent that they do not encourage Muslims to abandon their faith. Non-Muslim religious groups must be registered and their activities are subject to restrictions. Only foreigners are permitted to attend schools in which Islamic religious instruction is not provided. On the other hand, such Islamic religious instruction is compulsory in the schools for citizens of Oman.

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PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN

AREA 796,095 kmq POPULATION 156,250,000 REFUGEES 2,035,023 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 96.1% Affiliated Christians 2.5% Others 1.4%

Baptized Catholics 1,041,000

Despite this year’s election, won by the Pakistan People’s Party (in theory a secular moderate party), in the last two years there has been a dramatic increase in the number of attacks against religious minorities across the country. Often these “attacks” have taken the form of fatwas (edicts or rulings by Islamic courts with life and death consequences for those targeted, including nonMuslims), but they have also included armed assaults against places of worship and the abduction of members of religious minorities. By far the worst instrument of religious repression is the blasphemy law, which continues to claim more and more victims. This law actually refers to Article 295.B and 295.C of the Pakistan Penal Code. Section B refers to offences against the Koran, which are punishable by life imprisonment, Section C addresses acts defiling the Prophet Muhammad, punishable with life imprisonment or death. Together with the hudud ordinances – a class of Koran-inspired legal punishments that include flogging and stoning for activities deemed incompatible with Islamic law, such as adultery, gambling, consumption of alcohol, crimes against property –, the blasphemy law is an example of the most sectarian and fundamentalist piece of legislation the country has ever had. According to a number of analysts this law is one of the tools used by Muslim fundamentalists to strike at minorities and push the country further along the path of radical islamisation. According to the Justice and Peace Commission, the Union of Christian Churches of Pakistan and a great many human rights organisations, the blasphemy law “is bad;” it is “like a sword of Damocles hanging over Pakistani minorities, in addition to being a clear violation of their religious and human rights as guaranteed by the Constitution”. Khalil Tahir, head of the Adal Trust which helps the Christian community to defend itself against false accusations, told AsiaNews that most of “those accused under the blasphemy law are from the social and religious minorities”; that is why it is important to help them, he says, “in the courts and in prison and also after they are released.” Sadly, this help is all too frequently needed. Pervez Masih, 33, was a teacher before he was charged with blasphemy. He was released on 8th April 2006, after five years in jail. The court that released him found him innocent and yet

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he still lives under the shadow of threats. He cannot even build a house for himself since he has to be on the move all the time. During his trial, he says that, “a high official of the local administration invited me to embrace Islam and in return, they would withdraw the charges against me. I refused and my defence was not even considered. In prison I saw at least 10 Christians forced to convert. I was lucky: God helped me remain strong in my faith.” Ranjha Masih, a Christian from Lahore, faced the same Calvary. He too was sentenced to life in prison only to be freed, after eight years of solitary confinement, in November 2006. Masih, 58, was arrested on 8th May 1998, the day of the funeral of Bishop John Joseph, who shot himself as a protest against the blasphemy law. Right after his burial, local Christians demonstrated against the government. Stones were thrown, one of them hitting a shop sign that featured a verse from the Koran. On the basis of this incident, the police arrested Masih and charged him with blasphemy. In 2003, a Faisalabad court sentenced him to life imprisonment amid protests by local Muslims who demanded he be hanged. Throughout his imprisonment, the police kept him in solitary confinement “for security reasons”. He was released thanks to the efforts of the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) of Lahore. Now he is hoping to immigrate to Germany but an anonymous letter to a newspaper has announced that he will die a violent death “wherever he may hide”. The dangerous issue of blasphemy does not end with the courts, however. In the last few years, Muslims have increasingly often taken the law in their own hands and meted out their version of “justice” against “blasphemers”. Christian churches, homes, hospitals and schools have been destroyed in the process. For example few in Pakistan’s Christian community can forget what happened in Sangla Hill. An enraged mob made up of some 2,000 Muslims destroyed an entire village after being incited by a false blasphemy charge levelled against one of the villagers. After this attack, which was followed by many others, Christian leaders wrote to President Musharraf, calling on him to “do something, because this fanaticism will destroy the country from within.” Johnson Michael, chairman of the Bishop John Joseph Trust said: “I have met many people in my life but never anyone like these survivors. They are very strong in their beliefs, strength they are paying for everyday, but which gives strength to the whole community. I am greatly inspired by their example.” At present the association is financially helping the survivors of blasphemy charges, trying to find them a home and a job. But their mission is “truly uphill.” Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the Episcopal Justice and Peace Commission, said: “If someone is accused of blasphemy, even if the court acquits him, his life becomes miserable in Pakistan and he has to live in hiding and poverty.” Even family members lose “all their social rights and [are] condemned to a life of ignorance and poverty.” So far, “no one has been hanged by the law as a result of blasphemy-related charges but 24 people have been killed by extremists who have never been apprehended.”

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Attacks against Christians On the night of 25th December 2006 some Muslims tried to set fire to the small church of Shahdaara. The parish priest, Father Samuel Raphael, told AsiaNews that the fire set by the criminals burnt the carpet and some altar furnishings, but no one was hurt. “It was nevertheless an act of profanation of a place of worship and so we informed the police, naming the three culprits,” he said. Despite the formal complaint, the police did very little. “They went to the three people’s homes but, failing to find them, they simply left.” In another case Shahbaz Bhatti, chairman of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA), reported that Martha Bibi, a Christian woman from the village of Kot Nanak Singh (Kasur district), was accused on 22nd January 2007 of making derogatory remarks about the Koran and defiling the sacred name of the Prophet Muhammad. He said that in the area where Martha Bibi, her husband and their six children live, there are 12 Christian families in the midst of 500 Muslim families. Her husband is a bricklayer who, with his wife’s help, also runs a small construction tools rental business. On one occasion they rented out some equipment for the construction of the Sher Rabbani Mosque. Because they were not getting paid, on the morning of 22nd January Mrs Bibi went to the construction site to demand payment, but she was refused. She then asked for the return of the rental material and as she was preparing to take it away Muhammad Ramzan, Mohammad Akram and Muhammad Dilbar began hitting her. Only the intervention of passers-by allowed her to get away. That night the mosque’s imam accused Martha of blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad and incited Muslims to attack Christians. When they heard about the accusations, she and her family sought refuge at a neighbour’s house. When the police arrived she was taken to Changa Manga Police Station where she was charged under Article 295.C of Pakistan’s Penal Code, which imposes long prison sentences or the death penalty on offenders, if found guilty. Even though no evidence against her was ever presented at her trial, she was kept in prison for five months. In February 2007, the Catholic bishop of Faisalabad and two Muslims, a journalist and a scholar, received death threats for taking part some months earlier in an inter-faith meeting at a local madrassah. A hitherto unknown extremist group calling itself the “Islamic Soldiers Front” claimed responsibility for the threatening letters and phone calls in which all three men were branded as “infidels”. Mgr Joseph Coutts, who heads the diocese of Faisalabad, tried immediately to be reassuring, saying that “we are not going to be terrorized by such intimidations; we will continue our inter-faith activities for social harmony and peace in the country.” In the Punjab a Christian man was attacked on 23rd March by a mob of some 150 Muslims who beat and tortured him for hours, after accusing him of desecrating a copy of the Koran. The attack ended when the police moved in, but instead of arresting the

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Persecution against Ahmadis In a Muslim country like Pakistan, which has a Sunni majority, Ahmadis suffer from merciless persecution. The community was founded in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, an Indian religious leader who claimed he was a prophet sent to revitalise Islam. Although Ahmadis say they are Muslim they are viewed as a heretical group by mainstream Muslims because they do not recognise Muhammad as the last prophet. For this reason they are persecuted by Muslim extremists in many countries, including Indonesia and Bangladesh. In Pakistan a law adopted in the 1970s prohibits them from calling themselves Muslims. In a report on the persecution suffered by them in 2005, the Ahmadis denounced “religious and political leaders and the media for their responsibility” in their predicament. The study reproduced almost 1,400 articles and other writings from the Pakistani press inciting hatred against this so-called “heretical” Islamic sect. Included in the evidence are resolutions in which Ahmadis are called murderers; accusations that they are conspiring against the state; pressing demands on the government to take stern actions against them to “discourage” their religious practices. The report, which reprints newspaper clippings, accuses government officials of backing the incitement to hatred. Top leaders, it reads, have maintained the policy of persecution initiated 21 years earlier by General Zia ul Haq. In fact, based on the evidence collected, it is apparent that there is a tacit agreement between the mullahs and the military against the Ahmadis. According to the community’s Annual Report, between 1984 and 2007, 87 members of the Ahmadi have died in “accidents” or on the gallows. At the time of its publication, it noted that blasphemy charges were pending against 3,533 people.

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aggressors they took the victim into custody for allegedly violating Article 295.B, the infamous blasphemy law. If found guilty the man could spend the rest of his life behind bars. In another case, Amanat Masih, 50, was accused of tearing some pages from a Koran and burning them. According to a press release by Sharing Life, the Pakistani Protestant group that reported the incident, the mob decided he was guilty and attacked his house. After breaking in, they dragged him outside and tortured him. Sadiq Masih, a 45-year-old Protestant, was mortally wounded on 30th July in his own home by members of the Chaudri family, his former employers. He had quit his job at the family farm, tired of the endless abuse he was subjected to for being Christian. Arif Khan, 50, a Baptist bishop in Rawalpindi, and his wife Kathleen, 45, both US nationals, were murdered on 29th August in Islamabad. Two Christians from the city of Wana were arrested for the crime, allegedly motivated by a question of “honour”. But according to local Christian sources, the whole thing was a set-up. The actual perpetrator of the crime was in fact a Muslim named Said Alam.

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PALAU

PALAU

AREA 459 kmq POPULATION 19,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Article IV of the Constitution of 1979 fully recognises religious freedom. Religious groups must register as non-profit organisations and are exempt from taxation. Registration is quick and no application has been turned down in recent years. Foreign missionaries need a visa from the Palau Bureau of Immigration. There are no known cases of applicants having been rejected. The government provides financial assistance to parochial schools as well as cultural organisations. It also funds cultural activities. No religion is taught in public schools. Since 1998 Bangladeshi nationals have been denied work permits (since 2001 Indians and Sri Lankans as well) after employers complained that the religious practices of “non-Christian” religions interfered with work. However, nationals from the aforementioned countries already present in the country were not expelled and continue to be free to practice their faith.

Affiliated Christians 94.7% Non religious 1.8% Others 3.5%

Baptized Catholics 10,000

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PANAMA

Article 35 of the 1972 Constitution, frequently amended up until 2004, fully acknowledges religious freedom, on condition that Christian morals and public order are respected. This same Article recognises Catholicism as the religion professed by the majority of citizens, although with no specific privileges. Religious freedom is effectively respected. Religious associations have juridical status, and consequently are self-governing and permitted to own property. Foreign missionaries are allowed in the country with a visa that is valid for three months and can be renewed.

AREA 75,517 kmq POPULATION 3,280,000 REFUGEES 16,890 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 88.2% Muslims 4.4% Others 7.4%

Baptized Catholics

PANAMA

2,757,000

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PAPUA NEW GUINEA

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

AREA 462,810 kmq POPULATION 5,733,000 REFUGEES 10,003 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

The Preamble to the Constitution of 1975, which was amended in 1995, refers to “our noble traditions and Christian principles”, but the Constitution itself does not recognise any State religion. Instead, religious freedom is guaranteed under Article 45 and missionary activities are allowed. The Christian churches provide healthcare and educational services for which, in principle, they receive financial assistance from the state. However, some schools and clinics have had to close from time to time, when such public subsidies ran out, a familiar problem given the government’s financial difficulties. According to Bishop Francesco Sarego of Goroka, the Chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, “70 percent of all the educational services are provided by Christian bodies” (Fides). The proliferation of a host of small ecclesial movements has led to repeated complaints about their proselytizing activities; nevertheless, the authorities have always upheld the right to profess any faith whatsoever and to engage in evangelistic activities.

Affiliated Christians 95.1% Ethnoreligionists 3.6% Others 1.3%

Baptized Catholics 1,776,000

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PARAGUAY

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AREA 406,752 kmq POPULATION 6,132,000 REFUGEES 62 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 97.7% Others 2.3%

Baptized Catholics 5,602,000

PARAGUAY

Article 24 of Paraguay’s Constitution establishes the protection of religious freedom and, in general, there are no problems for any religious denomination. The same Constitutional Charter acknowledges “Relations between the State and the Catholic Church are based on independence, cooperation, and autonomy”. In recent years the number of Evangelical Christians has increased, albeit by a small percentage (6.2 percent in 2006). Religious organisations and churches must register with the Ministry of the Interior and there seem to be no difficulties in this process. In August 2007 President Nicanor Duarte attacked a number of bishops and priests, and more generally the Catholic community, before the 2008 presidential elections, due to the presence among the ranks of the opposition party of the Bishop Emeritus of San Pedro, Fernando Lugo Mendez, who had already suspended a divinis because of his candidature by January 2007. As reported by the Radio Giornale Vaticano on 27th August 2007, the Episcopal Conference expressed its own views on this subject in a press release clarifying that “due to its juridical status and evangelising mission, the Conference neither supports nor accompanies any of the candidates in this election. The Church merely proclaims her right and duty to enlighten citizens in the conscious and responsible exercise of their electoral rights as a fundamental element in the democratic system”. The Paraguayan bishops go on to recall that the Constitution regulates relations between State and Church, basing these on independence, cooperation and autonomy, and they reaffirm that “the Church is always open to constructive dialogue both with the State and its authorities as well as with all government institutions”.

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PERU

PERU

AREA 1,285,216 kmq POPULATION 28,330,000 REFUGEES 995 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 150,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 97.2% Others 2.8%

Baptized Catholics 24,991,000

In Peru the Constitution supports and sanctions religious freedom in Article 2 and forbids all discrimination on religious grounds. Furthermore, Article 50 of the Constitution states that: “Within the framework of an independent and autonomous regime, the State acknowledges the Catholic Church as an important element in the historical, cultural and moral formation of Peru, and proffers the Church its collaboration. The State respects other denominations and may establish forms of collaboration with them.” The government maintains good relations with Catholics, and an agreement signed with the Vatican in 1980 guarantees the Catholic Church special status, under which it enjoys preferential treatment in the education sector, tax allowances and facilitations for immigrant religious personnel. In 2004 the Ministry for Justice promulgated a series of provisions for regulating relations with non-Catholic communities so that they might enjoy benefits similar to those accorded to the Catholic Church. There are many Protestant denominations present in the country – Baptists, Anglicans, Assemblies of God and others – constituting a “second field” of religious reference after the Catholic one. Catholics and Evangelicals often cooperate closely in the field of human rights, especially in rural areas. In May 2007 the remains of Pastor Jorge Parraga Castillo were found on the military base in Manta; after being identified they were buried in Huancayo. On 24th October 1989, as witnessed by a report from the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, men in uniform had arrived in the locality of Atcas, in the province of Yuyos, and had “combed the area”, committing acts of violence and arresting a number of people, among them Pastor Castillo, from the local Evangelical Church. No more was heard about the minister until his body was discovered.

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PHILIPPINES

The problem of Mindanao This condition of religious freedom and the free exercise of this freedom has encountered obstacles and difficulties, owing to the long struggle, not only political but also military, that has pitted movements that were originally Marxist but have subsequently become overwhlemingly Islamist in character, against the central government, with the extreme and bloody episodes that are typical of a civil war. It is, in fact, the case that in some regions, and above all on the island of Mindanao, the religious makeup is different from that found in the rest of the Philippines, which have an overwhelmingly Christian majority. Here, however, there are areas with high concentrations of Muslims and in a few provinces Islam is the religion of most of the people. In 1989 an extensive degree of autonomy was granted to a part of the island of Mindanao by the central government, which established the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) comprising the five predominantly Muslim provinces of Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi Tawi, plus the Islamic city of Marawi. The principal centre is Cotabato, an independent city, although it lies within the province of Maguindanao. The region is governed by a Regional Governor who is directly elected, like his vice president and the local government. A single chamber assembly has the task of discussing the regional orders and plays a similar role to that of a local parliament. This province remains the poorest region of the Philippines and in spite of its autonomy status, it receives 98 percent of its funding from the central government. Extensive funding is also

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AREA 300,000 kmq POPULATION 86,970,000 REFUGEES 106 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 300,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 89.7% Muslims 6.2% Ethnoreligionists 2.7% Others 1.4%

Baptized Catholics 70,502,000

PHILIPPINES

Section 5 of Article 3 of the 1986 Constitution states: “No law shall be made respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall be required for the exercise of civil or political rights.” These principles are respected in practice and there are no recorded violations against them on the part of the authorities.

PHILIPPINES

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received from Muslim countries, and these monies are frequently aimed at sponsoring an intensive activity of Islamic proselytism. Within the self-governing territory of the ARMM, civil laws are in force which draw their inspiration from Islamic law, and there are Islamic courts, though these have competence only in the area of family and civil law. Over time, extremist Islamic movements have emerged which are seeking a total islamisation of the law and a degree of autonomy that is tantamount to separatism. These movements have initiated guerilla activities and committed acts of terrorism against the central government and have been responsible for numerous acts of violence against Christians. On Mindanao alone, in the space of 10 years 120,000 people have been killed – such is the frightful outcome of this war. In addition, the region has more recently become a refuge for numerous “Islamic fighters” from world regions such as the Middle East and Pakistan. Attacks against Christians The situation of uncertainty, and the proliferation of criminal groups who are difficult to identify, has produced violence whose principal target appears to be Christian missionaries. On 2nd April 2007 an Indonesian Catholic priest, Father Francis Madhu, 31, was shot dead by four armed men as he was getting ready to celebrate Palm Sunday Mass in Lubuagan, a city in the northern province of Kalinga. The reason for the murder is still unknown. According to Colonel Francis Lardizabal, a local army officer, he was shot five times in the chest with an M16 rifle and killed instantly. Kalinga Police Chief Severino Cruz added that one of the accused was a local peasant farmer, Nestor Wailan, who had shouted at the priest “Are you ready?” and then shot him. On 10th June 2007 an armed gang abducted Fr Giancarlo Bossi in Payao, in the southern peninsula of Mindanao. On 12th August, after 39 long days in captivity, the priest was released and returned to Italy for medical treatment. While in Italy, he met the Pope at the Youth Agora held on 31st August 2007 in Loreto. Both men were “moved” by their meeting and embraced for a long time. Immediately afterwards, Father Bossi, a missionary of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, flew back to the Philippines. On 15th January 2008 Fr Reynaldo Jesus Albores Roda, of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI), was murdered by suspected Al Qaeda militants while praying in the chapel of Our Lady’s School in Tabawan, near Tawi-Tawi. His assailants, at least ten people, tried to abduct him and when he resisted, he was killed with a single pistolshot. The attackers fled the scene, taking with them a Muslim teacher, Omar Taub. Pope Benedict XVI expressed his “deep condolences” for the death of this priest and

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Signs of hope In recent years the government has been seeking a diplomatic solution to the conflict in negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, but the negotiations have become bogged down over the issue of how much territory should be granted to a hypothetical autonomous region to be run by the Moro Front. One organisation established by the central government with the aim of promoting dialogue between the various religious communities within the country is the National Ecumenical Consultative Committee (NECCOM). This body is made up of representatives of the Catholic Church, of Islam and of the various Protestant denominations. A number of different interreligious initiatives have moreover been promoted at the grass roots in recent years in an effort to reconcile the parties involved and persuade them to renounce the armed struggle. On 29th November 2006 over 30,000 people gathered in the regional capital on the southern Archipelago of Mindanao to celebrate the opening of the ninth “Week of Peace”, an event which “asks for the end to all hostility, in the name of God the Almighty and Merciful”. The theme of the gathering had been chosen by the Bishops’ Ulama Conference (BUC) of the Philippines, a body composed of 24 Catholic bishops, 18 Protestant representatives and 24 Muslim ulamas, who had organised the event. Christians of the various denominations, Muslims, teachers, students, human rights activists and government officials all marched together to call for an end to the war between Manila and the rebels of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). For Father Angelo Calvo, a Claretian missionary and president of the group PAZ (Peace Advocates of Zamboanga), a group active in working for peace in the region of the southern Philippines, this group of marching people was “like a carpet, full of colours, united with those who weep over the war and calling powerfully for it to stop”.

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appealed to his killers to “renounce the ways of violence and play their part in building a just and peaceful society where all can live together in harmony.” On 23rd January 2008 a Protestant pastor of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines was killed, with six pistol shots, in the eastern province of Leyte. Local Police Chief Superintendent Abner Cabalquinto noted that there were no obvious motives for the killing. Initial investigations indicated that two men on a motorcycle had accosted this Christian leader, who was driving near Abuyog, and had shot him before fleeing the scene. On 28th May 2007 the body of another Protestant pastor, Berlin Guerrero, aged 46, was discovered at Camp Pantaleon Garcia, near Laguna. He had been kidnapped on 27th May, close to his house in Biñan.

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POLAND

POLAND

AREA 323,950 kmq POPULATION 38,140,000 REFUGEES 9,790 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

In Article 53, the Polish Republic’s 1997 Constitution guarantees all registered religious organisations full freedom to implement their pastoral, cultural and editorial activities. The manner in which this freedom is implemented depends on the individual religious denominations. The judicial system regulates this subject in detail and effectively there have been no problems linked to the free activities of the various religions and religious communities. There are at times difficulties arising from the interpretation and the practical implementation of the principal of separation between the state and the Church. At times the overlapping of reciprocal duties can result in elements of tension. In general it is possible to state that there are no signs indicating possible obstacles to the activities of churches and religious associations in Poland.

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 97.4% Others 2.6%

Baptized Catholics 36,660,000

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PORTUGAL

Concerning the relations between civil and ecclesiastic institutions, “churches and other religious communities are separate from the State and are free in their organization and in the exercise of their duties and worship”. The Church is guaranteed “the freedom of instruction of any religion practised within the scope of the respective confession”, “as well as the use of the media adequate to the prosecution of its activities”. The relations with the Catholic Church are regulated by the Concordat of 2004. No Church or religion is financed by the state, though it supports the construction of churches (and, in exceptional cases, non-catholic temples). The Law 16/2001 on Religious Freedom has created a Commission of Religious Freedom with the mission of giving advice and counselling the government on this matter. The Commission promoted thematic conferences in 2006 and 2007. This law also regulates the recognition of minority denominations and admits the possibility of making agreements with the State, as long as they are well established in the country according to the criteria fixed by law and as long as they have had an organized presence on social level in the country for more than 30 years or have existed in another country for more than 60 years.

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AREA 91,982 kmq POPULATION 10,600,000 REFUGEES 353 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 92.4% Non religious 6.5% Others 1.1%

Baptized Catholics 9,339,000

PORTUGAL

The Constitution guarantees the right to religious freedom in Article 13, which assures equality to all citizens before the law, as well as in Article 41, which defines as “inviolable” the “freedom of conscience, religion and worship”. In particular, nobody can be “persecuted, deprived of rights”, but nobody is either “exempt from civic obligations and duties because of their beliefs or religious worship”, though consciencious objection is guaranteed according to law. Besides, nobody can be “asked by any authority about his beliefs, except to gather statistics data” that nevertheless cannot allow the identification of the individual; and nobody can be harmed for having “refused to answer”.

PORTUGAL

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The law also provides for tax exemptions and the possibility of religious classes in state schools, as well as a certain amount of religious broadcasting in state radio and TV. From the law of 2001 on, as with the Catholic Church, the smaller Churches can celebrate religious marriages which are recognised by the state and give spiritual assistance in the army and in prisons, among other services. But the specific conditions of the exercise of that assistance are not regulated yet and have been a bone of contention for the minority confessions in the country. There have been cases of pastors and ministers of those confessions who, after having been requested by patients, went to a hospital but could only come in with the support and under the responsibility of the Catholic chaplain. During 2007 the Ministry of Health was preparing a project of regulation, which in the first months of 2008 had still not been concluded. The first proposal of the document was criticized by the leaders of the Catholic Church, after which the government started negotiations. In July of 2007 it was announced that the Catholic bishops were not satisfied with several areas of the government’s action and with implications of these actions for the Catholic Church: besides the religious assistance in hospitals and prisons, there was also the support given to private social institutions and the new rules concerning ownership of the media. The government and the Bishops’ Conference have started negotiations, which in the first months of 2008 had not been concluded.

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QATAR

Christians During 2006 and 2007 work continued on a complex, authorised by the government in the year 2000, that hosts places of worship for the Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox communities. The complex includes a conference centre, a residence for temporary guest accommodation, a bookshop and a bar. The cost of building this place of worship ultimately totalled around 15 million dollars; Catholics from all over the Arabian Peninsula, mainly Filipinos and Indians, have all contributed. Local government sources had however recommended postponement of completion of the project, so as to avoid opposition from conservative citizens. The inauguration of the Catholic church – the first in the country – was in mid March 2008 and it will serve the local community of around 140,000 believers, made up entirely of foreigners. This church – dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary – has been built on land in the southern suburbs of the capital city Doha, donated by Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who in the course of recent years has pursued a policy of interreligious dialogue and in 2002 initiated diplomatic relations with the Holy

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AREA 11,000 kmq POPULATION 679,000 REFUGEES 46 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 82.7% Affiliated Christians 10.4% Hindus 2.5% Non religious 2.3% Others 2.1%

Baptized Catholics 64,000

QATAR

The 1972 Constitution defines Islam as the State religion and Islamic Law as the main source of the legislation. Article 7b says that “the State makes every effort to inculcate society with the good principles of the Islamic religion and to purge it from all forms of moral degeneration.” Until a few years ago practising any religion other than Wahabi Islam was formally forbidden, but then the government granted legal status to Catholics, Anglicans, Orthodox, Copts and the Indian churches. Official recognition requires the presence of at least 1,500 believers in the country. The Protestant denominations are not legally recognised, given the absence of registration requests, but they enjoy equal freedom of worship and their religious services are protected by the police, provided they first notify the authorities. The government does not permit the Hindus, the Buddhists and the Baha’i to hold religious services. Apostasy is punishable with the death sentence, though since 1971 when the country gained independence, there has never been an execution for this crime. Proselytism by non-Muslims is strictly forbidden.

QATAR

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See. The building will not have a bell tower or a crucifix and will not be open to the public, being reserved for the faithful alone. These restrictions, and the prohibition on converting Muslims, are in a sense a tribute the Emir must pay to the Wahabi Islamic majority, who had for a long time opposed the construction of this church. The future parish priest, Father Tom Veneration, reported that “the government has given the Christian denominations land for building their own places of worship after more than 20 years of formal requests. Catholics have been assigned the largest plot, because we have been present in this country since ancient times and our community is the largest”. “Until now”, says this priest, “we prayed in our homes or in small chapels inside the American and Filipino compounds in Doha. Together with all the Catholics who live here, I am immensely happy that soon I will be able to celebrate Mass in a real church, the mark of our presence here”. Others The Emir of Qatar intends to sponsor a centre for interreligious dialogue between Christians, Jews and Muslims, the first of its kind in the Arab world. The daily newspaper Gulf News reported this in May 2007, quoting Mrs. Aisha al-Mannai, from the Shari‘a College in Qatar University, who said, “We are pleased to announce such an important initiative. We must work together to promote dialogue”. The centre’s objective is to “conduct research and publish books on dialogue, coordinate with other similar institutes in the world, organise annual conferences and follow their development”. The presiding council of the centre consists of three Muslims, three Christians and a Jew. The Apostolic Nuncio for Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen and Qatar, Archbishop Mounjed Al Hashem, expressed his satisfaction, though he made it clear that “the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue has not been invited to be part of this centre”. Sources AsiaNews Gulf News

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ROMANIA

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AREA 238,391 kmq POPULATION 21,580,000 REFUGEES 1,757 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 88% Non religious 10.7% Others 1.3%

Baptized Catholics 1,886,000

ROMANIA

In Article 29, the 1991 Romanian Constitution declares religious freedom, expressly and in detail, and generally speaking the governmental institutions abide by this. Relations between the various denominations are generally friendly, although there have been cases involving criticism from the Romanian Orthodox Church addressed at other Christian denominations, especially Protestant ones, which are accused of aggressive proselytism. The extremist nationalist press continues to publish anti-semitic articles that often encourage acts of vandalism of a similarly anti-semitic nature. In the course of the year there were a number of attacks on Jewish cemeteries, as happened in Sighisoara on 17th March 2007 and in Resita on 24th March. Swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti have also often appeared on buildings in Bucharest and Cluj. The authorities always tend to minimise these episodes, frequently attributing them to minors, drunkards or the mentally ill. In February 2007, the government approved new rules for pastoral care in prisons; only officially recognised religious groups are permitted to enter prisons; the chaplain, who by law must belong to the Orthodox Church, is responsible for coordinating religious activities. On 5th July 2007, the Radio Giornale Vaticano, along with many other Italian and foreign newspapers, reported that the Catholic cathedral of Saint Joseph in Bucharest was at risk of collapse because a nineteen story seventy-five metre tall skyscraper that was being built less than ten metres from its northwestern wall. In attempting to defend the cathedral people went on hunger strikes and organised peaceful protests as well as sending a letter to the authorities, signed also by Jews and members of the Orthodox Church. Archbishop Ioan Robu of Bucharest, said that with this building permit the authorities had inflicted a serious blow to the Church and also violated Law 422 of 2001 on the protection of historical monuments, as well as twenty-four other laws, partially or totally violated due to the irregular manner in which the work was being carried out. On 10th July building work was stopped pending resolution of the legal proceedings.

ROMANIA

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In the course of the year, however, a number of contentious cases brought by religious communities for the restitution of their lands or other properties, confiscated during the years of the communist regime, were in fact resolved. A number of minority religious groups have complained during the course of the year that members of the Orthodox Church had provoked incidents and threatened them, interfering with their religious activities and their missionary work. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons) have often complained during the year of discrimination in the workplace, some of them having been threatened by their colleagues because of their religious beliefs. The Jehovah’s Witnesses also continue to report physical and psychological abuse, in particular by members of the Orthodox Church, in the face of total indifference on the part of the police. On 8th January 2007 Human Rights Without Frontiers reported the dismay of numerous human rights activists and many members of religious minorities, on hearing that President Traian Basescu had approved a new law on religious communities, since this was a law proposing the protection of a few religious groups, in particular the Romanian Orthodox Church, the largest in the country, with the minorities maintaining that this was a form of discrimination. Ioan Ceuta, General Superintendent of the Assembly of Romanian Pentecostal Churches, has asserted that “this law is extremely restrictive” and that the Baptists too are intending to call for certain aspects of the law to be mitigated.

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RUSSIAN FEDERATION

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AREA 17,075,400 kmq POPULATION 142,480,000 REFUGEES 1,655 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 136,550

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 57.4% Non religious 32.7% Muslims 7.6% Others 2.3%

Baptized Catholics 955,000

RUSSIAN FEDERATION

The relationship between the State, the Church and society In recent months all religious organisations in Russia have shown support for the current government’s structures. There was further proof of this at the end of 2007, when all Orthodox, Catholic, Buddhists, Muslims and Jews called upon the faithful to go and vote in the elections for the Duma as a “moral duty”. In particular, the Russian Council of Muftis approved the creation of a movement called “Muslims supporting Putin” (AsiaNews, 19th November 2007). In January 2006 the state approved a law establishing strict controls for all non-governmental organisations; the leaders of the traditional religious confessions, however, presented an appeal to the authorities requesting exemption from having to present the detailed fiscal documentation called for by this new legislation (Kommersant, 8th December 2006). On 26th July 2007 Putin signed a number of amendments to the 2002 Bill on extremism, according to which the definition of extremism included “obstruction to the legal activities […] of social, religious and other organisations” and incitement to religious hatred, which now does not necessarily need to be accompanied by violence or threats of violence (Forum 18 News Service, 28th August 2007). A spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate, Father Vsevolod Chaplin, reported a number of attacks on mosques (in Jaroslavl’), on synagogues (Chabarovski and Astrachan’), and on Orthodox churches (Novokujbysevsk), as well as the murder of an imam in Kislovodsk (Interfax, 27th September 2006). Part of the intelligencija has expressed radical and anti-clerical tendencies that often reached violent levels, such as in March 2007 when a controversy broke out over the exhibition entitled “Forbidden Art 2006”, held at the Sacharov Center. It was described by the Union of Orthodox Citizens as “blatant antiChristian provocation”, because it presented sacrilegious and blasphemous works of art (Blagovest-info.ru, 16th March 2007). On 24th July 2007 an open letter to Putin appeared in the press, signed by a group of ten academics, among them the two Nobel Prize winners Zorev Alferov and Vitalij Ginzburg, asking him to stop the “clericalisation of society”, and in particular not

RUSSIAN FEDERATION

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to acknowledge theology as a scientific subject nor allow the teaching of the “Foundations of Orthodox culture” in schools (La Nuova Europa, No. 5, 2007, pp. 85-88). Following agreements between the Russian Federation and the European Union, effective as from on 1st June 2007, a normal annual visa involves an uninterrupted stay in these respective countries lasting no more than 90 days over a six month period. This caused problems for foreign priests and religious personnel present in Russia, who were obliged to obtain work visas or residence permits in order to continue their ministry. The problem of religious instruction in schools The problem of education, and more specifically that of religious instruction in state schools, continues to be widely debated with leaders of religious organisations and personalities from the secular world assuming animated positions. There are several subjects under discussion: firstly, whether it is a good idea to introduce the study of religion in general or rather focus on Orthodoxy, albeit taking cultural and non-denominational approaches (this will be replaced with the study of Islam in regions that have a Muslim majority). Secondly, there is a debvate about teachers and didactic means. In 2002 a manual written by Alla Borodina received mainly negative reviews due to its aggressiveness and lack of professionalism. In February 2007 a new manual was published by the Institute of History of the Science Academy – that was also studied by consultants representing the various religions – which presented an overview of the main religions in the world and is more scientific and objective in its approach. For some time now the Orthodox Church has fought for the introduction in schools of a non-compulsory subject called “Foundations of Orthodox culture”, which in recent years has been taught ad experimentum in a number of provinces within the framework of subjects of “local interest”, while the Ministry for Education prefers a course called “History of Religions”. At the start of the 2006-2007 school year, the Minister for Education, Fursenko, consulted the Lower House on this subject, which rejected “The Foundations of Orthodox culture”, proposing that this subject should be replaced by a general course of introduction to religion. The Lower House also proposed that “the main religious concepts” with regards to the origins of humankind and the meaning of life, should be added to subjects studied in schools, so as to avoid conflict between the Ministry for Education and the Russian Orthodox Church. Also according to the Lower House, religious instruction must be optional and bear in mind the rights of “society’s non religious members”. Children under the age of 14 must have their parents’ written permission to study religion (Kommersant, 29th November 2006). A number of surveys have been carried out concerning religious instruction in the country’s 79 regions. In 11 regions the ministerial circular letter allowing the introduc-

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tion of this specific subject was ignored, while another 8 regions stated that religion was sufficiently represented in other subjects and there was no reason for this subject to be taught separately. Only 3 regions (Belgorod, Kursk and Smolensk) warmly welcomed this initiative (Data provided by the Ministry for Education dated 1st January 2007, reported by Itogi, 26th February 2007). A report by the Lower House’s Commission for Tolerance and Freedom of Beliefs (23rd April 2007), states that between 500 and 600,000 students follow courses on Orthodox culture; 150-200,000 study Islamic culture; 50,000 take courses with philosophical-religious contents; another 10,000 respectively study Judaism, Buddhism and the traditional religions followed by minorities in the northern regions; at least 2030,000 teachers are involved in the educational process. The situation varies, ranging from 10 Russian regions in which there is no religious instruction of any kind, to 12 regions with 10,000 or more pupils studying the “Foundations of Orthodox culture” (reaching a maximum in Belgorod, where there are 134,762 students). The same report expresses doubts concerning “voluntary choice”, made at a local level, observing that “the absence of a common programme at federal level […] results in situations in which the principle of free choice is ignored”. In the Belgorod province the teaching of Orthodoxy is effectively compulsory and resulted in protests from various parents, especially Protestant ones; in Voronez province intolerance was expressed against a seven-year-old student, the son of a Protestant minister called Aleksej Perov, who refused to make the Orthodox Sign of the Cross (Forum 18 News Service, 25th September 2007). Powerful opposition from academic and Islamic circles also exert great influence on the State. On 13th November 2007 the Duma approved a number of amendments to the Law “on education”, abolishing subjects of “local interest” and the teaching of national languages and literature in some republics, unifying the Federation’s school programmes. Therefore, after 1st September 2009, the “Foundations of orthodox culture” will disappear from education programmes, in spite of formal protests, presented on 6th November, by the Patriarch Aleksy and the Holy Synod. In the meantime, the Duma has approved a law allowing private religious institutes to provide diplomas approved by the State (Izvestija, 14th November 2007). The presence of chaplains in the army The Church has been debating the issue of army chaplains for some time. The first official document regulating relationships between the Church and the army was a joint statement by Aleksy II and Minister for Defence Mr. Gracev, signed on 2nd March 1994. In a statement reported by Interfax on 12th December 2006, Patriarch Aleksy expressed his approval of a mechanism regulating relations between religious organisations and the Armed Forces, to protect the rights of believers in the military and to

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contribute to solving the extremely serious moral problems currently experienced by the army. Currently there are no de jure chaplains, but there are priests who effectively act as chaplains, by carrying out a mission to soldiers. According to data provided by Interfax (14th February 2006), there are about 2,500 Orthodox priests working in the Russian army. According to Father Dimitrij Smirnov, the person responsible for the Russian Orthodox Church’s relations with the Armed Forces, it is hoped that this number might increase to 3,500. Defending life and the family The State has expressed great concern for the demographic crisis experienced by the country, and has often appealed to the Church, requesting its support in the battle for the renewal and consolidation of the family. The subject of defending life and the family has been one of the strong points of public speeches made by the patriarch Aleksy and the Orthodox hierarchy. Abortion continues to be an extremely serious problem, in spite of the fact that over the past 5 years abortions have dropped by 21 percent and in 2007 the number of abortions was lower than that of births, for the very first time in over a decade. Furthermore, for the first time in the history of the Russian State, restrictive legislation has been approved and applied with regards to abortions; “social motivations” (with the exception of incest and rape) have been abolished, eliminating 92 medical pathologies that permitted abortion within the first 12 weeks (Avvenire, 31st October 2007). In addition to state and ecclesial initiatives of a general nature, there have also been a number of local initiatives; for example, one significant event consisted in the building of an Orthodox Church in Jurga, in Siberia, dedicated to “Innocent Saints”. The Church was specifically created to celebrate Masses for the repose of the souls of babies killed by abortion (Vatican Radio, 11th August 2006). Just as in Alapaevsk (province of Sverdlovsk, in the Urals), the Orthodox clergy launched a campaign for financial aid to be provided to mothers who decide to keep their babies, with no distinctions between religious beliefs. According to information provided by AsiaNews (28th March 2007), the number of voluntary abortions in the region has fallen by 40 percent. Archbishop Arsenij and the head of the health department for Moscow and its province, Andrej Selkovskij, have signed a cooperation agreement (Interfax, 4th October 2006), authorizing the Church’s presence in Moscow’s hospitals and its voluntary aid service currently provided by about sixty groups of Orthodox faithful. Another significant event was the Health Ministry and the Orthodox Church’s opposition to the introduction of euthanasia, when there were rumours that the Federal Council was preparing a draft Law on this subject (Blagovest-info.ru, 14thApril 2007).

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The figure of Benedict XVI as perceived by public opinion From the moment of his election, Benedict XVI has been considered with great respect, mainly due to his reputation as a brilliant theologian, attentive to modernity’s problems but simultaneously and profoundly attached to tradition. As emphasised by Monsignor Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, at the time Archbishop of the Mother of God in Moscow (AsiaNews, 30th January 2006), the Russian press reacted in a very positive manner to the Encyclical, Deus caritas est. The reactions to the controversy that arose from the speech made by Benedict XVI in Regensburg were also interesting. The Orthodox Church expressed solidarity with the Pontiff with a statement made by Bishop Mark Golovkov, vice-president of the Patriarchal Department for Foreign Affairs (Nezavisimaja gazeta, 18th September 2006) and by the Hegumen Filaret Bulekov, the Patriarch of Moscow’s observer at the Council of Europe in Strasburg (Vedomosti, 26th September 2006), who invited Muslims to “more balanced reactions to statements and lessons concerning Islam”, declaring that the Pope’s words had not been correctly interpreted, but rather “politicised”. The Russian national press reported the news on the front pages, emphasising the Pontiff’s reasons and the provocative nature of the criticism (Izvestija, 18th and 19th September). Muslim reaction within the country followed the judgement of other Muslim believers (albeit in a more moderate manner), (Nezavisimaja gazeta, 18th September), exhorting the Pontiff to be “responsible”, but also asking Russian Muslims to show “calm and balanced understanding of this situation”. At the end of 2006 Joseph Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity was also published in Russian, with a preface by Metropolitan Kirill. Respect for Pope Benedict XVI was confirmed by a visit on 13th March 2007 from President Putin. Although this was a meeting “between two heads of state with no links to the development of relations between the Catholic and the Orthodox Church” (interview by Father Igor Vyzanov given to AsiaNews, 12th March 2007), it was obvious that this sort of event “could not be without ecumenical aspects” (interview with the Apostolic Nuncio Monsignor Antonio Mennini by Avvenire, 10th March). The Church and the State address the problem of historical remembrance August 2007 saw the beginning of commemorations of the great Stalin purges of 1937-38. The Orthodox Church played an extremely important role in this event, organising a day of prayer on 8th August and a procession with a large wooden crucifix from the monastery-concentration camp of the Solovki Islands to the execution firing range in Butovo (where more than 20,000 people were shot), following the canal that links the White Sea to Moscow, which was built mainly by those imprisoned in the gulags. President Putin too paid homage, remembering the victims of repression and

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visiting the mass graves in Butovo on 30th October (La Nuova Europa, No. 6, 2007, pp. 66-68). On 18th November 2007 the Russian Orthodox Church solemnly commemorated the 90th anniversary of the restoration of the Patriarchate, annulled in the days of Peter the Great and restored in 1917, on the eve of the Revolution. On this occasion Putin held a solemn reception at the Kremlin. The Catholic Church in Russia The restitution or building of a number of Catholic churches has been reported. In June 2006, the parish church of Saint John the Baptist in Carskoe Selo, near Petersburg, was reconsecrated (Vatican Radio, 29th June 2006). This church, built in 1826, had been confiscated by the communists in 1938 and later transformed into a gymnasium, then an air-raid shelter and a concert hall; the parish community, dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, was reinstated in 2003. Also in 2006, the diocese of Saint Joseph in Irkutsk reported that a Catholic church in the village of Versina had been given back. According to Vatican Radio (9th April 2007), the Russian authorities gave permission to build the first Catholic Church in the Kamcatka peninsula, in Petropavlovsk (diocese of Irkutsk). This Church is dedicated to Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus. On 11th November 2007 the Catholic Church dedicated to Saint Michael Archangel in Murmansk was consecrated. One important event for the small Russian Catholic community was the plenary assembly of the Council of European Episcopal Conferences, held between the 4th and the 8th of October 2006 in Saint Petersburg; for the very first time in history the presidents of the 34 European Catholic Episcopal Conferences met in Russia. Two significant moments were the talk by a representative of the Moscow Patriarch and the Archbishop of the Mother of God in Moscow, Monsignor Kondrusiewicz’s, report on the situation of religion and the Church in Russia, and also the Eucharistic celebration with the parish community in Saint Catherine’s in the Northern capital city. This event also emphasised the need for reciprocal openness between Catholic and Orthodox believers, according to the exhortation from the Presidents of the Episcopal Conferences: “We are encouraged to discover a way for improving (relationships), rather than falling into the temptation of once again addressing the problems of the past.” On 27th December 2006 the official website for the Russian Catholic Episcopal Conference was created (www.ruscatholic.ru) directed by Father Andrzej Obuchowski (diocese of the Transfiguration in Novosibirsk) and by Igor’ Kovalevsky, Secretary General for the Episcopal Conference. On 21st September 2007, after spending about 15 years working in Siberia and in European Russia and having been the rector of the seminary of the Queen of the Apos-

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The Russian Orthodox Church Within the framework of generally good relationships with the State, in Chabarovsk (Far East) there have been reports of complaints from the Orthodox parish community of Saint Nichols, within the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, deprived of the chapel which had been made available to the community by local authorities since 1997 and which was situated inside the complex of the Third Municipal Hospital in Chabarovsk (which was opened well before 1917). In 2006 the hospital complex was sold to a Russian-Chinese commercial organisation, and the community was offered the use of a chapel in another hospital complex which however was situated in the suburbs of the city. The local Orthodox ordinary, Archbishop Mark, approved the move undertaken by the local authorities. (Forum 18 News Service, 23rd November 2007). This unusual case seems emblematic of the widespread use of private financial interests in some Russian regions. According to Interfax, 26th August 2007, the police dispersed a protest organised by about twenty Orthodox believers in Puskin Square in Moscow, who were asking for the monastery of the Passion of Christ, demolished in 1936-1937, to be rebuilt. Three protesters who refused to disperse were arrested by the police for a few hours and accused of having taken part in a demonstration that had not been authorised by the authorities. The fundamental problem for the Russian Orthodox Church remains that of its internal unity. On 17th May 2007, an “Act of Canon Communion” sanctioned the reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate, rectifying a schism that had lasted 80 years, caused mainly by the pro-Communist position assumed by the Orthodox Church in Russia and officially sanctioned in 1927 after the declaration of loyalty to the regime pronounced by the Metropolitan Sergy (Stragorodskij). The head of the new reunified Church is the Patriarch Aleksy II, but the Orthodox Church abroad preserves broad pastoral and financial-administrative autonomy. This process, started in 2003 due to Putin’s intervention, was not entirely painless; in spite of the long preparation for reunification, two bishops, part of the clergy (60 priests out of 200) and part of the faithful of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad, did not accept this, thereby creating a new schism (Blagovest-info.ru, 1st November 2007). A new painful division within the Russian Orthodox Church came about on April 24th 2006, when Bishop Basil Osborne, then leading the diocese of Suroz (an autonomous diocese on British territory since 1931) moved together with some of the faithful to become part of the jurisdiction of Constantinople (Blagovest-info, 15th–16th May 2006). The main reason was the diversity in ecclesial experience between the clergy

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tles in Saint Petersburg for a year, Father Paolo Pezzi was appointed to lead the archdiocese of the Mother of God.

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and the faithful educated by the Metropolitan Antony (Bloom), and the others who had moved to Great Britain more recently. Bishop Diomid from Cukotka also strongly opposed the Moscow Patriarch, and together with representatives of the clergy and secular members of his diocese, on 22nd February 2007, wrote an open letter to “all the faithful children in Christ of the Orthodox Church”, in which he denounced a series of “derogations from the pureness of the Orthodox doctrine”, in particular a “strengthening of the heretic doctrine of ecumenism” (Portal-credo.ru, 22nd February 2007). On 19th November 2007, in a new letter addressed to the Patriarch Aleksy II, he accused him of “heresy” for having prayed together with Catholics during his recent visit to Paris and asked for his excommunication (Portal-credo.ru, 23rd November 2007). The Synod has not spoken on this subject, while the rebel bishop has received many letters of disapproval from prelates and associations of believers also begging him to reform. Orthodox-Catholic relationships Good relationships between the Catholic and the Russian Orthodox Church reflect a broader resumption of the dialogue between the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches, already mentioned in the report drafted by Monsignor Eleuterio F. Fortino, Undersecretary for the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Unity among Christians, published on 19th January 2006 in L’Osservatore Romano, a process that experienced other significant moments with Benedict XVI visiting Turkey and meetings held by the mixed theological committee in Belgrade (18th-25th September 2006) and again in Ravenna (8th-14th October 2007). At a local level, meetings held by the mixed working-group created in 2004 by Patriarch Aleksy and Cardinal Kasper, for clarifying difficulties and problems between Catholics and Orthodox faithful in Russia, continued to be held regularly. One important factor was the first cultural symposium held in Europe, which was organised jointly by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture, and the Moscow Patriarchate. This Symposium was held in Vienna from 3rd May to 6th May 2006, on the subject “Giving Europe a Soul: The mission and responsibility of Churches”, with the participation of experts from all over the continent. There have been many visits to the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate by members of the Vatican; in February 2006, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray arrived in Moscow invited by the Patriarch. He brought a message of good wishes from the Pope,which Aleksy II answered with a letter and pectoral cross. On this occasion, the two prelates affirmed a concept later often repeated and reasserted by authoritative representatives of the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue in the past two years – the need for a “shared Christian testimony” when facing the torment and challenges of contemporary society. This subject in particular was in the forefront again when the Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk

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and Kaliningrad, Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, visited Benedict XVI on 18th May 2006 and 7th December 2007. On 17th July 2006 the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church expressed a favourable opinion with regards to the continuation of dialogue with the Vatican, identifying a number of priority issues concerning rights and the dignity of human beings, the moral responsibility of individuals and the defence of the family and of life. Another important appointment, within the framework of inter-denominational dialogue, was the visit made to Moscow by Cardinal Erdö, president of the European Council of Episcopal Conferences, on 11th June 2007, for an Orthodox-Catholic consultation. The subject of this meeting, organised by the Moscow Patriarchate, was “The anthropological and ethical foundations of the teachings of the Church for the creation of society, human rights and the dignity of the person”. Cardinal Poupard too made an ecumenical visit to Moscow in June 2007, to attend the conference on evangelisation organised by the Patriarchate of Moscow together with the Russian Academy of Science. The promotion of a “common Christian front” also continued during the visit made by Aleksy II to France in September 2007; during which visit he made a number of statements and gave numerous interviews (see La Vie, 26th September 2007), in which emphasis was placed on the need for “a common answer that the Orthodox and the Catholics can and must provide” with regards to the “tendencies of the contemporary world, such as secularisation, religious relativism, religion’s alienation compared to social life, the propaganda from the culture of consumerism, the reviewing of ethical rules”. The, overall, positive development of Orthodox-Catholic relations also underwent a cyclical return to complaints – from the Orthodox Christians – on the two now traditional points of Uniatism and proselytising by Catholics, perhaps more motivated by the need to provide indirect answers to currents within the Orthodox Church than any reality borne out by the facts. The episode that caused the greatest sensation was a statement made by Metropolitan Kirill on 30th November 2007, within the framework of an international conference held in Moscow and entitled “Local churches and the canonical territory; canon, juridical and interreligious issues”. Speaking freely after presenting his paper, the prelate stated the need to change the status of Catholic dioceses in Russia, returning to the pre-existing apostolic administrations (“Interfax”, 3rd December 2007). It is interesting to observe – when facing the many controversies arising within interdenominational issues – the Russian Orthodox Church’s positive approach to the document in which the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reasserted the vision of the Church that emerged from the Second Vatican Council; during a press conference, Metropolitan Kirill stated that he saw there “an honest position”, indispensable with-

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in the perspective of “sincere dialogue” and “fully conforming with the doctrine of the Catholic Church” (Interfax, 10th July 2007). A very important acknowledgement has been given to the Apostolic Nuncio in the Russian Federation, Archbishop Antonio Mennini; in September 2007 the Patriarch Aleksy II in fact awarded him the decoration of Saint Daniil from Moscow, “for his efforts addressed at establishing good relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, marked by affection, openness and trust” (Vatican Radio, 5th September 2007). Ecumenical and interreligious dialogue Another important ecumenical event was the first anniversary of the death of John Paul II; on this occasion a commemorative lamp was lit in Moscow’s Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, and many messages of respect and condolences arrived from the Patriarchate of Moscow, the President of the Council of the Russian Federation, Mr. Aleksandr Torsin, from Rabbi Zinovy Kogan, and from many other personalities. A pilgrimage of 150 people to the tomb of Pope Wojtyla closed the “Year of John Paul II” announced in 2005 by the Russian Catholic bishops. The most impressive event was certainly the interreligious Summit organised by the Russian Orthodox Church on 4th and 5th July 2006 in Moscow, which gathered together over 200 representatives of the Orthodox Churches, the Assyrian-Chaldeans, the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the National Council of American Churches, representatives of the Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu communities, directors of the Ecumenical Council of Churches and other international religious organisations. In particular, following an invitation from the Patriarch, the Vatican sent an important delegation consisting of five Cardinals. The Pope, who during the Angelus on 2nd July described this event as the mark that “indicates the common desire to promote dialogue among the civilisations and the quest for a more just and peaceful world”, also sent a message of good wishes hoping that people would learn “to know one another ever more deeply and to respect one another in the light of the dignity of the human being and his eternal destiny”. Another ecumenical event was held on 27th and 28th February 2007 in Moscow (ZENIT, 5th March 2007) when there was a meeting between the representatives of the Christian Churches from communities in Baltic countries and the Community of Independent States. Entitled “Contemporary Europe: God, humankind and society – Human rights and moral change”, participants focused on the fact that, in the name of equality, human rights, and the desire to be “politically correct”, European societies and governments try and legitimise tendencies that are corrosive for the traditional idea of the family. This work-meeting, organised by the Russian Orthodox Church, ended with a decision to recreate the Christian Interdenominational Consultative

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The Jewish Communities The most serious episode of anti-Semitism was an attack on the Moscow synagogue on 11th January 2006 when a twenty-year-old Russian called Aleksandr Kopcev, entered the synagogue and stabbed 9 people, “out of racial hatred felt for the Jews because they have a better lifestyle”, as he confessed to the police. The attack was condemned by Patriarch Aleksy II, who in a letter to the chief Rabbi of Russia, Berl Lazar, expressed his “profound sadness at the news of this cruel incident in the synagogue”, emphasising that “the authorities, the police forces and religious personalities should do everything possible to prevent such expressions of religious and ethnic intolerance”. The Russian Catholic community too, through Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, condemned this expression of violence, stating that “the seeds of evil can only be stopped through cooperation and awareness that all human beings are brothers” (AsiaNews, 12th January 2006). In November 2006 the Russian Federation’s Supreme Court confirmed a strict 16-year prison sentence with compulsory psychiatric care. On 22nd September 2006 Blagovest-info.ru reported a number of episodes of thuggery, with stones thrown at the windows of synagogues in Chabarovsk and Astrachan’ (which luckily did not cause serious damage to the buildings nor did they wound anyone). In October Russia’s Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar reported the desecration of a number of Jewish and Tatar graves in the cemetery in Tver’ (Blagovest-info.ru, 5th October 2006). During an official ceremony at the end of 2007, however, Russia’s Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar made a significant statement in the name of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia: “Jews living in Russia feel safe today. We can celebrate our religious festivities in the public squares, in the presence of mayors and governors. This is indeed a modern miracle” (Interfax, 10th December 2007). Relations with Islam The problem of terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism came to the forefront in July 2006 with the killing of Samil Basaev, the Chechen terrorist who also claimed responsibility for the Beslan massacre (September 2004), in which 330 civilians were killed, among them 186 children. Commentating operations by Russian Special Forces, which in the course of a raid in Ingusetija on 9th July resulted in the death of Basaev, Father Michail Dudko, secretary for State-Church relationships, emphasised the importance of “not interpreting the Chechen situation as a clash between Christianity and Islam. We emphasise” – he added – “the fact that the actions of people such as Basaev are a distortion of the Islamic doctrine and that it is baseless to accuse Russia of carrying out a religious war in the Caucasus. This is precisely why authentic religious

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Committee, and with an appeal to the State and to European society to respect Christian principles and rights.

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instruction is indispensable”. On this same occasion, Father Dudko also reminded people that the Russian Orthodox Church supports the introduction of the subject “Foundations of Islamic culture” in the Caucasus regions. A large mosque is being built in the centre of Moscow (70 metres high and with 4 minarets, it will be able to host 5,000 people). Plans were ratified by the Mayor of Moscow on 7th August 2006 (Blagovest-info.ru, 25th September 2006) As previously mentioned, within the framework of the current cooperation, in the present electoral climate between the Muslim community and the Russian government, the first private hospital was opened in Moscow at the beginning of December 2007, which respects the rules of Islamic law (clear separation between women’s and men’s wards, female doctors wearing the veil, halal, hence “pure” medication and food), as explained during an interview to Interfax (6th December 2007) given by Anna Kisko, spokesperson for the health network that organised this hospital. The creation of this “Islamic hospital” is supported by the Russian Health Ministry and by the Russian Council of Muftis. Other religious groups On 17th September 2007 a session of the “Advisory Council of the Leaders of the Protestant Churches of Russia”, which also includes a representative of the President’s administration, was held in Moscow. The day’s agenda included the problem of religious instruction in schools as well as the issue of religious discrimination in Russia. There were complaints about aggressions against one of the communites of the Assembly of God in Moscow, when the building was burnt down (Portal-credo.ru, 17th September 2007). Incidents in various regions of the Russian federation – as reported by Forum 18 News Service, 7th June 2006 – emphasise the tendency shown by local authorities to obstruct the activities of some religious communities as well as not protecting them from hooliganism; there were reports of a number of episodes, such as about twenty drunks breaking into a room in which 300 Pentecostals from Spassk, in Siberia, were celebrating Easter; or obscene acts carried out by the participants in a Gay and Lesbian event in the square outside and in the doorway of the Catholic Church of Saint Catherine in Saint Petersburg, without the police present intervening in any way at all. Difficulties continue for non-Orthodox religious organisations wishing to build places of worship in Moscow. Although this right is guaranteed by the Law on Freedom of Worship dated 1997, the authorities often blame the opposition presented by citizens resident in the area, or declare that where there are already Orthodox buildings, or others are planned, there cannot be other places of worship. For example, the Emmanuel Pentecostal community, to whom after many difficulties in 2005 the Moscow author-

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ities assigned a piece of land for building their own place of worship, saw this land later denied to them with the excuse that it had previously been sold to someone else. And the Russian-American Christian University also encountered problems when building their own headquarters, which is now however about to be completed and will be inaugurated in the course of the 2008-09 academic year. The court in Novgorod sentenced to 2 years imprisonment a man who had set fire to the Seventh Day Adventist community’s place of worship (Blagovest-info.ru, 19th February 2007). Newsru.com, 5th February 2007, reported that in Kujbysev, in the province of Novosibrsk, the headquarters if Jehovah’s Witnesses was covered in petrol and set on fire. A member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Izevsk (Udmurtija) was sentenced to pay a fine for failure to report for civil service, because this too depends from the Ministry for Defence (Interfax, 24th October 2007). In 2007 the local Public Prosecutor’s Office analysed 6 analogous cases, and 4 citizens were fined (Blagovest-info.ru, 7th December 2007).

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RWANDA

RWANDA

AREA 26,338 kmq POPULATION 9,208,000 REFUGEES 53,577 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 82.7% Ethnoreligionists 9% Muslims 7.9% Others 0.4%

Baptized Catholics 4,381,000

Although the 1991 Constitution (as amended with additional protocols in 1992, 1993 and 1995) guarantees religious freedom in Article 18, local authorities often restrict this right, intervening against groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Pentecostals, who refuse to perform certain activities which are either regarded as their patriotic duty or as a symbolic of national unity. Political parties are forbidden to make any kind of distinction according to race, ethnic origin, tribe, clan, geographic origin, gender, religion or any other discriminatory criteria. Foreign missionaries and institutions affiliated to religious groups can operate without authorisation, but must declare their objectives and activities to the local authorities in order to obtain a “provisional permit”. Many groups, however, complain that it is hard to obtain the permit and so operate without authorisation, which can result in formal reprimands or even prison sentences. The state wishes all religious meetings to be held in formal places of worship and forbids them from being held in private homes. A permit is needed to hold religious meetings at night, not only because, in the past, rebel groups used to call their night-time gatherings “religious meetings” at which they planned violent attacks, but also to avoid noise and disturbance. The general situation, however, as far as religion is concerned, is quite calm, although the police now intervene with determination against all activities that might disturb public order, even if only slightly. Hence, after February 2007 the police in three districts (Kigali, Nyarugenge and Gasabo) arrested and detained so-called “street preachers”, Christians who were preaching the Gospel and evangelising passers-by in the street, because this was considered as causing “disorder”. In February 2006 the police moved against churches and temples causing high noise levels, confiscating excessively noisy musical instruments and ordering mosques to lower the volume of loudspeakers calling the faithful to prayers (BBC). Religious instruction is allowed in state schools, often as an alternative to courses on morals. There are both Christian and Muslim schools. The Catholic Church runs 137 playschools with 38,648 children; 1,232 primary schools with 892,434

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The difficult legacy of the 1994 genocide In the space of 100 days, between April and July 1994, Hutu extremists massacred between 500,000 and 800,000 people, most belonging to the Tutsi ethnic group. Thousands more were later killed during the Tutsi revenge, ultimately leading, according to the government, to about 937 thousand victims (the United Nations speaks of “only” 800,000 people killed). For years tens of thousands of people were imprisoned awaiting trial, charged with having taken part in the genocide, while the International Penal Court for Rwanda (the TPIR) organised by the UN (the headquarters of which were in Arusha, Tanzania) succeeded in hearing only a few dozen cases. Most trials – of secondary figures, i.e. those who were acting on the orders of their superiors, such as common soldiers and ordinary people – were moved to hundreds of popular tribunals, the so-called gacaca, which means “grass” in the local Kinyarwanda language and recalls the tradition of meeting in a field to settle local controversies. Faced with 818,000 individuals accused of crimes linked to the genocide, the government revised its procedures a number of times in order to speed up the hearings, successively increasing the powers of the gacacas. In May 2007 they were given the power to pass life sentences, whereas the previous limit had been 30 years. Furthermore, as an alternative to a prison sentence, the option was introduced of sentencing those found guilty to various forms of community service. Between May and October 2007 about 47,000 people were sentenced to these kinds of community service. Decisions are taken by a people’s jury of nine ordinary people and there are neither public prosecutors nor lawyers for the defence, these roles being carried out by the parties involved. Amnesty International and other groups have often reported that the gacacas do not respect the required minimum international standards for a fair trial. Many judges have been accused of using their power for personal or political ends, or in an abusive manner (Human Rights Watch). Government sources have acknowledged that dozens of people have committed suicide after being sentenced by these popular tribunals. At the end of 2007 there were still tens of thousands awaiting trial. The wounds caused by the massacres are still raw and a law of 2003 defines as “illegal” all forms of revisionism or denial as far as the genocide is concerned. In May 2006, a priest, Jean-Marie Vianney Uwizeyeyezu was arrested and accused of the crime of having underestimated the extent of the genocide. According to a pro-government daily newspaper, in the month of April he minimised the 1994 massacres in a homily (Vatican Radio) and was alleged to have said that it was a mistake to call

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students; 131 secondary schools with 61,351 students, 16 hospitals and 87 dispensaries (Fides, December 2007).

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those responsible for the genocide “dogs”. In October 2006 he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Catholics Among the hundreds of thousands of people accused of genocide, or other crimes linked to it, there are Christian believers and priests and both the gacaca and the TPIR have sentenced clergymen, both Catholic and of other religions, in some cases for serious crimes. But the authorities and the state media, as well as the international press and public opinion, were prompted by these episodes to formulate a generic accusation of complicity in the genocide against the entire ecclesial hierarchy. In particular, the Church has been accused of seeking to protect the priests involved in the genocide and of not wanting to acknowledge its responsibilities, forgetting among other things the extremely high price paid in terms of human lives by the Church in Rwanda. Among the victims there were 248 consecrated persons, including three bishops, 103 priests, 47 religious brothers belonging to various congregations and 65 nuns (Fides). It has been observed that the international media often report simply that a Catholic “priest” or “a nun” has been sentenced for genocide, without even giving their names, as though their identity were not considered important. Even though in recent years there have been signs of reconciliation between the government and the Catholic Church, at the 2007 Commemoration Service for the genocide, only the Lutheran was invited to send a representative to say a prayer, although in previous years participation was not restricted to the Lutheran Church. This situation of suspicion and disfavour towards the Church seems to be encapsulated by the events concerning the Belgian priest Guy Theunis, SMA, a member of the Society of African Missions. He was arrested on 6th September 2005 at Kigali airport while waiting for a flight for Belgium. Charges of genocide were instantly and widely trumpeted by the media, although they were only officially announced some days after his arrest. It was alleged that in his work for the local French language magazine Dialogue (which he edits and writes for) Father Theunis had incited ethnic division, the planning of the genocide and subsequent revisionism, in particular by publishing extracts from the extremist Rwandan newspaper Kangura. This was, in fact, simply a press review, in which various articles from local newspapers were translated and commented on. The superior of his order, Father Gérard Chabanon, immediately dismissed these accusations as totally unfounded and rejected the idea that this magazine, “which analyses from a Christian point of view the problems addressed”, could ever have had such an agenda. The charge is even more surprising, however, given the kind of person Father Guy is. He lived in Rwanda between 1970 and 1994, and was always extremely active in the field of communications. After the genocide he returned to

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Belgium, then lived in South Africa from 1998 to 2003, and then in the Democratic Republic of Congo. During the 23 years he spent in Rwanda he was a member of various institutions for the defence of human rights and against violence. He was later also heard as a witness of events surrounding the genocide by international political and judicial authorities, such as the French National Assembly’s investigative committee and the Belgian Senate. Prior to this no one had even suggested that eh was involved with “pro-genocide” activities, in spite of the fact that since 1994 he had travelled to Rwanda on numerous occasions. He is the first foreigner to have been charged in the gacacas. Other international organisations, such as Reporters without Frontiers, have protested, observing that “Father Theunis has always defended the principles of tolerance and respect for others. He has spent his life fighting racism and ethnic hatred”. They have described the accusations as “outrageous” and “absurd”, pointing out that the quotations taken from the extremist newspaper Kangura were published in order to alert his readers about this extremism and “with the intention of condemning hatred and intolerance”. The events which followed are likewise revealing. On 11th September 2005, at the end of a hearing attended by about a thousand people, the judges of the gacaca in Ubumwe committed Father Theunis to be tried by an ordinary court, considering his crimes (“having incited Rwandans to massacre with his articles and his words”) as belonging to “Category No. 1”, the most serious, that of the “planners” of the 1994 genocide and punishable even by the death sentence. After weeks, the High Court of Justice in Kigali approved the Belgian government’s request for extradition. The priest will be tried in his country of origin, where he returned on his own without a police escort in November 2005. Human Rights Watch has commented that the Rwandan authorities have no evidence justifying the priest’s arrest or trial. The trial is still ongoing. In an interview with the magazine Nigrizia in February 2007, he described the current situation as follows: tens of thousands of people have been imprisoned for over 13 years and still not brought to trial. Tens of thousands more have been released after years in prison awaiting trial, in an atmosphere of revenge in the villages that still results in violent incidents directed against those even only suspected of being involved in the genocide. Other Christian communities Since 2003 the requests for registration presented by two Methodist Christian groups, the United Methodist Church of Rwanda (UMC-RWANDA) and the International Union Methodist Community (Communauté Méthodiste Union Internationale), are still pending. Both groups claim to be the main representative of the Methodist Church and the legitimate representative of the World Methodist Church. Their case has been referred to the Supreme Court.

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Jehovah’s Witnesses Discrimination against the Jehovah’s Witnesses continues because of their refusal to accept the ideas and symbols of state sovereignty and national unity, for example the custom (not compulsory by law) for the bride and groom to touch the national flag during the marriage ceremony while they exchange their vows. This custom is rejected by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who have difficulty finding a public official prepared to celebrate marriages without including this patriotic ritual. Every year dozens of Jehovah’s Witnesses are arrested because they refuse to take part in night watches (groups of citizens patrolling the streets to guarantee public security) and are held in prison for anything from one night to one month. Arrests continue, in spite of the fact that in 2005 judges ruled that no law obliges citizens to take part in these activities. In many districts the Witnesses have reached agreement with the authorities to perform alternative forms of community service. In many areas however, the authorities continue to refuse permits for building places of worship. In May 2006 the mayor of Gitarama responded that he would not approve any permits until they stopped “inciting citizens to disobey government policies”. Discrimination also affects school students, who are sometimes expelled for refusing to participate in patriotic ceremonies.

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SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS

AREA 261 kmq POPULATION 46,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 94.8% Others 5.2%

Baptized Catholics 5,000

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SAINT KITTS AND NEVIS

This small state, which is part of the British Commonwealth, consists in three small islands of the Lesser Antilles. The 1983 Constitution guarantees full religious freedom in Article 11, and sets out in detail both the rights of individuals and those of religious groups. There are no reports regards to interference by the authorities in the life of religious groups or any episodes of intolerance. Registration is not compulsory for religious organisations.

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SAINT LUCIA

SAINT LUCIA

AREA 616 kmq POPULATION 159,000 REFUGEES ---

This Island in the Lesser Antilles is a member of the British Commonwealth. The Constitution dated 1979, the year in which the country became independent, guarantees full religious freedom in Article 9. The dominant religion is Christianity, mainly Catholic. NonChristian religions, such as Islam and the Rastafari Movement (Rastafarians) have very few followers and were brought to the country via immigration. There are no reports of violations of religious freedom or events involving intolerance.

INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 96.1% Others 3.9%

Baptized Catholics 101,000

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The group of islands in the Lesser Antilles that form the State of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is part of the British Commonwealth. Article 9 of the Constitution, approved when the country became independent in 1979, sets out in detail the individual and associative rights deriving from complete religious freedom. State schools provide moral instruction based on the principles of Christianity, but attendance is not compulsory. There are no reports of events involving intolerance or violation of religious freedom

AREA 388 kmq POPULATION 118,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 89.1% Hindus 3.4% Others 7.5%

Baptized Catholics 15,000

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SAINT VINCENT AND GRENADINES

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SAMOA

SAMOA

AREA 2,831 kmq POPULATION 179,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Religious freedom is guaranteed by the 1997 Constitution and in practice is also respected by the government, which punishes all persecutory acts or discrimination. There is no established State religion, although the Constitution’s introduction describes the country as “an independent state based on Christian principles and Samoan custom and tradition”. Public ceremonies generally start with a shared prayer. Religious groups are permitted to operate with no formal recognition. Specific religious instruction is not provided in schools. Each faith can operate its own schools and include religious instruction within the educational timetable. In villages and small towns there is strong social pressure for everyone to take part in the community’s religious functions and activities, and for every family to contribute to the financial needs of the leaders and activities of the local church. This contribution can amount to 30 percent of the family’s income. However, since the year 2000 there have been no reports stating that communities ban those practising a religion that differs from that of the majority.

Affiliated Christians 96.6% Baha’i 2.3% Others 1.1%

Baptized Catholics 40,000

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SAN MARINO

Religious freedom is guaranteed by the Constitution. Relations with the Catholic Church are regulated by the Concordat of April 1992. On the basis of this agreement, citizens may ask for 3/1000th of their tax to be given to the Catholic Church or to other charitable institutions. On 23rd April 2007, San Marino held the Presidency of the Committee of Ministers of the European Council, and organised the first European conference on “The religious dimension of intercultural dialogue”. Inaugurating this event, the secretary general for the Council of Europe, Terry Davis, emphasised that “once faith was considered a private, even an intimate matter”, but “nowadays it is right for religious organisations to have more importance than in the past, since they have the power to bring people to dialogue and understanding”. He also pointed out that “the religions, like many other human convictions, are an expression of cultural identity that deserves respect”.

AREA 61 kmq POPULATION 31,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 92.2% Non religious 6.9% Others 0.9%

Baptized Catholics 30,000

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Sources “The Council of Europe ascertains the public role played by religions”, ZENIT, 24th April 2007

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SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE

SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE

AREA 964 kmq POPULATION 151,000 REFUGEES ---

In this small archipelago religious freedom is recognised by the 1990 Constitution, which in Article 8 establishes the secular character of the state and the separation of religion and politics, while Article 26 guarantees “freedom of conscience, religion and worship”. Religious groups must register, but there are no reports of unregistered groups being banned. Missionaries, both Christian and of other faiths, are present in the country.

INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 95.8% Baha’i 2.1% Ethnoreligionists 1.2% Others 0.9%

Baptized Catholics 111,000

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SAUDI ARABIA

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AREA 2,149,690 kmq POPULATION 23,680,000 REFUGEES 240,742 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 93.7% Affiliated Christians 3.7% Others 2.6%

Baptized Catholics 900,000

SAUDI ARABIA

Of all the Islamic countries, Saudi Arabia is the one in which religious freedom is most emphatically rejected, even in principle. The kingdom declares itself to be “integrally” Islamic and regards the Koran as the country’s only Constitution and the Shari‘a as its basic law. In the theological interpretation of Wahabism endorsed by the State, the land of the Arabic peninsula is the homeland of the prophet Mohammed, the most holy of all lands, where one cannot even practice the tolerated “religions of the Book”, namely Judaism and Christianity. For this reason too, anything that might seem an “attack” against this sort of religious virginity is severely prosecuted and the authorities are committed to preventing the spreading of any religious message other than the Islamic faith. Every manifestation of nonMuslim faith (possession of Bibles, wearing a crucifix, a rosary, praying in public) is therefore forbidden. The religious police (the notorious mutawwa’in) have great power and are responsible for monitoring the activities of other religions. The excessive “zeal” shown by the mutawwa’in has been the cause of summary arrests and torture in the prisons. The religious police often incarcerate members of minority religious groups, both Christians and Shiite Muslims, who are released only after signing a document in which they renounce their faith. Non-Muslim workers are subject to arrest, deportation, and imprisonment if found exercising any religious practice, or if accused of owning religious material or of proselytism. In recent years, thanks to international pressure, the Saudi royal family has allowed the practice of other religions, but only in private, although the distinction between the public and the private sphere is not year clear. On 4th May 2006 the American Congress Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) asked the government for “energetic action” against Saudi Arabia due to reiterated violations of religious freedom. The Commission asked the Secretary of State to keep Saudi Arabia on the annually drafted “blacklist” of countries guilty of “serious violations” of religious freedom. The Commission’s leader, Michael Cromartie, explained that the situation regarding religious freedom in Saudi Arabia had basically not improved over the past two years since the country had been put on the “blacklist”. Washington

SAUDI ARABIA

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had allowed the country “an additional 180 days temporary waiver” for reforms; this expired in March 2006. However, according to Cromartie, religious freedom “does not exist” in this country and the United States government “should not hesitate to take decisive action” as far as Saudi Arabia is concerned – such as imposing travel restrictions on Saudi officials, or restrictions on exports. Christians It is hard to know exactly how many Christians are present in this country. They are certainly a significant percentage of the over 8 million foreign workers. It is estimated that there are at least a million of them, mainly from the Philippines, but also from Europe, the United States and the Middle East. Christians are deprived of all pastoral, care since priests are not allowed into the country. Basically, Christians are denied the possibility of expressing their faith through public worship. There have recently been numerous reports of raids carried out by the mutawwa’in against Christian religious services, in particular those held by the Philippine community in Riyadh, and the confiscation of any religious material used. In an interview with AsiaNews, an Indian Malankarese priest, Father George Joshua, described his expulsion from Saudi Arabia. Father Joshua had been found by the religious police on the evening of 5th April 2006, while celebrating Mass in a private room with a group of foreign Catholics. “They spoke to me and listed all the places I had been until then, all my activities, the group prayers I had organised in private homes.” “Then they forced me to put back on my vestments and made me stand in front of the table we had used as an altar and in front of the crucifix. They took many photographs as evidence that I was a Christian priest performing illegal religious activities.” On 9th June 2006 ten policemen armed with truncheons broke into a private home in the al-Rowaise district in Jeddah where a religious service was being held, attended by over 100 Eritrean, Ethiopian and Filipino Christians. The faithful invited the policemen to sit down and they complied, waiting for three hours for the service to end, and then arresting the four leaders of this group (two Ethiopians and two Eritreans): Mekbeb Telahun, Fekre Gebremedhin, Dawit Uqbay and Masai Wendewesen. The men were deported in July 2006. On 15th October 2006 the mutawwa’in raided a room in Tabuk where a Filipino priest was preaching. The religious police confiscated Bibles and arrested the priest, who was released after a week. In October 2006 a Filipino Christian was arrested in Jeddah and accused of possessing drugs. The accusation was later changed to one of proselytism. The man was remained in custody for eight months and then given 60 lashes in punishment, after which he was deported back to his country.

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On 6th November 2007 the Pope welcomed the Saudi King Abdallah, “in a cordial atmosphere”. In the absence of diplomatic relations, this was the first meeting between the Holy See and Saudi Arabia at such a level. The Vatican had always indicated Saudi Arabia as one of the countries in which religious freedom was less respected. Very little news seeped out about this “historical meeting”. The Al-Jazeera TV network stated that some of the issues discussed had been the “situation experienced by the Christian minority in Saudi Arabia, the need for greater interreligious cooperation and prospects for peace in the Middle East”. Commenting on this visit to AsiaNews, Monsignor Paul Hinder, Apostolic Vicar in Arabia since 2005, emphasised that religious freedom in Saudi Arabia is still a problem, although in recent year there have been fewer arrests of Christians and the King has reduced the power of the mutawwa’in. “I believe that this meeting was also an excellent opportunity for discussing the religious rights of Christians in Saudi Arabia. This subject is not explicitly mentioned in the press release, but there was mention of “the positive and industrious presence of Christians”. I believe that within this framework the Pope was also able to discuss freedom of worship in Saudi Arabia”. Muslims On 24th March 2006, under an agreement with the Minister of Justice, the general director of prisons, Maj. Gen. Ali Al-Harithy announced that prisoners must in future be released if they had not been put on trial within six months from the date of their arrest. Previously, the National Society for Human Rights, a Saudi NGO, had intervened, denouncing the conditions for prisoners in Saudi jails. The Basic Law issued

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SAUDI ARABIA

In May 2007 the arrest was reported of a Saudi citizen, who was accused of having converted to Christianity. Apart from the fact that he was tortured, there are no other details known about this case. In August 2007, the case of a Christian doctor of Egyptian origin called Mamdooh Fahmy was resolved with his return to Cairo. Fahmy had worked since 2004 as a doctor at the Albyaan Menfhoh Medical Center in Riyadh. From the very beginning, his Muslim colleagues had started to insult him for being a Christian, and in 2005 he received a “visit” from the mutawwa’in. After searching his house, the officers accused him of being a Christian missionary and also of drinking alcohol. Kept in isolation for 5 days, he was then released. Having lost his job, the doctor wanted to return to Egypt, but for two years the Saudi authorities refused to return his passport to him or provide him with the documents he needed to leave the country. The case was finally resolved, partly thanks to an international campaign led by International Christian Concern (ICC).

SAUDI ARABIA

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by King Fahd in 1992 states in Article 26 that “the State protects human rights in accordance with Islamic Law”. In March 2006 the Saudi authorities prevented the Imam of the Great Mosque in Medina from holding further sermons. During the Friday sermon Sheik Abdul-Bari alThubaithy had made a questionable speech on the role of women in society, in which he severely criticised the advocates of equal rights for women and men. The Sheik also praised the fact that the Consultative Council had refused to allow women the right to drive cars. In June 2006 the Authority for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (the official name of the mutawwa’in, or religious police) expressed its intention to open special centres in all cities for “registering complaints against witches and charlatans, following their movements and putting an end to their activities”. This was made public by the head of this Authority, Ibrahim bin Abdallah al-Ghaith, as reported by the daily newspaper al-Madinah, and quoted by AsiaNews. An important development occurred in June 2007 with the creation of a “Department of Laws and Regulations” to verify the repeating accusations and criticisms recently directed at the mutawwa’in. These extremely powerful religious police are responsible not only for prosecuting those who drink alcohol, those who do not dress according to the Islamic rules or behave “immorally”, but also for repressing all religious activities, even private ones, not in conformity with Wahabi Islam. In its first report, the National Society for Human Rights, accused the mutawwa’in of having “obtained confessions through force” and of other violations. During that same month, three members of the Saudi religious police were put on trial, for the first time in history, due to their involvement in the death of a man they had arrested. According to official statistics, on January 2007 there were 3,227 such religious police working in 1,310 centres in all the 13 Saudi provinces. Shiite Muslims Although representing between 10 and 15 percent of the population, the Shiites continue to complain of discriminations. In the Eastern province, where most of them live, no governor of a province, no mayor or director of ministerial centres is Shiite; and out of the 59 government-appointed members of the municipal councils, only 3 belong to this community. However, among the elected members of these municipal councils, the Shiites are well represented, as in the city of al-Qatif. But out of 150 members of the Majlis al-Shura (the national Consultative Council) only 4 are Shiites. In March 2006 Ala’ Amin al-Sadeh protested at a judge’s refusal to accept his testimony because he was a Shiite. Sadeh was invited to present his protest to the Ministry of the Interior. There is no information regarding the outcome of this protest.

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The Ahmadis On 29th December 2006 the religious police carried out a raid against an assembly held by the Ahmadi community, arresting 49 people of Pakistani and Indian nationality, among them about twenty women and children. The Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims, but are considered heretics by other Muslims because they do not acknowledge Mohammed as the last prophet; this is why they suffer persecution from extremists in many Islamic countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Another 9 Ahmadis were arrested at the beginning of 2007. All those arrested were later expelled from Saudi Arabia. The Saudi authorities expressed concern regarding the size of the group (about 150 people). In January 2007, in an open letter to the Saudi King, Human Rights Watch condemned the campaign of arrests, detentions and deportations directed against the Ahmadi community. “Your government arrests and holds members of the Ahmadi community only because of their religious faith. This is an extremely serious violation of the international principles of religious freedom”, wrote the organisation. In conclusion, the letter invited Riyadh to “honour and respect religious freedom and the freedom to gather in peace to pray with other people. This unjust persecution must stop”. But it was not to be, and on 7th February 2007, two more Ahmadi workers were arrested in Riyadh and expelled from the kingdom. Ismailis According to Human Rights Watch, in the months of August and September 2006, a believer from the Ismaili community, Hadi al-Mutif, began a hunger strike in protest against his imprisonment for having “insulted the prophet Mohammed”. Twelve years earlier, during his original trial, al-Mutif had been sentenced to death, but then the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. According to HRW he has tried to commit

403

SAUDI ARABIA

In April 2006 the religious police arrested a female Shiite student in Riyadh, accused of proselytising among students. She was released after a few days. The government does not finance the construction of Shiite mosques. The obtaining of building permits for mosques (not required for Sunni ones) is a slow and difficult process. Hence the Shiites use their own private mosques, known as husseiniya that have no official authorisation. In January 2007 the authorities arrested a member of the Shiite clergy because he held services in an illegal husseiniya. On 16th April 2007 two Shiites were arrested in al-Ahsa for having planned to celebrate celebrating the Birth of the Prophet. The government considers this festivity a form of idolatry and an imitation of the Christian Christmas. The festivity was however celebrated in other parts of the kingdom with no interference from the authorities.

SAUDI ARABIA

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suicide twice, and so in January 2007, the authorities decided to place him in solitary confinement. In September 2006 three hundred Ismailis from Najran protested against the discrimination directed at their communities and asked for the release of their co-religionists, who had been imprisoned since the year 2000. They also asked for an official apology for having been described as “infidels” by a judge and for an end to the building of settlements of naturalised Yemenites on their lands.

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SENEGAL

AREA 196,722 kmq POPULATION 11,148,000 REFUGEES 20,421 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 22,400

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 87.6% Ethnoreligionists 6.2% Affiliated Christians 5.5% Others 0.7%

Baptized Catholics 551,000

Sources LA CIVILTA’ CATTOLICA, 2007 II page 190 Fides, 16th February 2007 Afrobarometer Surveys Political Resources on the Net

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Senegal is a secular state and the 1963 Constitution, as amended in 1998, acknowledges freedom of religion in Article 19, with full administrative and organisational freedom for religious communities. Article 17 acknowledges these communities as “means of education” on an equal footing with state schools. Sunni Islam is the dominant religion. Most Muslims practice a form of Islam that combines outward religious observance with local cultural values and beliefs. In recent years neo-Wahabi groups have spread in the cities, however, accusing other Muslims of ignorance, syncretism and collaborationism. Shortly before the presidential and general elections of 25th February 2007, which later confirmed the victory of Abdoulaye Wade, the Senegalese Muslim and Catholic leaders invited everyone to remain calm and to respect the rules of democracy. At the beginning of February, Archbishop Theodore-Adrien Sarr of Dakar had called on opposition parties to cancel an unauthorised rally. Archbishop Sarr’s request was broadcast on Senegalese radio and published in all the local newspapers. A similar appeal to the candidates, to contribute to a peaceful political campaign, was issued by El Hadj Moustapha Cissé, a Muslim religious leader and coordinator of the Senegal Centre for Religious Intellectuals for Peace and Harmony (CCRIPC), which includes both Muslims and Catholics. This appeal was launched after a series of incidents, involving supporters of the various presidential candidates, had left a number of people injured.

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SERBIA, MONTENEGRO AND KOSOVO

SERBIA, MONTENEGRO AND KOSOVO

AREA 102,173 kmq POPULATION 10,612,000 REFUGEES 106,523 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 247,500

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 67.9% Muslims 16.2% Others 15.9%

Baptized Catholics 587,000

The Constitution of the Union of Serbia and Montenegro, approved in 2003, complemented by Articles 26 and 27 of the “Charter of Human Rights, Minority Rights and Civil Freedoms”, guarantees the right to full religious freedom. There is no State religion, although the Serbian-Orthodox majority enjoys particular consideration from the authorities. Legislation in the Republic of Montenegro also guarantees the right to religious freedom and respects it. It also mentions the Serbian-Orthodox Church, the Islamic religious community and the Catholic Church, stating that these are institutions that are separate from the State. Serbian legislation instead adopts rather discriminating provisions with regard to religious groups, creating inequalities between them. The Serbian law regulating the activities of religious associations, in force since April 2006, establishes a different status for religious minorities, including some of those previously officially recognised. The law recognises seven traditional religious communities: the Serbian-Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, the Evangelical Slovakian Church, the Reformed Christian Church, the Evangelical Church, the Islamic Community and the Jewish Community. The other denominations may register once again, in compliance with the law in force since April, but approval for legal status is given at the government’s discretion. Many NGOs, religious communities, the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) and the Council of Europe have repeatedly and sharply criticised this law regulating religion, judging it as invasive of the freedom of religious groups. Registration in fact involves indicating the group’s name, those of its members, their signatures, submitting the statutes of the group, a description of the ceremonies and the basic activities. In Serbia there is religious instruction in primary and in secondary schools; students are asked to choose to attend a class which includes the teaching of one of the seven traditional official religions. Should the student or the family not want religious instruction, this course is replaced by lessons on civics. On 16th January 2006 the Catholic Agency ZENIT reported that President Filip Vujanovic of the Republic of Montenegro had informed the Pope in the course of a private audience, of prepa-

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rations for a referendum on Montenegro’s independence from Serbia and its separation from the federation. This referendum was duly set for 21st May 2006, as reported by L’Osservatore Romano on that same day, and was promoted by Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic of Montenegro with the intention of removing this small republic from the political and economic conditioning of its bigger partner, Serbia, and at the same time speeding up its entry in the European Union. The Serbian government, for its part had more than once stated that it would accept the result of the referendum, whatever it might be; this was in fact basically a formal assent. On 22nd-23rd May the same source reported the results of this referendum, which decided in favour of separation from Serbia with 55.4 percent of the vote, which meant that the quorum of 55 percent required by European observers had only just been achieved. On 16th December 2006 Vatican Radio reported on the decision by the Holy See and the Republic of Montenegro to establish diplomatic relations; the Vatican in fact officially acknowledged the country’s new political status on 19th June 2006. The Italian Catholic magazine Il Regno (published in Bologna, Issue No. 18/2006) reported on the holding of the IX Plenary Session of the Mixed International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox churches in Belgrade from 18th-25th September 2006. The Commission had not worked between 2000 and 2005, when it reopened on the initiative of the Orthodox Church. Benedict XVI too expressed his happiness at the resumption of the theological dialogue which is aimed at “eliminating the remaining differences and upholding the fundamental desire to do everything possible to re-establish full communion” which was “a fundamental good for the community of the disciples of Christ”. On 26th September Human Rights Without Frontiers reported that the religious minorities in Serbia are frequently attacked and discriminated against and detailed numerous episodes, among them the stabbing of a member of the Hare Krishna sect in June and vandalism inflicted on 6th September on the new Islamic faculty in Novi Pazar. There have been constant reports of incidents of vandalism against Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Adventist churches. On 27th August in Gornij Milanovac, the police arrested an Islamic delegation returning from Belgrade which also included the Mufti of Sandzak, Muamar ef Zukurlic. The cars and personal belongings of the travellers were searched. The Mufti refused to hand over his personal luggage and protested to the Prime Minister. On 22nd January 2007, Pope Benedict XVI welcomed the new Montenegrin Ambassador to the Holy See, Antun Sbutega, as reported by the Radio Giornale Vaticano on the same day. The Pope described Montenegro as the “privileged place for that ecumenical encounter longed for by all”, adding that “Some outstanding examples of Christian-Muslim encounter have likewise been achieved in Montenegro”.

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On 18th August AsiaNews reported that the Serbian Minister for Religious Affairs, Milan Radulovic, had been replaced by Radomir Naumov; many sources however assert that this is only a piece of formal window-dressing, leaving the real decision-making power in the hands of Radulovic. In fact, those movements and groups that do not qualify as “historical religions”, namely the Baptists, Hare Krishna, Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Old Catholics, continue to be denied legal recognition, which also makes it impossible for them to open bank accounts and own property.

KOSOVO Until 18th February 2007, Kosovo was administered by the civil authorities of the NATO mission present there since 1999. On 17th February 2008, the Kosovo Assembly declared its independence from Serbia. The interim Constitution decrees the right to religious freedom and the provisional government respects this right, contributing to interreligious dialogue with its political choices. Religious groups do not need to register; registration is in fact only needed to access state subsidies. For this one must register with the Ministry for Public Affairs as an NGO. In April 2007 the President of Kosovo, Fatmir Sejdiu, visited the Orthodox monastery in Decani for the Orthodox Easter and spoke in Serbian during this visit. On 4th March 2007, L’Osservatore Romano reported that the Council of Europe had condemned violations of ethnic and religious minority rights in the country. Hostility between the Albanian majority and the Serbian minority is still tangible. The Roma ethnic group is also still threatened, as was also emphasised in Amnesty International’s Annual Report 2007 (published in May). In July 2006 the government passed a new law on religious freedom establishing the right to freedom of expression, conscience and religion for all those living in the country, whatever their religious beliefs. This law also establishes the separation of religious communities from public institutions, with equal rights and duties for all religious communities. On 21st May 2007, ACN News reported the words of Bishop Dode Gjergji, the fortyfour-year-old Apostolic Administrator of Prizren. He insists that there is only one possibility for Kosovo, and that is independence, or else there will be a war. The bishop has also criticised Serbian efforts to oppose independence. Elections were held on 18th November 2007 for renewing Parliament and many local administrations. The last annual round of peace talks on Kosovo were held in Baden, near Vienna, but yielded no results, according to all the participants (Kosovo, USA, the European

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Union, Serbia and Russia). Serbia has called for more talks to be held in the future, at the same time emphasising however that it will never accept Kosovo’s independence. Bishop Gjergji, also commented on these talks, saying: “the people of Kosovo are achieving their right to be free; just as in the past the Catholic Church was ready to defend the rights of the Albanians, so in the future it will continue to defend the rights of the Serbs and of all the other minorities in the new State of Kosovo” (L’Osservatore Romano, 16th December 2007).

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SEYCHELLES

SEYCHELLES

AREA 455 kmq POPULATION 84,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Article 21 of the 1993 Constitution guarantees full religious freedom, and goes into great detail in this matter. Despite of this fact, in 2006 the government decided to introduce an amendment to the law regulating communications preventing religious denominations and political groups from obtaining radio licences. In general, they are not prevented from broadcasting their programmes on services provided by other national radio stations. The government allows all religious organisations to take turns broadcasting their own reports. Most of the population professes the Christian religion, mainly Catholic. There is also a small Muslim community. Relations between the various groups are peaceful and helped by a government that promotes dialogue. Sources Afrobarometer Surveys Political Resources on the Net

Affiliated Christians 96.9% Others 3.1%

Baptized Catholics 71,000

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SIERRA LEONE

AREA 71,740 kmq POPULATION 5,694,000 REFUGEES 8,795 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 45.9% Ethnoreligionists 40.4% Affiliated Christians 11.5% Others 2.2%

Baptized Catholics 264,000

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SIERRA LEONE

The 1991 Constitution guarantees religious freedom and its free practice in detail in Article 24. Religious groups are not required to register. Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter are recognised, as are Islamic ones such as the anniversary of Mohammed’s birth. Both Christian and Muslim religious instruction is permitted in schools. The Catholic Church runs 56 kindergartens, with 5,858 children; 554 primary schools, attended by 112,579 pupils; 54 secondary schools, with 31,060 students, plus 4 hospitals and 7 dispensaries (Fides, 7th September 2007). Relations between the various denominations are generally good, although there have been episodes of intolerance between Muslims (of which there are a large number in the North of the country) and Christians (present above all in the South), usually linked to passing events. Foreign missionaries are allowed but must pay an annual tax, just like all other foreign residents; this was increased in 2005 from about US$ 3 to about US$ 70.

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SINGAPORE

SINGAPORE

AREA 639 kmq POPULATION 4,483,000 REFUGEES 10 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Traditional chinese religions 42.7% Muslims 18.4% Buddhists 14.3% Affiliated Christians 12.3% Hindus 5.1% Non religious 4.7% Others 2.3%

Baptized Catholics 174,000

Article 15 of Singapore’s 1963 Constitution (amended in 1993 and 1994) explicitly protects freedom of religion, acknowledging that every person has the right to profess, practice and propagate his or her religion as long as it does not involve any act contrary to public order, health or morality. All religious groups must be registered with the authorities and religious education cannot be taught in state schools. Foreign missionaries are allowed, but the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act prohibits religious groups from engaging in political activities. The law also bans incitement against the government and subversive activities. The authorities can order an end of such activities and anyone who breaks the law can be punished with up to two years in prison and a fine. Under the Compulsory Education Act of 2000 all students must attend state schools. Madrassas (Islamic schools) are placed on par with their public counterparts but starting in 2008 they must meet minimum standards established by the government. Otherwise students will have to transfer to another madrassa or to a state school. The only groups to suffer discrimination are the Jehovah’s Witness (banned since 1972) and Rev Moon’s Unification Church (banned since 1982). Despite the ban, Jehovah’s Witnesses have not been arrested; instead have been able to meet in private homes, which the government de facto tolerates. But anyone refusing to perform their military service can land in jail for up to 15 months, a sentence that can be extended by an additional 24 months if the offender refuses a second time. Jehovah’s Witnesses or any group associated with them, like the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society or the International Bible Students Association, are not allowed to distribute their material. In August 2006 for example, a man was arrested for trying to import Jehovah’s Witnesses material into Singapore. The material was seized and he was ordered to pay a fine of US$ 3,846.

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SLOVAKIA

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AREA 49,012 kmq POPULATION 5,441,000 REFUGEES 279 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 85.6% Non religious 14.3% Others 0.1%

Baptized Catholics 4,005,000

SLOVAKIA

The Slovak Constitution of 1992 establishes the State’s non-denominational character in Article 1, and in Article 24 states the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religious belief. This same article also acknowledges the right to profess freely one’s religious belief, the right to not profess any religious belief, and the right to change one’s religion. Interreligious relations are generally good, although it must be said that there is an attitude of anti-semitism among certain sections of the population. Registration is advised but not compulsory for religious groups; however, some groups are excluded, either by their own free choice or due to government decisions, including quite large groups such as Hare Krishna, Scientology and the Presbyterians. Whatever religion they may belong to, foreign missionaries are not required to register; the most numerous groups in this country are the Catholics, the Lutherans and the Methodists. According to statistics the number of those practising a religion has risen in a staggering manner since the fall of the communist regime. At the end of 2006 there were sixteen registered groups. In May 2007 an amendment to the law regulating the registration of religious groups was passed and put into force, thereby increasing the necessary requirements for obtaining this imprimatur. On the other hand, on 12th June 2007 the government also decided to increase by 7 percent the state contributions to the clergy of the registered religious groups. Some groups, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons, refused to accept state subsidies, preferring to maintain their independence. During 2007 two religious groups, the Mormons and the Baha’i, obtained registration. On 10th February 2006 the Catholic news agency ZENIT reported the imminent signing of a treaty between the Slovak Republic and the Holy See concerning the right to conscientious objection for doctors and health workers regarding abortion and all the most important bioethical issues. According to this treaty, a Catholic doctor would have the right to refuse to perform abortions, euthanasia, artificial insemination, as well as experiments on embryos or embryonic stem cells. As early as 15th December 2005 a European Union report signed by a

SLOVAKIA

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group of experts, had emphasised how the implementation of such a draft treaty would have a negative effect on certain “fundamental rights” such as abortion and ‘marriage’ between homosexuals, and therefore expressed a negative opinion as far as this the signing of this treaty was concerned. The practical consequence of this issue was a government crisis in 2006; as reported in an article by Mark Adams and Bradford Short for the magazine published by the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute in New York, on 6th February the Democratic Christian Movement (KDH), one of the parties forming the coalition government, refused to vote with the majority, which followed Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda’s decision not to ask parliament to vote on ratification of the treaty with the Vatican. The government is very active as far as the prevention of anti-semitism is concerned, as well as with initiatives for commemorating the Shoah. In January the Minister for Education organised an international conference in Bratislava on “Teaching and Remembering the Holocaust” in cooperation with the International School of the Holocaust and with the Yad Vashem Museum, both in Jerusalem, with the Council of Europe and with the Holocaust Documentation Centre. In the course of 2007, an agreement was reached between the government and the Slovak Jewish community regarding the restitution of property confiscated during the 1940s.

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SLOVENIA

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AREA 20,266 kmq POPULATION 2,011,000 REFUGEES 263 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 92.1% Non religious 7.8% Others 0.1%

Baptized Catholics 1,602,000

SLOVENIA

In Article 7, the Slovenian Constitution of 1991 decrees the separation between the state and the religious communities, to whom in Article 41 it guarantees full religious freedom. Coexistence between the various religions is usually serene, with the exception of a few conflicts between the Catholic Church and the foreign missionaries of certain Protestant groups, which the Church considers to be excessively zealous and aggressive in their proselytising activities. Registration is not compulsory for religious groups, but those wishing to do so may register with the Government Office for the Religious Communities, in order to acquire legal status. In 2006 some 41 groups had officially registered and four cases were pending. On 3rd March 2007 a new law on religious freedom came into force, which closely mirrors that of 1976. The Law clarifies the State’s respect for the right to religious freedom, the legal status and the rights of the various different faiths and of their members, the procedures to be followed for the registration of these groups, the opportunities available to registered groups and the responsibilities of the Government Office for the Religious Communities. At the request of the National Council, however, the new law has been submitted to the scrutiny of the Slovenian Constitutional Court. According to this new legislation, those denominations wishing to register must meet two fundamental criteria: they must have at least one hundred members and be able to show that they have been active in the country for at least ten years. Religious groups already registered under the previous law, are automatically recognized by the new one. For the moment there have been no instances of the restitution to Jewish citizens of properties confiscated or nationalised during and after World War II. In 2006 the Justice Ministry’s Department for Restitution and National Reconciliation invited bids for a contract to draw up an inventory of all these properties; the contract was won by the Institute of Contemporary History and the research is still ongoing. In October 2006, the Justice Ministry published its own report on this issue, and a third report, sponsored by the World Jewish Restitution Organization, has not yet been completed.

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SOLOMON ISLANDS

SOLOMON ISLANDS

AREA 28,896 kmq POPULATION 467,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Article 11 of the 1978 Constitution fully acknowledges religious freedom in all its aspects and this is also respected by the laws and by the authorities. Religious groups must register, but there are no reports of registrations being denied. The state subsidises private schools that are effectively run exclusively by the 5 main Christian groups: Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Evangelical and Adventist, although other denominations are not forbidden from having schools. Towards the end of the Nineties, and at the beginning of the new century, there were clashes and violent episodes between different religious groups caused by ethnic and political reasons that resulted in a full civil war with hundreds killed and tens of thousands of refugees. Tension still continued in recent times although without violence. In August 2007, Harold Keke, leader of an armed group and already with two life sentences for the murders of the Catholic priest Father Augustine Geve (a Member of Parliament and Minister for Youth and Sport) in August 2002, and of the Anglican minister Nathaniel Sado in February 2003, was found not guilty of a number of other murders.

Affiliated Christians 95.7% Ethnoreligionists 3.1% Others 1.2%

Baptized Catholics 99,000

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SOMALIA

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AREA 637,657 kmq POPULATION 7,815,000 REFUGEES 901 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 1,000,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 98.3% Affiliated Christians 1.4% Others 0.3%

Baptized Catholics 100

SOMALIA

For years the exercise of religious freedom has depended on the balance of the war that is afflicting this country and that has at times seen extremist Islamic forces prevailing and at others more moderate elements. Thus, President Abdullahi Yusuf’s transitional federal government, the result of the agreements signed in Arta in 2000 and supported by the United Nations, which was appointed in October 2004 and established in 2005, was unable to assert control. In June 2006 the Union of Islamic Courts seized power in Mogadishu and took control over the south of the country. In the months that followed there were various attempts at an agreement between the Courts and the transitional Somali government, but with no lasting results. During their rule, the Courts imposed an extremist interpretation of the Shari‘a (Islamic law), declaring Islam as the only religion permitted and imposing a series of prohibitions such as bans on football, music, films, closing all the cinemas, banning people from watching television in public places, from singing and dancing, even at weddings, just as the Taliban had done in Afghanistan in 1996. Indeed, on 17th October 2006, the Islamic Courts even sentenced to death eight members of Somalia’s National Commission for Music, a body affiliated to UNESCO, for having played music considered as forbidden by the Koran. At the time the “guilty” parties managed to flee to Kenya. In December 2006, the UN Security Council approved a resolution to send African UN blue helmets to Somalia. In the meantime the Ethiopian Army entered the country, officially in order to support the federal transitional government and as a preventive defence measure against the Somali threat. Ethiopia, the only majority Christian and pro-Western country in the area, is also supported by the United States, which fears the establishment in Somalia of an extremist Islamic government linked to Al Qaeda. On 25th December Ethiopian planes bombed the Baledogle military air base as well as the international airport in Mogadishu, and on 28th December Ethiopian soldiers entered Mogadishu together with the transitional government troops, while the Islamic militants fled. In the meantime, Sheik Hamed al-Ali, leader of the Islamic Courts and former secretary of the Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait, declared jihad (holy war) on the internet “against the Ethiopian invaders”,

SOMALIA

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accusing them of having attacked an Islamic country and calling on “all Muslims to join the war to defend Somalia”. The Islamic militias then embarked on an endless guerrilla campaign, similar to the one in Iraq. Subsequently they began to re-conquer the territory, thanks in part to support from Eritrea. Somalia has become increasingly chaotic, with one million refugees deprived of any aid – out of 9 million inhabitants (data provided by the UN High Commission for Refugees) – a catastrophic economy and non-existent services. Meanwhile, other African countries did not send the troops requested by the United Nations (with the exception of a contingent from Uganda), and the Ethiopian military presence has been increasingly criticised on the international stage. The Islamic Courts have progressively regained control over the territory and in December 2007 Mogadishu was in a state of daily warfare. In November at least 200 thousand people fled the city, which had no water, food, medicine or electricity, while the Somali parliament had for some time already been meeting in the safer city of Baidoa, 250 kilometres away. In November, Davide Bernocchi, managing director of Caritas Somalia, launched an appeal: “We are unable to help all those in need. The security situation is appalling and the political one a stalemate. And then there are the ‘jackals’, those for whom the refugees are a profitable source of business; people linked to the aid business. We need to open a safe humanitarian corridor so as to get food to those who need it.” In any case, both the Islamic Courts and the transitional government have only ever controlled the Mogadishu area and the south of the country. Somaliland in the north has, for its part, never acknowledged the authority of the central government and is trying to obtain recognition as an independent country. The “Republic of Somaliland” and the semi-autonomous region of Puntland have adopted Islam as the State religion, partly applying the Shari‘a and carefully controlling all religious activities. Here the Somalis are only permitted to practise Islam and proselytising by other religions is forbidden. Christian social organisations are allowed to operate without interference, but on condition that they do not undertake any proselytising activities. On 11th May 2007 Islamic websites announced that two aid workers had been kidnapped in Puntland because they had attempted Christian proselytising. During its time in power, the transitional federal government adopted a Charter that acknowledges Islam as the national religion but also affirms the equality of all citizens without distinction based on race, gender or religion. The Charter also refers to the old Somali Constitution of 1960, which specifically recognised religious freedom. Throughout the country however, conversions from Islam to other religions, although formally allowed, are in practice socially unacceptable. Anyone suspected of having recanted Islam is likely to be threatened or even killed.

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Catholics For years now the churches have been destroyed and the few remaining Catholics meet and celebrate Mass in private homes with barred windows so as not to risk their lives. There are a number of nuns living in Mogadishu who work at the SOS Kinderdorf International Hospital, run by the German group SOS Children. On Sunday 17th September 2006, in Mogadishu, the Italian nun Sister Leonella (Rosa) Sgorbati of the Missionaries of Consolation was killed, together with a bodyguard, outside this hospital. Two men in a car had been waiting for her outside the hospital where she worked as a nurse. When she arrived they got out of their car and shot her at least five times at point-blank range. A hospital guard tried to protect her with his body, but the shots went straight through him. The people living in the district, who have deep affection for the SOS Children (the only hospital still working in the country) and the nuns who work there, organised the search for the murderers. One of the men was immediately found and arrested. The Islamic authorities immediately condemned this murder and even Sheik Sharif Shek Ahmed, leader of the Islamic Courts, described it as an “a despicable act”, “contrary to Islam and to religion” (Corriere della Sera, 18th September 2006). Hundreds of people quickly gathered outside the hospital to ask that it should not be closed and to mourn for Sister Leonella. But the very disapproval of ordinary people and that of the authorities proves how widespread extremist violence is, ready to attack even those for whom there is deep affection just because they are Christians. It seems that the assassins were members of

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SOMALIA

In May 2007, in Mogadishu, the transitional government banned women from wearing the Islamic veil in public. According to the Reuters agency, security forces had been ordered to stop all women wearing the veil, confiscate their veils and burn them. The chief of police, Ali Nur, explained that many suicide bombings and murders had been carried out against the authorities by men disguised as women and unidentifiable precisely because of the Islamic veil. This ruling led to protests among Muslims, especially since it was enforced by male police officers. In the beginning there were scenes of veiled women fleeing and being chased by police. This measure also has a symbolic significance however, because the Islamic Courts had forced women to wear the veil, whereas before then, Somali women usually only covered their heads. Following the many protests, the ban was revoked. During its rule in Mogadishu, the transitional government has, on numerous occasions, suspended the activities of various independent radio stations, such as Shabelle Media Network and HornAfrik, on the grounds that that their programmes encouraged violence.

SOMALIA

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the Al Shabah group (“Youth”), the most violent and fanatical group, inspired by the Taliban and thought to be linked to Al Qaeda. This group is led by Adan Hashi Farah, known as Aeru, who trained in Afghanistan under Osama Bin Laden. He is the man who led the destruction of the Italian cemetery in Mogadishu in January 2005, desecrating the graves and dispersing the remains of those buried there. The cemetery has been replaced with a mosque, an Islamic centre and training camp for kamikaze militiamen. This was the last of a series of violent attacks on foreign aid workers, among them the murder of an Italian woman, Annalena Tonelli in 2003. On 7th September 2006, the Islamic militia shot twenty-two year-old Ali Mustaf Maka’il for the “crime” of having converted from Islam to Christianity and having refused to chant Koranic verses with them.

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SOUTH AFRICA

Christians In May 2006 the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), ordered the Evangelical Christian Good News Community radio station to close down because it was not broadcasting in the Zulu language – the most widely spoken language in the KwaZulu-Natal province, where the radio station has its headquarters. The broadcasters protested that this radio station had 100,000 listeners and addressed issues of general interest, not only local ones, adding that this decision had damaged their missionary work. Witchcraft There are frequent reports of violent attacks on, and murders of, those believed to be practising witchcraft. In March 2006 a group of youths burnt down the home of an elderly woman thought to be a witch. In September 2006 a family of three was burned to death in the province of Limpopo for reasons the police believe were linked to accusations of witchcraft. In the

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AREA 1,221,037 kmq POPULATION 47,390,000 REFUGEES 36,736 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 83.1% Ethnoreligionists 8.4% Muslims 2.4% Hindus 2.4% Others 3.7%

Baptized Catholics 3,234,000

SOUTH AFRICA

Article 15 of the 1997 Constitution guarantees for the exercise of religious freedom. The state respects this and does not discriminate against any religion. Religious instruction is permitted in schools but is not compulsory. Problems linked to religion arise due to secondary issues and are also connected with the violence that is widespread in this country. For example, on 5th March 2007, the Daily News reported that an employer in Durban had asked two followers of the Baptist Church of Nazareth to shave off their beards. The men refused. The group’s spokesman, the Reverend Harry Mthwetwa, explained that “this is one of our principles. Believers would prefer to die rather than shave off their beards”. Should the employer insist, they may ask the courts for protection, but they would have to prove that this is truly an important principle of their religion. In November 2006, parliament approved a law allowing marriage between two people of the same gender. Christian groups who had opposed this law were critical. The Christian Action Network declared that in this manner the entire population is obliged to accept the moral principles of the radical homosexual minority and “the masses [will] become confused”.

SOUTH AFRICA

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Eastern Cape Province, a woman was stoned to death by an angry crowd who thought she was a witch. In November 2006 the court in Pietermaritzberg sentenced a man to life imprisonment for having killed five people whom he believed to have bewitched a relative of his.

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SPAIN

Possible revision of Concordat The government of José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is continuing to push the proposal of abolishing all forms of payment or

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AREA 505,992 kmq POPULATION 44,100,000 REFUGEES 5,147 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 93.6% Non religious 5.7% Others 0.7%

Baptized Catholics 41,530,000

SPAIN

Current Legislation The Constitution of 1978 rules that for Spaniards equality before the law is guaranteed, with no discrimination based on birth, race, gender, religion, opinions or any other situation or personal circumstances, specifying that individuals and communities are guaranteed ideological and religious freedom as well as freedom to worship, with no restrictions except those necessary for maintaining public order, in compliance with the law. Article 16 also states that no denomination has the character of a State religion, although “public administrations will take into account the religious beliefs that are widespread in Spanish society, and will consequently establish relations of cooperation with the Catholic Church and other denominations”. Article 27 further establishes that “the public authorities guarantee parents the right to provide their children with religious and moral instruction in conformity with their beliefs”. Religious instruction, provided by teachers chosen by the ecclesiastical organisations, is optional. A law on religious liberty, the General Act of 1980, regulates the legal status of those confessional bodies recognised and entered on the register of religious communities. Relations with the Catholic Church are regulated by a Concordat and by four accords, signed between 1976 and 1979, covering various matters. However, the agreement with the Federation of Evangelical Churches of Spain (FEREDE), with the Federation of the Jewish Communities of Spain and with the Spanish Islamic Commission dates only from 1992. But the conflicts and divergences between the two most representative Islamic organisations (the Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Organisations and the Spanish Union of Islamic Communities) remain unresolved, which also greatly hinders the signing of the agreement by other communities. Taxpayers are permitted to give the Churches a part of personal tax revenues (0.7 percent), while property and objects of worship are exempt from taxation.

SPAIN

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subsidies for priests or other religious personnel employed by the public administration, such as chaplains, teachers of the Catholic religion and others. For these activities and for the maintenance of the Church’s architectural patrimony, the Spanish State currently spends 5 billion Euros a year. This would abolish an agreement, renewed in 2006, between the same administration and the Spanish Catholic Episcopal Conference regulating the financing of the Church, which in turn revoked the Church’s commitment to self-financing which it adopted in 1979. With this new agreement, the voluntary contributions provided by individual taxpayers would be raised from 0.52 percent to 0.7 percent, in return for the bishops giving up VAT exemption and a guaranteed minimum on the amount received from the State, should these voluntary contributions not meet expectations. This agreement could be extended to include the Protestant community represented by FEREDE and has also been welcomed by the committee representing the Muslims. Proposed Law in Catalonia At a local level, the government of Catalonia has drawn up a law on places of worship, which will prevent the celebration of any religious rite whatsoever without permission, giving each municipality the power to grant licences to the churches. Should this law actually be passed, even a prayer meeting will need a special licence, which may be granted or not, at the unchallengeable discretion of the local authorities. According to the leadership of the Generalitat (the Catalonian regional government) this proposal has arisen from the need to restrict the proliferation of improvised mosques and the temples of other minor denominations. Its application however, as plainly stated by the Catalan parliamentary deputy Gloria Renom, “strikes directly at the Catholic Church”, because in reality “it will be impossible to celebrate Mass or meet to discuss religion without a permit from the municipality, whether in the smallest chapel or the largest cathedral”. Places of worship in hospitals, sanatoriums, prisons and locations that are part of the country’s artistic or architectural heritage will be able to obtain exemption from the need to have a permit. This bill, introduced by the Vice-President of the autonomous Catalan government, Josep Lluis Carod Rovina, has also caused concern among the bishops. Already in November 2007 Bishop Joan-Enric Vives Sicilia of the diocese of Urgell had expressed the concern shared by the Catalan bishops at this proposed measure “since it involves the exercise of a fundamental right, namely the right to religious liberty”. The bishops also pointed out that “they are proposing to use one law to regulate realities that differ greatly, such as churches, synagogues and mosques”. In Catalonia there are in fact 13 different religions with 3,500 places of worship, of which 2,500 are Catholic ones.

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Tensions between the government and the Catholic Church Starting with the legalisation of homosexual ‘marriage’ in 2005, which prompted a sharp reaction from the Catholic episcopate, tensions between the government and the Catholic Church show no sign of diminishing. By the end of 2006 the differences between the two sides on the mixed Church/State Commission over the Royal Decrees governing the teaching of the Catholic religion in schools and the working conditions for the teachers providing this had still not been resolved. In the context of the national educational system, the challenge has also involved the symbols of Christianity, and in particular the crucifix. From Valladolid to Palencia, there have been numerous attempts to remove crucifixes from the walls of classrooms, in an attempt to exclude religion from public life. At the beginning of 2007, there was also conflict over a request by the data protection agency, which is seeking to oblige all parishes to delete from their parish registers the names and baptismal details of those people who now claim to have abandoned Catholicism. The tensions between the Socialist government and the Catholic Church were particularly in evidence at the beginning of 2008 in the months leading up to the general elections in March, with savage attacks against the Catholic Church by some leading figures in the Socialist party. The government appears to assume that religion should

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SPAIN

Education in citizenship and Human rights Law Among the proposed laws being challenged by the various religious faiths, first place goes to the “proposed education in citizenship and human rights”, promulgated in June 2007, which envisages the introduction of this subject in the school curriculum of some autonomous communities, beginning in the 2008-2009 school year. This course seems to assume that the state can interfere in the moral education of school pupils, ignores the religious traditions, the existence of God and the importance of human life as fundamental factors in the ethical and moral outlook of a great many citizens and appears on all the evidence to discriminate against the teaching of religion. Christian Protestants, through the Consejo General de Enseñanza Religiosa Evangélica (CGERE) have also publicly opposed this project, expressing the idea that conscientious objection should be promoted, and likewise through the Alianza Evangélica Española (AEE), which has pointed out the indoctrinating characteristics of some of the content of this new school subject, which appears to take the form of a new “secular catechism”, imposed in a dogmatic manner. By contrast, the Muslim Federación Española de Entidades Religiosas Islámicas (FEERI) has approved the project and was also satisfied with the contents of this programme on issues related to the Islamic religion.

SPAIN

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be confined to the churches and concerns only peoples’ private lives, whereas the Catholic Church regards the individual’s right to religious freedom as central, a right expressed in his personal and social life and which necessarily impinges on every area of existence, such as marriage, the family, the social services, etc. The government is planning to amend the existing law on religious freedom and so it will be necessary to wait and see before passing judgment. Islam Amidst the various signs of the government’s openness with regard to Islam, it is worth noting the state-financed publication of the first educational manual on Islam, for use by primary school children during the 2006/07 school year. As far as the government authorities is concerned, the leaders of the Islamic communities have become far more demanding, although in a survey commissioned by the interior ministry and conducted by the polling agency Metroscopia, that was published on 23rd November 2006, some 83 percent of Muslims answered that they had not encountered any obstacles in practising their religion, while just 13 percent answered that they had. In spite of this, among the expectations expressed on 10th December 2006 by 50 imams belonging to the Islamic Council of Catalonia, was that public land should be made available to them for building mosques and the request for the change of destination and use of Christian holy places. This has also been the goal of a long campaign started by Abdusalam Mansur Escudero, the president of the Spanish Islamic Junta, who is demanding the right to use the Catholic Cathedral of Cordoba as a place of worship open to Muslims also. Far from encouraging interreligious dialogue, these provocations have, if anything, had the opposite effect. Among the various incidents of violence against Muslims, recorded between 2006 and 2007, one of the most significant was the damage inflicted on the mosque in Cordoba in the Parco Colon, which was covered with swastikas and anti-Islamic slogans on 19th November 2006. The new religious movements In an attempt to obtain legal status as a religion, the Church of Scientology started legal proceedings at the Audiencia nacional, which on 11th October 2007 decided that the presence of a registry of religious denominations does not authorise the State to monitor the legitimacy of the beliefs professed. Instead, for purposes of registration, the Public Administration must verify solely that the statutes of the denominational organisation are in compliance with Article 3 of the Ley Organica de Libertad Religiosa, which lays down the limitations to the exercise of religious liberty (Article 3.1: respect for the rights of others and for public order; Article 3.2: activities with objectives that are other than those of religion and worship).

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SPAIN

Sources La Junta Islámica pide a Zapatero que la catedral de Córdoba se abra al culto musulmán, LibertadDigital.es, 16th February 2006 John Ward Peterson, A Church-State Schism, Washington Post, 1st March 2006 Europa/Spagna – Non ammettere l’esistenza obiettiva della verità e del bene, ignorare l’esistenza di Dio e la dimensione trascendente, imporre l’ideologia di genere: alcuni motivi per respingere la materia di “Educazione per la Cittadinanza” che si vuole imporre nelle scuole, Fides, 23rd January 2007 Father John Flynn, Religious symbols in the cross hairs. Hostility to signs of Christianity mounts, ZENIT, 12th March 2007 Denuncian intento de adoctrinar a menores andaluces en homosexualidad y “pluralismo moral”, ACI-Prensa, 22nd July 2007 FEF reitera al Gobierno español la legalidad de la objeción de conciencia frente a EpC, ACI-Prensa, 8th August 2007 Marta Lago, Il monopolio delle idee e la libertà religiosa in Spagna, L’Osservatore Romano, 20th November 2007 Adriano Petrucci, Spagna/ PSOE ipotizza di ridurre finanziamenti a Chiesa, ApCom, 5th February 2008

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SRI LANKA

SRI LANKA

AREA 65,610 kmq POPULATION 20,705,000 REFUGEES 182 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 460,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Buddhists 68.4% Hindus 11.3% Affiliated Christians 9.4% Muslims 9% Others 1.9%

Baptized Catholics 1,381,000

Legislation The security situation deteriorated progressively in 2006 and 2007 as civil strife went from bad to worse in the north and the east. Tensions and clashes between the separatists of the Tamil Tigers (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, LTTE) and government security forces reached a peak when the government formally withdrew from the 2002 ceasefire and the number of attacks and suicide bombs against civilians in the south and the capital rose. Since 1983 70,000 people have died in the civil war; 5,000 in 2007 alone. The dramatic political situation has stopped two anti-conversion bills tabled in 2004, preventing them from being debated in parliament, but it did not cause them to be withdrawn. Sri Lanka’s Constitution accords Buddhism the “foremost place” in the country, but assures all faiths the right to freedom of religion and worship. In practice though, the country’s Christian minority has especially been targeted in attacks by Buddhist fundamentalists and nationalists. In the last two years in fact the Christian community has been attacked several times. At the same time the local Catholic Church continues to lead the way in denouncing the many human rights violations perpetrated by both sides in the civil war, whilst actively promoting a diplomatic solution to the 25-year-old conflict. Current legislation on religious freedom For the moment, it seems, the two anti-conversion bills before parliament have been shelved, but no one should still keep an eye on the matter. The aim of both draft laws is to contain alleged Christian “proselytism” by punishing both those who convert and anyone who “facilitates” their conversion. After getting cabinet approval, the “Act for the Protection of Religious Freedom” was published in the Government Gazette but is still awaiting a first reading in parliament. According to its provisions, anyone found guilty of trying to “convert or help to convert, either directly or otherwise, any person from one religion to another” can get up to seven years in prison and a large fine. The proposed legislation would even set up separate Buddhist courts known as Sanghadhikarana presided by Buddhist

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monks with the power to rule on petitions forwarded by villagers without going through the police or state courts. Unfortunately, the bill on the Prohibition of Forcible Conversion of Religion, which was tabled in July 2004 by the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), a nationalist party of Buddhist monks allied with the government, has instead inched its way forward. Under its terms any would-be convert would have to inform local authorities of his or her decision within a given period of time; furthermore, it states that “No person shall convert or attempt to convert […] any person from one religion to another by force […] or any fraudulent means.” Anyone breaking the law could be subject to five years in jail and a fine of up to US$ 1,500. The penalty could rise to seven years and US$ 5,000 if converts belong to the Schedule 1 class, that is people deemed most at risk for “forced conversions” like women, children, prison inmates, the physically and mentally disabled, students, hospital and clinic patients, refugees, members of the armed forces or the police. The Bill on the Prohibition of Forcible Conversion of Religion received partial approval after amendments were introduced in response to a decision by the Supreme Court in August 2004 to strike down two articles it found in violation of Article 10 of the Constitution which ensures Sri Lankans freedom of religion and the right to the religion or creed of their choice. In April 2006 the speaker of Sri Lanka’s parliament set up a Standing Committee (legislative) of 19 MPs to examine the proposed amendments to the text of the bill. Under the country’s parliamentary rules this is the last stage before the bill goes before the house for a final reading and vote. Many Christian analysts have pointed out that in the event that the draft law is approved, it would be in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Other experts have noted that parliament can block the proposed law, but only in a secret vote; otherwise, no MP will have the courage to go against it. Bishop Joseph Vianney Fernando of Kandy, the chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Sri Lanka, explained why the country finds itself in this tight spot, explaining that “fundamentalist Christian groups over the past 20 years have exploited conditions of poverty and people’s needs to aggressively convert them. Such behaviour has greatly upset the Buddhist majority but has also been cause for concern for the Church itself since Catholics have been the most affected by it.” In its actions, Sri Lanka’s Bishops’ Conference has acted in a decisive and clear manner to stop the draft law, but also to check the fundamentalist Christian fringe groups, expressing its condemnation of all conversions obtained by “unethical” means. In their campaign against the anti-conversion bill, Catholics are working with other Christian groups, but also with Muslims, Hindus and some Buddhist leaders. Even Benedict XVI is concerned at the anti-conversion law, Bishop Joseph Vianney Fernando told the AsiaNews Agency.

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The situation of Christians In the eyes of Buddhist nationalists, Christians are guilty of spoiling the “country’s centuries-old harmony”. In attacking Christians they make no distinction between Catholics, Protestants or Evangelicals. Hindus and Muslims are not subject to violence because they have no tradition of proselytism in Sri Lanka, another of the “offences” attributed to Christians. In reality the intransigent positions held by Buddhist monks are due to the gradual decline of Buddhism in the countryside and the growth of Christian denominations. Some deaths and disappearances of religious people should be set in the context of the ongoing civil war, which is claiming innocent victims among the entire population. In 2006 there was an escalation in the number of “disappearances”, which is a euphemism for extrajudicial executions. About 1,100 such cases have been recorded in the last two years alone, many in Jaffna, a town isolated from the rest of the country ever since the government shut down Highway A9 in 2006. Among the victims were a Catholic priest, 35-year-old Fr Nihal Jim Brown, and his assistant, Wenceslaus Vinces Vimalathas, a father of five. They were last seen on August 20, 2006 on a motorcycle at the Allaipiddy checkpoint, in an area under army control, at a time when security forces were engaged in clashes with LTTE guerrillas. The Apostolic Nuncio to Sri Lanka, Mgr Mario Zenari, has followed the case personally from the start. “Alas, to date, there is no trace of Fr Jim Brown,” he told AsiaNews in August 2007. Meanwhile, the government has made only “cosmetic” effort to find him. Appeals by the Church and local NGOs have fallen on deaf ears and the special Commission set up by the President to examine 15 cases of serious human rights violations (including Father Brown’s) with the assistance of a panel of international experts only started to look into one or two cases in mid-2007. Since the start, the investigations have proceeded very slowly. The international experts on the Commission have criticised its actions, saying that they did “not meet international norms,” citing delays and a “serious conflict of interest” arising from the involvement of the Attorney General’s Office in the commission’s work.” According to Human Rights Watch the Commission just seems “an effort to stave off domestic and international criticism rather than a sincere attempt to promote accountability.” The government’s inability to bring an end to these “disappearances” comes as no surprise, considering that the security forces themselves and paramilitary groups, not to mention the Tigers, are involved in many of these cases, which is what might have happened to Fr Jim Brown and Vimalathas. Priests in Jaffna have reported that the commanding officer of the Naval Camp at Allaipiddy, the missing priest’s first and last parish, had accused him of being an LTTE supporter and had threatened him.

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For the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) Sri Lanka ranks second to none, except for Iraq, in terms of disappearances. And Amnesty International has also made an appeal on behalf of Father Jim Brown and his assistant. According to this human rights organisation the fate of both men appears to fit in with a “pattern of ‘disappearances’ by state agents.” Government troops have also been accused of attacking the church of Our Lady of Victory in Pesalai, in the northern district of Mannar. On 17th June 2006, they opened fire on hundreds of civilians, Christians and Hindus, who were seeking refuge from clashes underway outside the place of worship. On 26th September 2007 Fr Nicholaspilai Packiyaranjith was killed when a mine exploded under his car as he was making his way with food and other necessities to the refugee camp and an orphanage in Vidathalvu. Born in Jaffna, the 40-year-old priest worked as the coordinator for the Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS) in Mannar district. No one claimed responsibility for the attack but army and rebel sources each blamed the other. After this tragic episode, 22 organisations, including Caritas in Kandy, the National Peace Council and the Christian Alliance for Social Action, signed a letter asking “the government of Sri Lanka, the LTTE and all armed participants, to respect international humanitarian law and ensure the security of religious leaders and humanitarian workers so that they are able to carry out their crucial work of assisting and protecting people affected by the conflict.” Fr Packiyaranjith, better known as Father Ranjith, was the fourth religious person to be killed or disappear since August 2006 as well as the 58th person to join the long and sad list of humanitarian workers killed or disappeared since January 2006. The civil strife in the north of the country, the only part of the country still in rebel hands after Tamil Tigers lost their stronghold in the east of the island, imposes many limits on freedom of religion. Still there was some good news in the summer of 2007. The government kept its word, after appeals by local Church representatives, and reopened the main road to Madhu on 10th August. This enabled pilgrims to travel more easily and safely to the famous Marian shrine for the 15th August celebrations. A year earlier the authorities had closed down the same road as the conflict between army and Tamil rebels escalated. The church of Our Lady of Madhu is located some 220 kilometres north of the capital in territory held by Tamil Tiger who have hitherto respected the pilgrims. In July security forces and Tamil Tigers agreed to a “Zone of Peace” around the shrine that would guarantee the safety of the faithful during the main religious celebrations. In Kilinochi, the Defence minister and Tamil Tiger representatives signed statements in which they agreed to avoid any action in the area. But both sides have failed to respect the demilitarised zone around the shrine and the year ended with renewed fighting.

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Fr Devarajha Sandanampillai, the parish priest at St Sebastian Church in Mannar, is now hoping that “more pilgrims will come with the re-opening of the Madhu Road” (the shortest route to the shrine). For the Feast Day of the Assumption about 25,000 pilgrims came to the shrine. Mgr Harold Anthony Perera, bishop of Galle, who was present, told AsiaNews that “there was tension since the shelling from nearby areas, Pandivirichchanai and Mullikkulam, could be heard. I could hear over the shelling when both Sinhalese and Tamil pilgrims started crying, calling on Our Lady of Madhu for peace, as well as when the procession went around the shrine and during the final blessing.” But the threats and violence are not a consequence of war alone; they are also motivated by religion. For instance, in mid-October 2007 the Catholic community (around 300 families) of Rosa Mystica Church in Kotugoda Parish in Crooswatta, north of Colombo, was unable to attend Mass and catechism for fear of violence by Buddhist monks and extremists. Their church was begun in 2003 and was supposed to start its last building phase in February 2007. As the Tamilnet news website reported, on September 28, as work began on the roof, Uddammita, the head monk of a nearby Buddhist temple, along with other extremists, threatened the episcopal vicar that “if building does not stop by tomorrow, you’ll lose 10 to 15 lives.” The local priest, Fr Susith Silva, went to court where the judge temporarily suspended the church completion, whilst appealing to both sides to settle the dispute amicably. The parish obeyed the injunction but this did not stop the problems. On 6th October, police interrupted the celebration of Mass and ordered the priest conducting the service to stop. Some 301 Catholic families, mostly farmers, live in the area and they cannot afford the taxi fare to travel to the nearest church, located several kilometres away. So they went to court to request permission for Mass, catechism and other religious activities to be held there, expecting the broader issue of church construction to be settled at a later date. But the Buddhist protestors claimed that this would offend the 348 Buddhist families living in the area. In explanation, the Buddhist leader Uddammita said that “most people in the area are Buddhist and they don’t want a church here. Catholics can go to the other two or three churches in the area. We are not going to let them finish the building. If it restarts the whole village is going to rise up.” The pastor of the Godagama Prayer Centre, in Maharagama, a Colombo neighbourhood, has had to cope with the same difficulties. In May 2006 he was threatened by a Buddhist mob led by a local monk who forced him to stop celebrating a religious service. When he went to police to file a complaint about the intimidations he had received, instead of trying to help him the police told him that if local residents did not like them he should stop performing religious services. Despite everything, the Catholic Church continues to play an important role in Sri Lankan society, providing assistance to all those in need, irrespective of their faith.

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Catholic leaders have taken the lead in the campaign against human rights violations and expressed their support for people in the country’s northern region. Caritas Internationalis has provided food, blankets and shelters to displaced people from Batticaloa, on the Jaffna Peninsula, and in the Valuthayam-Mannar area. Time after time various Catholic organisations have called on the parties to the conflict to go back to the negotiating table and on the international community to intervene in favour of an agreement. In the case of Caritas, both the government and the rebels consider it a neutral party and have allowed its humanitarian workers to operate and move around in the conflict zone. Catholics are the only ones to have faithful in both communities (Singhalese and Tamil). Catholic leaders have made several appeals to the Vatican to put pressure on the Sri Lankan authorities to respect human rights and religious freedom – and to “release” Jaffna from its current state as an open prison after land routes were cut by the government. When Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse visited the Vatican on April 20, 2007, the Justice and Peace Commission (JPC) of the diocese of Jaffna sent a letter to the Pope “to inform and draw his attention” to some of the problems that afflicted the country. In it the Commission called for the reopening of Highway A9 “even under the control of an international monitoring team” since it is the only link between Jaffna and the rest of the island and the only way in for humanitarian aid; it also appealed for “observers from the UN Human Rights Commission [to be sent in to] to investigate the many disappearances” that have taken place with no one brought to justice. In 2006 alone some 583 people disappeared. In turn the Pontiff spoke out in public four times between mid-2006 and 2007 to condemn the war between the army and the Tamil rebels, calling instead for a diplomatic solution. In the run-up to the Vatican visit the Sri Lankan government issued a statement that “President Rajapaksa will meet with the Holy Father with the aim of garnering international support for the government’s efforts to resolve the ongoing conflict through a negotiated settlement.” But in spite of the nice words, the president’s Vatican visit left many in Sri Lanka’s Catholic community full of doubts. For them it looked more like an attempt by Rajapakse to gain Vatican support in his fight against Tamil Tiger rebels by getting Vatican authorities to accept the government’s version of the interethnic conflict. Fr Reid Shelton Fernando, chaplain to the Young Christian Workers Movement, noted that if the government’s aim was to bring Benedict XVI up to speed about the situation and show its willingness to bring the conflict to an end, then in addition to Catholic representatives from the ruling majority, it should have included Catholics from non-governmental parties in the delegation that visited the Vatican. Others went so far as to wonder whether the goal was just propaganda-related, asking themselves why no Catholic leader from the Tamil minority was invited.

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SUDAN

SUDAN

AREA 2,505,813 kmq POPULATION 36,362,000 REFUGEES 222,722 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 6,000,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 70.3% Affiliated Christians 16.7% Ethnoreligionists 11.9% Others 1.1%

Baptized Catholics 5,050,000

Government policies and new legislation With the simultaneous approval in 2005 of a Temporary National Constitution and the Constitution for Southern Sudan, there are now two different systems as far as religious freedom is concerned. In the 10 southern regions ruled by the government of Southern Sudan, religious freedom is in principle guaranteed, with citizens of all beliefs considered as equals. In the 16 northern regions, however, all residents are subject to the Koranic law, the Shari‘a, as interpreted by the National Congress Party, the main Muslim political party in the Khartoum-based national unity government. This legislation prescribes the death penalty for the crime of apostasy (abandoning the Islamic faith, whether converting to another religion or not), corporal punishment – even including the amputation of limbs for certain crimes – the ban on Muslim women marrying nonMuslim men, and the prohibition of alcohol and other provisions inspired by Islamic tradition. The only rule that has not yet been applied is the death penalty in cases of apostasy, but Muslims who convert to another religion become the object of social ostracism or are punished on the basis of other accusations, while those considered to be the cause of their apostasy are also prosecuted. Consequently, the missionary organisations in Northern Sudan and the Christian Churches in the country themselves are obliged to restrict themselves to pastoral activities for those who are already Christians and to providing only social services for the population as a whole. There is however no law restricting conversions to Islam. In February 2007 the Head of State, President Omar Hassan alBashir, set up a Commission for the Rights of non-Muslim residents in the capital (Khartoum is in the North and governed by Shari‘a legislation), as established in the Comprehensive Peace Treaty signed in Nairobi with the rebels of the SPLA/M (Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement) in January 2005, and with the political opposition represented by the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) in June of the same year. The object of this commission is to establish the terms under which Shari‘a is applied to non-Muslims in the North.

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However, the commission, which is made up of magistrates and officials from the Ministry of Justice nominated by the head of state, and by representatives of the Christian Churches and the Islamic community, had met only once by the end of the year and had reached no decisions. It had however asked President al-Bashir to release Christian women imprisoned in Khartoum together with their children for having sold alcoholic drinks. Religious bodies are not subject to restrictions as far as buying and selling land is concerned, but a special permit from the state is required to build places of worship. This law is not in fact applied in the South, while in the North it is implemented sporadically. Mosques have been built without legal authorisation in various locations in the North, as have Christian centres of activity in the refugee camps around the capital, but only some of these buildings – all of them Christian – have been demolished. As for those requests actually submitted, those for mosques have been approved after lengthy bureaucratic procedures, whereas those for Christian churches had never been granted in 30 consecutive years, from 1975 to 2005. However, in July 2005 the Ministry for Planning and for Public Property in the state of Khartoum, did grant permits for building three churches on the fringes of the capital. In the North the weekly day of rest is by law a Friday, with employers being required to allow their Christian employees two hours of free time on Sundays for religious worship. However, the many employers who do not respect this requirement have never been found guilty in any of the court proceedings instituted against them. In the South Sunday is established as the weekly day of rest, the Muslim minority has been unable to ensure that their right to two hours off work on a Friday is respected. (U.S. Department of State, 2007 Report on International Religious Freedom). On 30th May 2006, a presidential decree granted a pardon to around one thousand Christian women who had been imprisoned for having produced and sold alcoholic drinks in the city of Khartoum, in contravention of the Shari‘a law. Starting in June, these women were progressively released. A little over a year later, this presidential pardon was renewed for those women who had been arrested for the same offence during the intervening period of time. In August 2007, 847 women were released, together with 158 children who had lived in the cells with their mothers. (Sudan Tribune, 29th June 2006 and 6th August 2007) Educational situation There are no laws outlining the rights of Christian school children in the North or of Muslim school children in the South. The former are obliged to attend school on Sundays, like everyone else, and the latter have to attend school on Fridays. According to the official educational syllabus, all students in the North, including Christians, must follow courses on Islamic religious instruction, from kindergarten to university,

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provided by State-approved teachers. State schools do not provide Christian religious instruction for Christian students. (U.S. Department of State, 2007 Report on International Religious Freedom). Interreligious dialogue Initiatives in interreligious dialogue have been undertaken by the SIRC, the Sudanese Interreligious Council, sponsored by the national unity government and the SCC, the Sudan Council of Churches which includes Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox. Discrimination and pressure applied by the authorities Christians living in the North constantly report instances of social discrimination both in educational opportunities and in the workplace. Muslims in the South report being threatened, especially after the death in August 2005 of Vice-President John Garang, previously the former rebel leader, who came from this region. In spite of the expectations of the Sudanese churches in the South, none of the Church properties confiscated by past Sudanese governments have been returned to their legitimate owners by the government of Southern Sudan. In the North the national unity government and the local authorities have implemented policies that consist of putting pressure on the Churches to abandon their institutions in the heart of the capital – which date back to the colonial period – and denying permission to build on land already owned by the churches, while at the same time offering to buy this land, which would thus be a source of very lucrative property speculation for the state authorities and for local companies. The security and intelligence agencies exercise regular surveillance over religious activities, often infiltrating their own agents among the faithful in the churches and mosques. Violence In May 2006, security and intelligence officers arrested and beat up Christians who met with a Muslim woman who had converted to Christianity, after her family had accused them of kidnapping her. The Reverend Elia Komondan, of the Episcopalian (Anglican) All Saints Cathedral and Anthony Gabriel, a Catholic teacher, were released, along with four others, after a week in prison after the woman came out of hiding and gave herself up to police. She was not accused of apostasy and returned home to her family without formalising her conversion (Compass Direct News, 17th May 2006, 23rd May 2006). In September 2006, the body of Mohamed Taha, editor of the newspaper Al Wafaq, was found beheaded in a street in the capital. The magazine had recently republished

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an article on the prophet Mohammed that in 2005 had resulted in Mohamed Taha’s arrest. He had been tried for contempt of religion and acquitted. The murder was blamed on Islamic extremists. In November, 28 people were arrested in connection with this crime (Sudan Tribune, 6th September 2006, 23rd November 2006). On 1st January 2007, police officers using tear gas attacked an Episcopalian Church in the diocese of Khartoum, while a New Year prayer vigil was being held inside by 800 faithful, among them the Vice President Abel Alier. Six people were wounded and damages to the value of seven thousand dollars was inflicted on the church. None of the police officers involved were prosecuted for this attack (Compass Direct News, 10th January 2007). On the night of 27th April 2007, four Evangelical Christians (three Sudanese and one Egyptian) were killed and five others wounded when the truck they were travelling in was ambushed on the road to the city of Torogi. The group belonged to the Bahry Evangelical Church in northern Karthoum and were on a Christian outreach mission in the region, showing a film on the life of Christ in the villages of the Nuba Mountains (Compass Direct News, 3rd May 2007).

On 25th November 2007, Gillian Gibson, an English teacher working in a primary school in Khartoum, was arrested because a colleague accused her of having offended the prophet Mohammed. The teacher had allowed her 7-year-old pupils to name a teddy bear Mohammed. She was subjected to a summary trial and sentenced to 15 days in prison, while the Islamic authorities and Islamist protest groups called for her to be given the severest sentence of 40 lashes and six months in prison. On 4th December the woman was pardoned by the President and deported (Reuters, 27th November 2007; The Guardian, 4th December 2007).

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On 27th September 2007, a man wearing the uniform of the SPLA blew himself up during an open-air religious service near a Baptist Church in the town of Khorfulus in the Upper Nile region. Six young children were killed in this attack and five others wounded (Compass Direct News, 3rd October 2007).

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SURINAME

SURINAME

AREA 163,820 kmq POPULATION 506,000 REFUGEES 1 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

The former Dutch colony, known at the time as Dutch Guyana, reflects its history in its ethnic and religious composition. The country is home to ethnic groups originating in various areas of previous Dutch colonies, such as Indians, Indonesians etc. Article 18 of the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of Suriname states that each individual has the right to freedom of worship and religious belief, with no further details provided. There are no reports indicating particular events involving the free exercising of religious freedom. National holidays respect the varied and multiethnic social environment. Religious holidays include the Christian Good Friday, Easter Monday and Christmas as well as the Islamic anniversary of the birth of the Prophet Mohammed and the Hindu Spring festivity of Holi (or Phagwa).

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 50.4% Hindus 17.8% Muslims 13.9% Non religious 4.9% Others 13%

Baptized Catholics 126,000

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SWAZILAND

The new Constitution has been applied since February 2006, after the previous one of 1968 was suspended in 1973. The Constitution acknowledges religious freedom, specifying the right to “freedom of thought, conscience or religion”. Swaziland is nearly homogeneous ethnically, so most probably because of that there are no long-standing records of ethnic or religious discrimination. In practice, the government respects freedom of religion and also the rights of non-believers or the beliefs of minority groups. The only exception is the Jehova’s Witnesses. Sometimes their prayer meetings are banned or disrupted when considered by the government to be more political than religious. Christianity is the majority religion in the country and there are no reports of violations of the constitutional principles. Sources Afrobarometer Surveys PeaceReporter Political Resources on the Net

AREA 17,361 kmq POPULATION 1,102,000 REFUGEES 789 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

Affiliated Christians 86.9% Ethnoreligionists 10.7% Others 2.4%

Baptized Catholics 56,000

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SWEDEN

SWEDEN

AREA 449,964 kmq POPULATION 9,090,000 REFUGEES 75,078 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 67.9% Non religious 29.4% Others 2.7%

Baptized Catholics 111,000

“Religious freedom, in other words the right to practice, alone or together with others, one’s own religion” is declared by Article 1 of Chapter II on the “Fundamental freedoms” of the Constitution promulgated in 1974. However, although the articles declaring the Lutheran Church of Sweden to be the state church have been abolished, Article 2 of the 1809 Constitution is still in force and specifies that “the King must always profess the pure evangelical doctrine adopted and explained in the Confession of Augsburg in the original version and by the Decree of the 1593 Uppsala Synod, and the Princes and Princesses of the Royal household must also be brought up in this same faith and within the Kingdom. Any member of the Royal Family not professing this faith will be excluded from all rights of succession”. Following the separation of Church and State, eight other religious denominations have also received state funding, according to the number of believers, who can also contribute donations deducted from their tax liability. These other churches are: the Swedish Missionary Church, the Catholic Church, the Swedish Missionary Alliance, The Baptist Union of Sweden, the Salvation Army, the Methodist Church, the Pentecostal Church and the Evangelical Church, In all there are 39 religious groups which have the right to receive state funding. In the education sector, although not part of the state system, there are 67 denominational primary schools and 6 secondary schools, mainly Christian, which also follow the state curriculum. The attitude of the state institutions towards freedom of education is confrontational and tends towards a form of secularist ideological control. A controversy that arose when an administrative court granted a permit to carry out educational activity to a school run by the Brethren Christian Fellowship, prompted a harsh reaction from the Ministry for Education, which announced new rules aimed at reducing religion’s influence in private denominational schools. Anna Neuman, spokesperson for Minister Jan Bjorklund, said that “a student should not be able to pass a natural science exam by answering that God created the world”.

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Islam With the increase in the numbers of Muslim immigrants, the institutions of the state are faced with requests to recognise Islamic juridical-religious rules, such as a demand presented in May 2006 by the Council of Swedish Muslims to political parties represented in Parliament, to introduce Koranic Law for issues concerning marriage and divorce, and to organise Courses in Arabic and Islam in state schools. Although the equal opportunities minister, Jens Orback, on that occasion said no to any special treatment for minorities, female students attending state schools were given permission to wear the Islamic veil. This was established by the National Agency for Education, in January 2007, after it had overturned the decision taken by a private non-religious school in Umeå, which had expelled a student for not respecting the prohibition imposed by the school’s own regulations. The use of the veil is permitted in the Police Force and also in the Swedish Army, where there is also a military chaplaincy for Muslim soldiers, headed by an imam. Within the local Islamic community, such political and religious demands are not always pursued with peaceful means. It has emerged that there is widespread availability in mosques of propaganda audio and video material inciting a holy war against the infidels and in particular against the Jews. And yet, in January 2006, the Justice Minister ruled that from a legal point of view these were not relevant events as crimes punishable under the law against incitement to hatred, but rather the consequence of the conflict in the Middle East. Nonetheless, still in January 2006, three Muslims were arrested for having thrown fire bombs at an Iraqi polling station in Stockholm and for having planned an attack on a pro-Israeli Protestant church in Uppsala. The perception of such potential for violence has also prompted reactions within society which are in turn setting off a domino effect. The Swedish artist Lars Vilks provoked a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the Stockholm government. A cartoon of his, published on 19th August 2007 by the daily newspaper Nerikes Allehanda in Örebro in Southern Sweden, portrayed Mohammed’s head on the body of a dog. This was one of many such cartoons created by Vilks, who for months had targeted religious symbols as an assertion of his right to freedom of expression. However, as long as he only portrayed Jesus Christ with the body of an elephant or posing as a paedophile, there were no particularly indignant reactions. But now, a group of furious Muslims, organised by Jamal Lamhamdi, the imam in Örebro, protested outside the offices of Nerikes Allehanda. To avoid reprisals however, the cartoon in the paper’s online version was “corrected” and no longer viewable. This did not however prevent a death sentence being issued by Islamic extremists on 15th September 2007 against the artist and also against Ulf Johansson, the chief editor of Nerikes Allehanda. However, in fact the whole of this Scandinavian country, defined by Al Qaeda in Iraq as a “Crusader State” has become the target of this terrorist organisation, which has threatened:

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“We know how to make them retreat and apologise, and, if they do not, we will attack their economy and their colossuses such as Ericsson, Volvo, and Ikea.” Judaism According to statistics provided by the Jewish community, the number of anti-Semitic incidents has increased, reaching a peak during the Israeli-Lebanese conflict. Sources Sweden Charges Three over Church and Iraq Vote Attacks, Reuters, 3rd May 2006 Muslims Demand Muslim Law, SR International, 28th May 2006 Swedish Education Agency Rejects Veil Ban, The Local, 24th January 2007 Swedish Paper Defends Publishing Mohammad Drawing, Reuters, 28th August 2007 Sweden Wants to Curb Religious Elements in Private School Education, Associated Press, 15th October 2007

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SWITZERLAND

Islam Since 2006, in German-speaking Switzerland, a number of building projects for minarets presented by the Muslim communities of Wangen bei Olten in the Canton of Soletta and of Langenthal in the Canton of Berne, have raised fears and opposition from the local authorities and the population. While the Catholic Bishop of Basle, Kurt Koch, President of the Swiss Episcopal Conference, acknowledges the Muslims’ right to build mosques, there is significant opposition at a local, cantonal and federal level. For Bishop Pierre Bürcher, first President of the “Islam” workgroup set up in 2001 by the Swiss Bishops’ Conference, the minaret “is indeed a symbol for Muslims, but it is not a fundamental part of a mosque, and we must avoid becoming fixated on this point”. In his opinion, “what really matters is what happens inside the mosques, where the

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RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 88.4% Non religious 8.2% Muslims 2.7% Others 0.7%

Baptized Catholics 3,327,000

SWITZERLAND

The Swiss Constitution declares the equality of all citizens in the eyes of the law and in Article 8 guarantees that “Nobody shall suffer discrimination, particularly on grounds of origin, race, sex, age, language, social position, lifestyle, religious, philosophical or political convictions, or because of a corporal or mental disability”. Article 15 specifically protects freedom of religion, and states that “All persons have the right to choose their religion or philosophical convictions freely, and to profess them alone or in community with others”, together with “the right to join or to belong to a religious community, and to follow religious teachings”. At the same time, “No person shall be forced to join or belong to a religious community, to participate in a religious act, or to follow religious teachings”. Relations between the State and religious denominations are autonomously regulated by each Canton; every Canton financially supports at least one of the three traditional religions, represented by the Catholic Church, the Protestant Church and the Old Catholic Church, although the Constitution of the Canton of Basle is also open to the Jewish community and to other denominations. Article 72 also establishes that “the Confederation and the Cantons may, within the framework of their powers, take measures to maintain public peace between the members of the various religious communities”.

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Koran is read and explained and where some people may stray from the right path. It is in fact in this place of worship that the imams pronounce the khutba, the Islamic sermon, the contents of which are often politicised, and it is here that anti-Western sentiments are expressed and where the faithful are even instigated to carry out terrorist acts”. If anything, the problem is “whether the authorities are really aware of what is happening inside the mosques and whether such practices are legal. In my opinion, these are the issues that matter and no so much whether the law permits the building of another minaret or not”. Following these controversies, the Canton of Zurich has commissioned a study to determine whether the authorities are addressing the needs of the Muslim population. This initiative was followed at the beginning of this year by another similar one, which was openly criticised by some ministers. The task of determining whether cantonal health, education, justice and social services cater for the needs of the Muslim population was entrusted to Professor Thomas Widmer of the Institute of Political Science in Zurich, who outlined the objectives of this study, explaining that: “We wish to understand whether the services provided by the cantonal authorities respect the religious freedom of the Muslim population, but at the same time whether their religious activities disturb other people using these same public services”. Sources An initiative addressed at forbidding minarets, swissinfo.ch, 3rd May 2007 Adam Beaumont A Bishop advises that mosques should be supervised more closely, swissinfo.ch, 20th May 2007 Zurich starts its first study on Muslims, swissinfo.ch, 17th July 2007

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SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC

Christians Christian communities enjoy absolute freedom to build places of worship (often obtaining construction materials from the State) as well as the freedom to organise religious activities. Priests are exempt from military service, nor are there obstacles to their incardination in the dioceses. There are however problems as far as censorship of the religious press is concerned (this also affects Muslims), and also for Christian schools, which were nationalised in 1967. Christmas and Easter are considered official festivities and the media broadcasts religious ceremonies At the end of March 2006 during a visit to the headquarters of ACN, Melkite Archbishop Jean-Clément Jeanbart of Aleppo stated that the Syrian Church also suffers from extremism and violence: “This is why both ecumenical and interreligious dialogue are so necessary”, he said. The archbishop revealed that he is planning to establish a centre for dialogue and reconciliation in his archdiocese. On the subject of Islamic-Christian dialogue, it is worth noting the words of Grand Mufti Hassoun on 19th September 2006, when he exhorted everyone to consider the most recent position of the Holy See with regard to the “Regensburg case”, as expressed by the Pope himself and by the Vatican Secretary of State, as an expression of the “good intentions that reign in the hearts of our Christian brothers”. “Pope Benedict XVI’s dis-

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AREA 185,180 kmq POPULATION 18,870,000 REFUGEES 1,503,769 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 433,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 89.3% Affiliated Christians 7.8% Non religious 2.9%

Baptized Catholics 401,000

SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC

The Constitution of 1973 states that Islamic Law is one of the sources of the legislation and that the head of state must be a Muslim. Islam is not the State religion however, and the Constitution guarantees recognition of other religions and freedom of religion and worship. The Baath party, which has governed Syria since 1963, reacts harshly to opposition and controls the various religious communities, whether they belong to the Sunni Islamic majority or the non-Muslim minorities. For these minorities, the choice between the current regime and a possible extremist Muslim alternative is a complex one. Considering political Islam a threat to its stability, the government entrusts the security services with the task of monitoring the content of sermons given in the mosques.

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avowal and sadness following the reactions, represent for us more than an apology and a great mark of respect towards the Islamic world”. For their part, the Arab group for interreligious dialogue, in a statement also made public on the same day, affirmed “the need to continue on the path of dialogue, the only way capable of purifying hearts and drafting a road map for the future of the region”. This group called for the removal from the debate of all those differing viewpoints that could not help Islamic-Christian coexistence in Syria, and at the same time thanked the Syrian government for the security measures it has implemented “which have spared us violence and hatred”. In Syria in fact, there were almost no aggressive reactions to the Pope’s speech. Muslims After years of silence, in March 2006 opposition movements organised a “National Salvation Front” that includes the Muslim Brothers as well as liberals, communists and Kurds. The organisation’s leader, Ali Saadeddin al-Bayanouni, says he is sure that the effects of the “Islamic wave” so evident in the Egyptian and Palestinian elections would also be felt, possibly even in free elections in Damascus. Bayanouni spoke of his movement as being one of “moderates”, and rejected any intention of making Syria a state governed by Islamic Law. In March 2006, the Syrian government abolished the ban, imposed back in 1963 when the secular Baath Party won the elections, on imams visiting military barracks and speaking of religion to the soldiers. The government’s decision seems to be a response to the leaders of the Muslim Brothers who have declared their conviction that they could be elected to power in Syria, should Bashar al-Assad’s regime fall and free elections be held. Both the minister of defence, General Hassan Turkmani, and the army chief of staff, General Ali Habib, have in fact spoken of including religious instruction on the curriculum of the military academy, as an “answer to the thirst for God that exists in the barracks”, but they also called on the military to reject all forms of religious extremism, which could shatter coexistence and reciprocal respect. The occasion for this intervention by the two army leaders was a round table discussion on the issue of “Syria facing international challenges”, organised in Damascus with the participation of Greek Melkite Bishop Isidore Batikha, former patriarchal vicar of Damascus, who called for “the application of the law of reciprocity between Christians and Muslims”. The conference was also attended by the Grand Mufti of Syria, Sheik Ahmad Hassoun, who emphasised “the fundamental role of religion in the battle against secularism and laicism”. The two generals also impressed on the military the urgent need to recover the perennial values of religion, because “a society without God will come into conflict with history and society”.

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Concerned that the Muslim Brothers in fact hold the leadership in the opposition, Bashar al-Assad in fact seems committed to deepening the “secular” character of the Syrian regime. In July 2006, the Syrian press paid a lot of space to the problem of relations between “the secular community” and the “religious one”, following the publication of an appeal by 39 imams asking President Assad to exercise his constitutional role to stop the “poisonous campaign” against religious instruction in the state primary schools. The imams maintain that such a choice is aimed at “transforming society into a secular one, according to a model that empties the country of the values taught and experienced by the fathers”. The Minister for Religious Heritage in Syria criticised these imams, maintaining that there was a plot against the secular concept of the State. “They wish to follow the example of the extremists in Afghanistan and Somalia”, said Mohammad Ziad al-Ayoubi, “infiltrating the souls of the citizens and exploiting religion”. On 6th July the government daily al-Thawra spelled out the risk run by Syria, namely that of transforming the secular state into one governed by the Shari‘a. Emphasising that many restaurants have forbidden alcoholic drinks and the number of women wearing the chador has increased, al-Thawra appealed for the creation of a front for defending the secular state. In January 2007 the government authorised the so-called Qubaisiyyats to hold study groups reserved for women. Until then, these groups of women involved in religion had held their meetings in private homes. A number of observers have interpreted this permission as a stratagem for better controlling such groups. On 14th May 2007 the journalist Adel Mahfoudh was sentenced to six months in prison. He had been arrested for the first time on 7th February 2006, for having published an article in which he argued the need for dialogue between Muslims and the authors of the cartoon about Mohammed published by the Danish newspaper the Jyllands-Posten. Mahfoudh was released on bail, then arrested and released again in the course of the year. Others In an article published by Il Regno (No. 6/2006) there is an analysis of about fifty manuals used for Christian and Muslim religious instruction, in the twelve different levels of primary and secondary education in Syria. This investigation – carried out by Canadian researcher Monique Cardinal, Professor of Islamology at Laval University in Québec – emphasises the powerful imprint imposed by absolute state control over educational programmes and texts. In the chapters devoted to martyrdom in the Christian education course for 8th and 10th grades (ages 13-15) there is no hesitation in quoting speeches by deceased Syrian President Hafez al-Assad alongside Biblical texts on martyrdom, to exemplify the importance of sacrificing one’s own life for the defence of one’s country. The Christian textbook for the 8th grade (age 13) even uses

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the example of a Lebanese suicide bomber who blew himself up in front of an Israeli military convoy in 1985 in Southern Lebanon. In the fourth year (age 9) Muslims learn the two reasons that justify jihad: defending what is sacred to Islam and driving out the enemy occupier from Palestine. In parallel, the Christian course for second year secondary students (age16) emphasises the role played by the national Church in supporting the Arab people in the battle against “criminal Zionism”. Sources ACN International AsiaNews Il Regno

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TAJIKISTAN

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AREA 143,100 kmq POPULATION 7,164,000 REFUGEES 1,133 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 83.6% Non religious 13.9% Affiliated Christians 2.1% Others 0.4%

Baptized Catholics 300

TAJIKISTAN

All religions are more or less tolerated in the country. Several times the government has reiterated the secular nature of the state, but Islamic traditions are quite strong, especially in smaller towns and villages. But religious fervour is also growing in the cities. Yet because of increased concern over the spread of Islamic extremism, government attitudes towards freedom of religion have hardened of late. Indeed the government is actively monitoring religious organisations to ensure they do not become politically prominent. There might also be further limits on religious freedom should a new bill “On Freedom of Conscience, on Religious Associations and Other (Religious) Organisations” be adopted. Various versions of the draft bill have been discussed for more than two years, all involving tougher rules in matters of religious freedom. The latest version of the draft bill was made public at a round table held on 21st November last year at the office of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Dushanbe (Forum 18 News Service, 27th November 2007). Some aspects of earlier versions were watered down, starting with the number of adult members required for setting up a religious association – the numbers are down from 400 to 50. Yet some areas remain a problem for many religious groups; 24 organisations, including Catholics, Baptists, Adventists, Lutherans, Pentecostals and other Protestant denominations, sent a letter to the authorities expressing their bewilderment over the draft bill. In it they argued repeatedly that the bill is at odds with the Constitution of Tajikistan as well as with 12 laws and legal codes currently in force in the country. Article 6 has for example drawn strong criticism for the provision that “an authorised state body on religious affairs” can organise among other things religious ceremonies, but nothing in the bill says who this “authorised state body” is and why it should intervene in the internal affairs of religious organisations. Similarly, Article 10 refers to state bodies that can control religious organisations, but does not say what they are or what responsibilities they are supposed to fulfil. Article 19 lists the documents religious groups require in order to apply for

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legal recognition, among them a certificate showing that the applicants have been resident in Tajikistan for at least 10 years, which for religious organisations is “an outright contradiction of democratic principles.” The same article also states that the competent authority will examine religious communities for any possible “contradictions” they may have vis-à-vis undefined cultural and national values. Article 27 requires that missionary activity and “religious propaganda” must be authorised. Article 29 stakes that the international links of religious organisations and their right to send people abroad to study our subject to the prior “consent” of the authorised state bodies on religious affairs. In spite of the limits of the draft bill, it still represents progress compared to earlier versions which imposed even more stringent requirements on religious organisations, indeed, there were so many that the continued legal existence of most non-Muslim religious groups would have been called into question. Islam Tajikistan is an overwhelmingly Muslim country; more than 95 percent of its population is Sunni Muslim. It is also the only Central Asian Republic with an officially registered Islamic Party, the Islamic Rebirth Party (IRP). Nonetheless, in recent years Islam has become the principal challenge to the government’s authority due to the latter’s great concern over the possible spread of Islamic extremism. In the past year government authorities have adopted various initiatives to limit the radicalisation of the more conservative forms of Islam, especially among the younger generations. In April 2007 Education Minister Abdujabbor Rahmonov introduced a new dress code for young people attending Tajikistani schools and universities; this reaffirmed the ban on wearing the hijab, the traditional Islamic headscarf (The Telegraph, 18th April 2007). In his view the hijab was foreign to Tajikistan’s traditions; it was “propaganda from other countries and we will not allow it” (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 26th April 2007). A 20-year-old female student, Davlatmoh Ismoilova, sued the Education Ministry claiming she had a right to wear the headscarf. Her challenge came to nought and her case was thrown out by the court (Ibid., 3rd August 2007). Similarly, the Education Minister ordered male students at the Islamic University of Tajikistan to wear suits and ties as well as shave their beards and avoid Middle-Eastern style hats if they wanted to go to university (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 17th January 2008). Inevitably state control has also extended to mosques, especially those that are unregistered and operating outside government-authorised religious organisations. After a census of all the mosques in the capital, a representative from the Prosecutor’s Office in Dushanbe, Ilyos Ortukov, said that of the 148 unregistered mosques in the

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Other religious groups On 11th October 2007 Culture Minister Mirzoshorukh Asrori withdrew official recognition from the Jehovah’s Witnesses making all their activities illegal and putting the survival of their community in the country at risk (AsiaNews, 22nd October 2007). Saidbek Mahmudolloev, head of the Information Division in the Culture Ministry’s Religious Affairs Department, said the main problem with the Jehovah’s Witnesses is their refusal to do their military service, an undertaking that violates their religious principles. “There is no alternative service in Tajikistan yet, so everyone ought to obey Tajik laws,” he said. On top of that they are also held responsible for other violations of the law like engaging in missionary activities door-to-door or in public places as well as handing out religious brochures about their faith. In response the Jehovah’s Witnesses announced they would appeal against the decision to President Emomali Rahmon and Prime Minister Oqil Oqilov and ask to have the ban lifted. Even so just a few days before the ban came into effect, Jehovah’s Witnesses got a long-awaited authorisation in the district of Tursunzade for the use of a Kingdom Hall, the only place of worship recognised by the state for that community.

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city 13 would be demolished, another 28 would be allowed to operate after registering with authorities and the rest would be closed down. “These unofficial mosques appeared in the early 1990s and the city administration wants to take them under its control,” he said (Associated Press, 20th March 2007). The first three mosques were demolished in Dushanbe on 8th August (AsiaNews; 13 th October 2007), a decision many of the faithful criticised, viewing it as an attempt to prevent them from practising their faith outside “official” Islam, free from the tight control of the Ulema Council. The authorities dismissed such charges, saying instead that they had acted out of “architectural” considerations since the buildings did not fit with the new urban development plan for downtown Dushanbe, adding that in any event the buildings were not registered as mosques with the Justice Ministry. In the northern region of Sughd, the authorities ordered 350 mosques, operating without government registration, to regularise their situation or suffer immediate closure (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 8th September 2007). Last August Dushanbe city authorities ordered all of the city’s imams to take an exam to establish their knowledge and suitability to carry out their functions. Anyone who failed the test would be out of a job and be replaced by other clerics (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 8th and 20th August 2007). This decision, which the authorities justified as being for the protection of the people, was criticised by many imams; for them, it was but another expedient used by the government to remove unwelcome, independent-minded clergymen, and replace them with more accommodating imams.

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In April the Witnesses had already found themselves at odds with the authorities (Forum 18 News Service, 18th October 2007). At customs the National Security Committee (NSC) seized two shipments containing foreign religious literature. In a written statement 15th June 2007 the Department of Religious Affairs told Jehovah’s Witnesses that the literature in question had a negative impact on the country and recommended the authorities not release it (quoted in the 2007 Report on International Religious Freedom by the US State Department). The US State Department also reported that on 2nd April 2007 Dushanbe city officials broke up a religious service by Jehovah’s Witnesses that had brought together more than a thousand people and told the group they could not organise any large scale meetings without prior authorisation. Like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, two other Christian organisations – the Ehya (Revival) Protestant Church and the Hayat Faravan (Full Life) Baptist Church respectively registered in 2001 and 2003 – were told to suspend their activities for three months until they had introduced certain modifications to their charters (Reuters, 23rd October 2007). The Culture Ministry for example accused the Hayat Faravan Baptist Church of violating its own rules because, even though its statutes permit its members to engage in humanitarian work, they are not specifically allowed to prepare and distribute food (Forum 18 News Service, 9th November 2007). In the first half of 2007, the Department of Religious Affairs and the Office of the Public Prosecutor carried out a thorough investigation into each religious community, local sources reported (Forum 18 News Service, 28th October 2007). The process included asking religious leaders for lists of members who attend functions on a regular basis as well as detailed information on community activities, meeting places and tax information. It is not clear whether the subsequent suspension of the activities of some of these religious groups should be linked to such controls.

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TANZANIA

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AREA 883,749 kmq POPULATION 41,793,000 REFUGEES 435,630 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 50.4% Muslims 31.7% Ethnoreligionists 17% Others 0.9%

Baptized Catholics 11,367,000

TANZANIA

There is no State religion in Tanzania and Article 19 of the 1984 Constitution (with numerous amendments until 1998) recognises freedom of religion, additionally specifying the right to change one’s religion or faith and declaring that the state has no right to interfere with the activities of the religious communities. The authorities encourage religious dialogue and participate equally in Christian and Muslim festivals. At the same time they do not allow election campaigns to be held in places of worship or schools The population is equally divided between Christians and Muslims, though in the Zanzibar archipelago 98 percent of the people belong to the Islamic faith. The number of the Catholics on the island is about 11,000 (1 percent) and is rising steadily. There was occasional debate about introducing of Shari‘a law in Zanzibar, but the number of supporters of this idea remains small. The religious organizations must to register with the Registrar of Societies at the Ministry of Home Affairs on the mainland and with the Chief Government Registrar on Zanzibar. Normally there is no problem to register a religious organization but on Zanzibar the groups registering on Zanzibar must produce a letter of approval from the Mufti. For Christians it is very difficult to buy and register a plot in order to build a church or rectory. For five years requests by Catholics to be allowed to buy a plot and build a church have been turned down for no good reason. “This is in the belief that whenever the Islam religion exists there should be no any other religion”, a priest from Zanzibar wrote to ACN. After two years of lobbing the Catholics were given a six month construction permit. This period is too short time (it could be prolonged, but only once for another 6 months) in order to finish any largescale project. Muslims have often complained of discrimination, claiming to be under-represented in key positions in the state institutions. There has also been tension within the Muslim community itself, due to different interpretations of Islamic law, especially as far as family matters are concerned. In February 2007 the Zanzibar police ruled that women drivers should not wear the Islamic veil. According to a number of

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studies in fact, many accidents appear to have been caused by restricted vision, due to the hijab. There are still problems linked to witchcraft in the country and especially in rural areas. In spite of repeated condemnation by the authorities, in 2007 over a hundred elderly village women were accused of witchcraft and killed. Sources ACN International Corriere della Sera, 4th February 2007 Afrobarometer Surveys Political Resources on the Net

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THAILAND

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AREA 513,115 kmq POPULATION 65,310,000 REFUGEES 125,643 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Buddhists 85.3% Muslims 6.8% Affiliated Christians 2.2% Others 5.7%

Baptized Catholics 327,000

THAILAND

Thailand is among Asia’s most tolerant nations as far as interfaith relations are concerned. Even during the period of military rule, which lasted from the bloodless coup in September 2006 to the restoration of parliamentary democracy in the January 2008 elections, religious freedom was never affected. In 2007 as the new Constitution was being drafted (approved on 19th August 2007 in a referendum), many Buddhist groups demanded that Buddhism be recognised as the State religion. The proposal, which was backed only by a minority, was rejected by a wide margin by the constituent assembly. Still, any insult or defamatory statement about Buddhism or Buddhist clerics is an offence that can be punished with prison or a fine. Religious groups are required to register with the authorities, but even unauthorised groups can operate freely. The number of foreign missionaries is officially limited, but there are many unauthorised missionaries who conduct their activities without problems. Sadly, violence remains pervasive in the southern part of the country as separatists and government forces battle each other. Although the violence is essentially political in nature, it disproportionately affects the local Buddhist community because it is closely identified with the central government. Muslims constitute a majority of the population in the provinces of Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and Songkhla; for this reason rebels want to secede and join neighbouring Malaysia. The region itself was an independent sultanate until 1902 when it was annexed by Thailand. Despite frequent attacks, the clashes have not yet turned into an openly sectarian conflict. Muslim rebels have often been accused of encouraging corruption and favouring local organised crime syndicates who benefit from the widespread disorder and lawlessness created by the situation. The violence in this part of Thailand began on 4th January 2004 when a group of Muslim militants stormed an army depot in Narathiwat province. From then till January 2008 more than 2,800 people have died as a result of the ensuing violence and many more people have been wounded. An atmosphere of terror has been generated, especially since many of the victims are ordinary people killed as they made their way home from work.

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In their fight against the Thai state, Muslim rebels have deliberately targeted ordinary Buddhists, seeing in them representatives of the Thai majority. In response the government has deployed some 30,000 soldiers and police agents across the region. For their part locals have complained that government forces have mistreated the civilian population, committing abuses against people solely on the basis of unsubstantiated charges of collaboration with the rebels. In fact the state of emergency gives the authorities the power to imprison anyone, even if only suspected of collaborating with the rebels, for a 30-day period, renewable without limit. The army and the police have frequently applied these emergency powers in ways that have led groups like Human Rights Watch to charge them with human rights violations, including the summary execution or ‘disappearance’ of ‘suspects’. In three years of insurgency there have been 3,198 recorded attacks in the three southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, 750 against the army, 638 against the police, and 1,810 against civilians, leaving more 3,000 children orphaned (see AsiaNews, 9th March 2007). Teachers and Buddhist monks have become the ‘rebels’ preferred as targets. Attacks against Buddhist monks are so systematic that the authorities at first provided army escorts; however this did not stop the attacks but simply gave attackers an opportunity to kill soldiers as well. The situation was such that on 10th November 2006 monk elders in Narathiwat decided that monks would no longer go through the streets asking for alms as they used to do every morning. It is estimated that, as of July 2007, the rebels have destroyed 43 Buddhist temples in Yala province, 81 temples and seven monasteries in Pattani and 71 temples and 16 monasteries in Narathiwat, forcing the monks to retreat to temples located in urban centres. In response to this Thailand’s Queen Sirikit urged monks across the country to go back and live in the monasteries of the south during the Buddhist Lent (a three-month period that begins on 30th July during the rainy season, a time when monks usually do not travel but stay indoor in monasteries). Hundreds of monks have heeded her call and returned to live in the 266 temples that had been abandoned as a result of the growing violence. Buddhist teachers in the public schools are another target of choice for rebels. Unable to stop the attacks, the government has had to resort to arming teachers and training them to shoot. Despite these measures, things are getting worse. On 24th July 2006 unknown assailants killed a teacher as he was giving lessons in a school in Baan Bue Rang, Narathiwat. In the evening of 13th June 2007, 13 schools were set ablaze in Yala and Pattani provinces in a series of simultaneous attacks; a bomb later exploded in front of a school in Narathiwat province, wounding a private guard.

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According to official figures from January 2004 to October 2007, more than 200 schools were set on fire, more than 80 teachers, both Buddhist and Muslim, were killed and over 70 were wounded. At least 1,600 teachers applied for a transfer. In 2006 and 2007 the violence further escalated. No longer were only isolated individuals attacked but explosive devices were set off in crowded places. On 10th May 2006 a bomb exploded in a crowded market in Pattani. In an apparently co-ordinated operation between 1st and 2nd August 2006, about 100 explosions were reported against public buildings, homes of government officials and police officers, karaoke bars, cafés and railway stations. During the night of 14th March 2007, unknown assailants stopped a bus and killed all eight Buddhist passengers – only the driver, a Muslim, was spared. During the night of 18th February 2007, as thousands of people (especially ethnic Chinese) celebrated the Chinese Lunar New Year, another series of co-ordinated attacks were carried out in the southern provinces. In just 45 minutes, 29 bombs exploded, killing eight people and wounding about 70. Experts estimate that at least 200 people must have been involved in these attacks. On 15th January 2008 a bomb exploded in a crowded market in Yala, wounding at least 27 people. The day before, eight soldiers were killed in an ambush as they escorted teachers home. Factories have not been spared. During the night of 20th February 2007, a big rubber warehouse was set on fire in Yala province. In some areas, like Sapong village (Yala), Muslim rebels handed out flyers threatening to kill Muslims loyal to the government and those who work on Fridays (the Muslim day of prayer). They also ordered students not to attend state schools and imposed taxes (Associated Press). Moderate Muslims have become victims of the violence as well. On 4th January 2006, anniversary of the insurgency, unknown gunmen shot two Muslim leaders working as volunteer security guards in Pattani and Narathiwat. Muslim teachers, public officials and merchants have been attacked and murdered in great numbers. On 5th April 2007 a rebel armed gang stormed a mosque in Yala, where around 100 people had gathered inside for their morning prayer, and threw a bomb. On 9th April 2007, also in Yala, Buddhist vigilantes killed four young Muslims in a truck. On 19th March 2007 unknown gunmen killed three Muslims, wounding another seven, in a college in Songkhla province. On 12th June 2007 a Muslim religious teacher was killed in Yala. The following day 200 hooded young Muslims marched in protest in front of a mosque demanding the authorities find the murderers. The result of this ongoing violence has been growing tensions between Buddhists and Muslims, but so far these have not yet degenerated into open clashes in the street.

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TIMOR LESTE

TIMOR LESTE

AREA 14,374 kmq POPULATION 923,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED 100,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 92.2% Muslims 3.2% Traditional religions 3% Others 1.6%

Baptized Catholics 820,000

In 2006 and 2007 the small country’s political leadership was shaken by a dangerous crisis. Nonetheless, throughout the emergency the government was able to guarantee religious freedom as required by its young Constitution of 2002. There were no major violations of religious freedom on the island nation, where Christians, especially Catholics, constitute the largest group. No cases of violence or intimidation against minority religious groups were recorded. In May 2006 the firing of some 600 army soldiers, who were protesting against discriminatory treatment, sparked weeks of fierce clashes between police and the “rebels.” At the end the death toll stood at 37 with more than 150,000 people displaced. The then Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri was held responsible for the crisis. He eventually resigned after being accused of organising death squads to eliminate political opponents. The United Nations sent in an Australian-led peace force to stabilise the situation. Following the May 2007 elections, Nobel Peace Prize laureate José Ramos-Horta became president whilst his predecessor, Xanana Gusmao took over the prime ministership. On 21st May 2007 in receiving Justino Maria Aparício Guterres, East Timor’s first ambassador to the Holy See, Benedict XVI praised the “civic maturity” shown by East Timorese in the presidential elections and urged political leaders to restore public order and ensure security for their citizens. He also asked the Church to continue in her evangelisation work and in the promotion of moral values among the country’s political, economic and financial elites.

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TOGO

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AREA 56,785 kmq POPULATION 5,469,000 REFUGEES 1,328 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 1,500

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 42.6% Ethnoreligionists 37.7% Muslims 18.8% Others 0.9%

Baptized Catholics 1,561,000

TOGO

The Constitution decrees religious freedom and the public authorities have generally respected this right in practice. Furthermore, the Constitution forbids the formation of political parties based on religion and states that “no political party should identify itself by a region, an ethnic group or a religion”. This however does not prevent individual Catholic, protestant or Muslim citizens from holding important positions within local and national administrations. In 2004 the government had voted in favour of the UN Resolution for the abolition of all forms of religious intolerance, which defines religious freedom as an intrinsic human right. The most recent official statistics available, dating back to 2004, show that 33 percent of the population profess traditional Animist religions, 28 percent are Catholics, 14 percent Sunni Muslims, 10 percent Protestants and the remaining 10 percent are Christians belonging to various denominations. The State recognises three official religions: Catholicism, Protestantism and Islam, and requires all other religious groups to register as associations. Registration, and therefore official recognition, brings fiscal advantages on imports, via an application to the Foreign Ministry. In order to obtain registration, a religious association must present its statutes, a statement about its doctrine, the names and addresses of the members of its governing body, the minister’s diploma, a contract, a map of the location of its headquarters and also a statement regarding its financial situation. The religious group’s ethical behaviour is extremely important for obtaining juridical status and must never in any circumstances threaten public order. In 2006 the government refused registration to very few religious groups – and only and exclusively because their work involved illegal activities or activities considered as immoral. In the past the government rejected a request presented by a Muslim group because this group had been accused of involvement in selling arms to Northern Ghana. Respect for religious liberty has in recent years however been heavily conditioned by a continuing succession of political tensions.

TOGO

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2006, as reported by MISNA quoting the words of President Gnassingbè, did however witness the beginnings of a global political agreement and the start of a new political era for Togo, after 13 years marked by crises and political violence. Internal reconciliation has also involved the creation of a “monitoring committee” to monitor the legality of the elections, which after various postponements, were held on 10th October 2007 and saw the resumption of the 81-seat Parliament. This election is seen as a decisive step for this country towards achieving the democratic standards required by the European Union, which only resumed the sending of humanitarian aid in 2007 after suspending this in 1993 because of the absence of any guarantee of democracy. One should remember that in December 2005, the Togolese government’s High Authority for Radio-Television and Communications (HAAC), a regulating agency for controlling the media, had forbidden all political programmes by local and religious radio and television stations, and that in the past it had suspended broadcasting by Radio Maria because it had adopted a critical stance with regard to the government’s actions. Sources ANSA MISNA PeaceReporter

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TONGA

In the small archipelago of Tonga the right to religious freedom is recognised in Article 5 of the 1875 Constitution, amended on various occasions until 1990. Missionaries are present and active here and all groups are permitted to work without registration. At the end of 2006, following the non-approval of the greatly expected democratic reforms, there were violent street protests condemned by the religious authorities. The Catholic Bishop of Tonga, Monsignor Soane Lilo Foliaki, condemned all forms of violence in a message read out in all the churches. Protests stopped after a number of reforms were approved. Almost all schools are run by religious groups.

AREA 650 kmq POPULATION 94,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 92.9% Baha’i 6.7% Others 0.4%

Baptized Catholics

TONGA

15,000

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TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

AREA 5,130 kmq POPULATION 1,336,000 REFUGEES 22 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

The 1976 Constitution of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, amended until 2000, lists in Article 4 a series of fundamental rights of citizens, and among them in paragraph H, freedom of conscience and religious belief and observance. The main religion is Christianity in its various expressions, but there are also Islamic and Hindu minorities. The religious lives of the various communities take place without problems and are totally autonomous from government authorities. Government representatives take part in the various religious festivities which facilitates interreligious relations. There are no reports of events involving intolerance or violations of individual or associative rights to religious freedom.

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 64.9% Hindus 22.8% Muslims 6.8% Others 5.8%

Baptized Catholics 398,000

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TUNISIA

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AREA 163,610 kmq POPULATION 10,130,000 REFUGEES 101 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 98.9% Affiliated Christians 0.5% Others 0.6%

Baptized Catholics 20,000

TUNISIA

According to its Constitution, “Tunisia is a free, independent and sovereign state; its religion is Islam” (Art. 1). Moreover, the Tunisian Republic guarantees the inviolability of the human person and also freedom of conscience, and protects freedom of religious practice on condition that “it does not disturb public order” (Art. 5). About 99 percent of Tunisians are Muslims, but there is still a small Jewish Tunisian community, remnants of a centuries-old presence, now steadily decreasing. Emigration increased with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. While at the beginning of the 20th century there were 100,000 Jews, today they are no more than 2,000. They own their own places of worship. The rabbinic court was closed in 1957 and replaced with a “Board of personal status”, integrated in civil law. The Catholic Church is not Tunisian. There are 20.000 members out of 10 million inhabitants and they are all foreigners. The Church does, however, enjoy official recognition thanks to a Modus Vivendi signed between the Holy See and the Tunisian government on 9th July 1964. This convention, in accordance with which the Church “cedes definitively and in exchange for no fee”, most of its places of worship and other buildings, “safeguards the free practice of the Catholic faith” and “acknowledges its legal representative in the Prelate of Tunis”. The Catholic Church, however, has been permitted to keep five churches, among them the Cathedral in Tunis, dedicated to Saint Vincent de Paul. This Modus Vivendi dated 1964 also established that, should Catholic believers feel the need for a suitable place of worship, the ecclesiastic authorities would be permitted to present a request to the government, a request that would be favourably looked upon. It was thus that, in March 2005, the Archbishop of Tunis, Monsignor Fouad Twal, was able to announce the reopening of the Church of Saint Joseph in Djerba. His initiative was motivated by the large number of foreign Catholic tourists who travel every year to this island (ZENIT, 21st March 2005). As far as the conversion of Muslims to other religions is concerned, the law neither punishes nor forbids this, though seeking to convert Muslims to another faith is prohibited by law, seeing that the Constitution guarantees freedom of conscience

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(cf. Art. 5). It is nevertheless extremely difficult for a Muslim to change religion. There are however some conversions to Christianity, often in its neo-protestant Evangelical version, although the Catholic Church does not refuse those asking to be baptised. There are also a number of Tunisian ministers. Although they are not really obliged to hide, those converted must nonetheless avoid appearing in churches. They are in fact often the victims of rejection by their families or in the workplace.

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TURKEY

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AREA 774,815 kmq POPULATION 72,970,000 REFUGEES 6,956 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 1,200,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 97.2% Non religious 2.1% Affiliated Christians 0.6% Others 0.1%

Baptized Catholics 32,000

TURKEY

Modern Turkey has inherited the institutional system imposed in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), who was, at the time, greatly inspired by European state systems. Political developments in recent years, especially the electoral victory in 2002 of the Party of Justice and Development (an Islamic party ), led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan (who is now Prime Minister) and the election of Abdullah Gül as President of the Republic in 2007, have not resulted in any significant changes in the institutions. The Constitution still describes Turkey as a “democratic, secular and social State that respects human rights” (Art. 2), and declares that “all individuals are equal in the eyes of the Law, without distinction as to language, race, colour, gender, political opinion, philosophical beliefs, membership of a religion or a sect […]” (Art. 10), and also specifies that “everyone enjoys total freedom of conscience, creed and religious conviction” (Art. 24). It is however necessary to emphasise that Turkish secularism, from its very beginnings, was fundamentally different from secularism as perceived and practised in the European countries, in particular in France, where the State “does not recognise and does not finance any religion” (law of 1905). The secularism instated by Atatürk does not imply the State’s neutrality on the subject of religion, but places religion under the State’s protection. A special agency, the Dyanet, under the direct authority of the Prime Minister, manages religious affairs. All those occupying positions linked to religion (teachers of religion, ministers, etc.) both inside and outside the country, depend on this department for their appointments, training and salaries. Furthermore, one’s religion is stated on all civil documents. Neither Jews nor Christians have any representatives in the Dyanet. In a certain sense, they have no interest in being part of it, since this would place them under the protection of the state, which could then interfere in their teachings and worship. In connection with these minorities, one cannot speak of neutrality, given that their status deprives them of equality with their Muslim compatriots. This is a kind of secularism sui generis and therefore has very specific characteristics. Although agnostic, Atatürk wished

TURKEY

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thereby to acknowledge the religious sentiments of the great majority of his people, who are Sunni Muslims. The principle of “Turkishness”, which determines the national identity, implies the implicit confusion between ethnicity (Turkish) and religion (Sunni). It is necessary to bear in mind this reality in order to understand the situation with regard to religious freedom in Turkey. Islamic minorities The members of the two minorities belonging to Islam, the Kurds (Sunnis but not Turks) and the Alevis (Turks and not Sunnis), although Turkish citizens, do not fully benefit from all the rights established by the Constitution. Furthermore, the denominational identity of the Alevis, in spite of their numbers (15 million people), is not recognised, which deprives them of all representation within the Dyanet. Juridical situation of the Christians From an institutional point of view, Christians are divided into two categories. 1 - The communities recognised by the Treaty of Lausanne (24th July 1923). This document, considered to be modern Turkey’s international birth certificate, contains juridical provisions concerning the rights of minorities qualified as “protected”, this includes the Greek Orthodox Church, and the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church in addition to the Jewish community. Not only does it affirm the equality of their members with the other “inhabitants of Turkey” (Art. 38), but also guarantees them their civil, political and cultural rights. Thus the Treaty states that “Differences of religion, creed or confession shall not prejudice any Turkish national in matters relating to the enjoyment of civil or political rights, as, for instance, admission to public employments, functions and honours, or the exercise of professions and industries” (Art. 39 § 3). Furthermore, it states that “Turkish nationals belonging to non-Muslem minorities shall enjoy the same treatment and security in law and in fact as other Turkish nationals. In particular, they shall have an equal right to establish, manage and control at their own expense, any charitable, religious and social institutions, any schools and other establishments for instruction and education, with the right to use their own language and to exercise their own religion freely therein” (Art. 40). In reality however, the Christians who fall within the scope of the Treaty of Lausanne suffer serious discrimination or expropriations, to the extent that today the future of these two communities is seriously compromised. From the time the Treaty came into force, right up to modern times, the authorities have interpretated its provisions in a restrictive way. In principle, the institutions of the “protected minorities” are subject to a 1935 law, according to which the government required them to draw up an inventory of their possessions and to formally declare it. However, in the absence of applicative decrees, the

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Turkish State regulates these issues through police orders. As a result of this circumstance, in 1970 the seminary of the Holy Cross in Istanbul, which belongs to the (Orthodox) Armenian Apostolic Patriarchate, was arbitrarily closed. This seminary took in as boarders, boys from Anatolia who had come to Istanbul in order to regain possession of a culture that had been deleted from official school texts, and for some of them, to train for the priesthood. Patriarch Mesrob II’s most recent request to the State authorities for the reopening of the seminary, the only one belonging to his Church, ended once again without success. In March 2007, the patriarch refused to take part in a ceremony in the Armenian Church of the Holy Cross, on the shores of Lake Van, organised by the state authorities to celebrate the completion of its restoration. His refusal was in protest at the fact that this church, which dates back to the 10th century, has been turned into a museum. In 1971, a similar measure was taken, aimed at the only theological institute of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, on the island of Halki in the Sea of Marmara. This occurred because Patriarch Bartholomew I had refused to allow it to be placed under the tutelage of the Dyanet. Although he enjoys the spiritual primacy within Orthodoxy, and has jurisdiction over 250 million believers all over the world (though only 2,500 in Turkey itself), the Patriarch is not acknowledged as such by the Turkish State, they only recognise him as the “Greek-Orthodox Patriarch of Phanar” (the name of the district in Istanbul where he has his headquarters). These closures are preventing the replacement of the local clergy and might well – in the long term – lead to the disappearance of the two patriarchates that are covered by the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne. In fact, according to a rule established by the State, the two Patriarchs must be Turkish nationals and be elected by metropolitans (bishops) who are likewise Turkish nationals. According to Bartholomew I, there are petitions in circulation asking for the Patriarchate to be moved abroad. Charitable organisations are also significantly obstructed in their work, because they are subject to company tax. In 1974, a sentence passed by the Court of Cassation forbade the selling of property to the Christian minorities, on the pretext that this would go against the national interest. Furthermore, it ordered the seizure of many of the churches’ orphanages, hospitals and schools, on the pretext that their ownership of them dated from after 1936 (when the properties of the minorities were officially registered under the 1935 law). Considered as state property, these institutions were entrusted to ad hoc foundations. These expropriations contravene Articles 40 and 41 of the Treaty of Lausanne, which gives “protected minorities” the right to dispose of their own foundations as juridical means for exercising their religion, as well as their apostolic and charitable work, with “total freedom to use their own languages”. They also contravene Article 24 of the Turkish Constitution (see supra) as well as Article 9 of the European Convention for Human Rights, which Turkey has signed up to.

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2 – The second category of Christians are those “forgotten” by the Treaty of Lausanne. This includes members of the Oriental Churches (Assyrian-Chaldean, Syriac and Maronite) in spite of the fact that they are the most ancient religions existing in Anatolia. Since they are not recognised, they do not have any legal status or any rights, which places them in an even more precarious position. These churches are deprived of the right to own and manage their own schools, social centres, seminaries or religious formation centres or to build churches. All these restrictions are listed in a document drafted by the European Union on Turkey’s progress towards becoming a member of the European Union that was drawn up in preparation for the Brussels summit of December 2004. As far as communities of Western Christian denominations are concerned (Latin-rite Catholics and the various Protestant communities), they can only legitimate their presence on the basis of letters sent by the Turkish authorities to the French, Italian and British authorities, as ‘footnotes’ to Treaty of Lausanne, with the objective of guaranteeing the continuation of their work in the educational and health sectors, activities established several centuries earlier by European missionaries. But their status is no more than that of the managers of these charities. Catholics and Protestants do not enjoy any juridical status, they cannot own property, whether bought or inherited, nor can they construct new buildings, replace personnel or take someone to court etc. Generally speaking, Christians are excluded from certain professions (the police, the army, the higher administrative appointments). It should also be noted that, in the name of secularism, the religious minorities cannot be represented, as such, in parliament, which deprives them of the means of defending their collective interests and those of their members. Anti-Christian climate At the time of his visit to Turkey (28th November-1st December 2006) Pope Benedict XVI reminded the Turks of their obligations on the subject of freedom of worship in his speech to the Diplomatic Corps: “The fact that the majority of the population of this country is Muslim is a significant element in the life of society, which the State cannot fail to take into account, yet the Turkish Constitution recognizes every citizen’s right to freedom of worship and freedom of conscience. The civil authorities of every democratic country are duty bound to guarantee the effective freedom of all believers and to permit them to organize freely the life of their religious communities. […] This assumes, of course, that religions do not seek to exercise direct political power, as that is not their province, and it also assumes that they utterly refuse to sanction recourse to violence as a legitimate expression of religion.” With these last words the Pope was implicitly referring to the anti-Christian climate that has been developing in Turkey for some years now. The result of an alliance between exaggerated nationalism and the

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Anti-Christian violence This climate appears to have encouraged the attacks against Christians, perpetrated in 2006 and 2007, and which even led to the targeting of foreign Christians whose residency papers were in order. On 8th January 2006, in Adana, in Southern Turkey, a Protestant minister, Kamil Kiroglu, was attacked in his own home by five young men. One of them was armed with a knife and ordered him to recant Christianity and become a Muslim: “Renounce Jesus, or I will kill you now.” The pastor’s life was saved by the arrival of visitors to the church. On 6th February 2006, Father Andrea Santoro, a priest of the diocese of Rome, who was present in Turkey as a fidei donum priest, was murdered while praying in the Church of Saint Mary in Trebizond, on the shores of the Black Sea in northern Turkey. According to witnesses, his murderer shot him many times in the back, while shouting “Allah is great” (Le Figaro, 7th February 2006; Le Monde, 8th February 2006; La Croix, 9th February 2006; ZENIT, 21st February 2006). Arrested a short while later, still in possession of the murder weapon, 16-year-old Ohuzan Akdil said that he had acted in reaction to the publication of the “Mohammed cartoons” in the Danish newspaper Yllands-Posten at the end of 2005. He was sentenced to 18 years and 10 months. (ZENIT, 8th October 2007). This left Monsignor Luigi Padovese, the Vicar Apostolic of Anatolia, feeling “bitter and dissatisfied”, because “they have not clarified the reasons for this attack, simply attributing it to a young, unbalanced mind”, (L’Eglise dans le Monde, No. 134, 2 tr. 2007. See also L’Osservatore Romano, French edition, 14th February 2006). On 9th February 2006, in Smyrna, while inside the parish church of Saint Elena, a Slovenian Franciscan, Father Martin Kmetec, was attacked by a group of young Muslims who threatened to cut his throat, saying: “Sooner or later we will kill you all” (ZENIT, February 12th 2006).

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re-islamisation of society, this development is accompanied by a growing mistrust of minorities, and of Christians in particular, who are increasingly perceived as “internal enemies”. This is what Archbishop Ruggero Franceschini of Smyrna (Izmir) had to say on this subject in July 2007: “If they [the Turks] really were secular, they would respect all believers in the schools, whatever their religion. Instead we have had to put up with long years of education that exalted only the importance of Turkey – not its historical importance or that of its scenery, but the importance of its military conquests and Koranic doctrines, a compulsory subject in all schools and often taught by illtrained people. The teachers endeavour, above all, to deny the reality of Christianity, or to belittle its importance, treating the Gospel as “an invented story” (ZENIT, 3rd July 2007).

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On 11th March 2006, a Turkish Capuchin priest, Handi Leylek, and a group of adolescents were threatened with death by a man armed with a knife while in the Catholic Church of Saint Anthony in Mersin, a city on the southern coast of Turkey. Roberto Ferrari, an Italian priest who lives there, managed to call the police and the attacker was arrested. On 2nd July 2006, Father Pierre Brunissen, the French fidei donum priest who on 5th March had reopened the church in Trebizond, was stabbed in a street in Samsun, a city on the shores of the Black Sea where he usually exercised his ministry. On 21st February he had been threatened by a group of youngsters who had entered the church in Samsun. He was hospitalised and managed to survive in spite of his serious wounds. His attacker, Attila Nuran, is known to be close to extremist Islamic movements (ZENIT, 2nd July 2006; La Croix, 4th July 2006; Le Figaro, 4th July 2006; L’Eglise dans le Monde, No. 134, 2 tr. 2007). On 19th January 2007, the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was assassinated in Istanbul, outside the offices of the bilingual weekly magazine Agos, of which he was the editor in chief. Dink was very well known for his work in favour of the official recognition of the genocide of the Armenians, which in July 2006 had caused him to receive a six-month suspended prison sentence for “contempt of the Turkish identity” a crime defined under Article 301 of the Penal Code. And yet he was working for reconciliation between the Armenians and the Turks, criticising the intolerance of the Armenians of the diaspora. Originally from Trebizond, his murderer, Ogun Samast, a 17-year-old boy, was arrested in Samsun still carrying his weapon. Samast declared that he had not repented. The trial against him, as well as seventeen other defendants, opened in Istanbul in July 2007. They were all militants in the Great Union Party, which is both nationalist and extremist, an offshoot of the Grey Wolves movement (Le Figaro, 21st and 31st January 2007; Le Monde, 23rd January, 11th-12th February and 3rd July 2007; La Croix, 22nd and 24th January 2007). On 27th January 2007, a Protestant church in Samsun was attacked by unknown persons who threw stones, smashing all the windows of the building (La Croix, 29th January 2007). On 11th October 2007, Arat Dink, Hrant’s son and successor as editor-in-chief of Agos, was given a one-year suspended prison sentence for violating Article 301, after publishing an interview given by his father before his death in his magazine (Le Monde, 13th October 2007). On 18th April 2007, in Malatya, a city in Central Anatolia, three Evangelical Christians, two of which were converted Turks, Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel, and one German called Tilmann Geske, had their throats cut while at work for the publishing house Zirve, which distributes Bibles and other Christian literature. Five students, aged between 19 and 20, were arrested on suspicion of their murder. It seems that they

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were members of a Sufi brotherhood. They stated they had acted for “their homeland”. Six other suspects, thought to have been their accomplices, were later also arrested, among them Emre Günaydin, leader of the “Foyers idealists”, a branch of the Grey Wolves movement. Their trial opened on 23rd November 2007. The local press defended the accused, which obliged the co-plaintiffs’ lawyers to confine themselves to a local hotel. One of these lawyers, Mr. Cengiz, said: “For as long as the State’s representatives continue to say that Turkey is threatened by internal enemies, and that missionaries are agents paid by foreign states to divide Turkey, these crimes will be inevitable”. He believes that these ultra-nationalist murderers are “linked to state organisations” (La Croix, 20thApril and 23rd November 2007; Le Monde, 20th April and 24th November 2007; Le Figaro, 20th April 2007). On 3rd September 2007, the police arrested a man called Semih Sahin, who was about to set fire to the entrance of a Protestant church in Smyrna, the minister of which is the brother-in-law of one of the two men who had converted to Christianity and were murdered in Malatya. On 13th November 2007, a large group of forest guards started to demolish the 17thcentury chapel of the Transfiguration of the Lord, situated outside the theology seminary in Halki, in spite of the fact that the chapel was undergoing restoration with the permission of the local authorities. The guards removed and threw away the tiles from the roof and broke all the windows and window frames. The chapel’s total destruction was avoided at the very last minute after a protest by Metropolitan Meliton, director of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s legal department, to the prefect of the Prince Islands. At the end of November, a Syriac-Orthodox monk, Edip Daniel Savci, resident at the Mor Yacup monastery near Mydiat, in South-Eastern Turkey, was kidnapped and then released a few days later. On 16th December 2007, the Italian Capuchin Father Adriano Francini, Superior of the Custody of Turkey and Rector of the Sanctuary of the Virgin Mary in Ephesus, was stabbed outside the Church of Saint Anthony in Smyrna where he had just said Mass. His attacker was a young man aged 19 who justified his crime on the grounds that the priest had refused to baptise him. Pretending to be a candidate for conversion is currently a method often used to accuse Christians in Turkey of proselytism. Monsignor Franceschini reacted ironically, saying: “Once again they will say this was the act of a madman. But it has to be said that during the last year and a half, attacks by these mentally-ill people have increased significantly in Turkey” (La Croix, 18th December 2007; Le Monde, 18th December 2007). On 30th December 2007, the police arrested a young man about to murder a Turkish Protestant pastor working in Antalya, in Southern Turkey. The attacker told the police: “Missionaries have a bad influence on the young.” According to Monsignor Luigi

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Padovese, “those who convert to Christianity are considered traitors to the Turkish identity” (La Croix, 2nd January 2008). Commenting on the situation experienced by Christians in Turkey, Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, said on 3rd July 2006: “I believe these actions can only take place within a context of suspicion and xenophobia. The problem is not restricted to the person committing the crime. Furthermore, Islamic extremism, under the guise of patriotism, is increasing significantly in Istanbul” (ZENIT, 4th July 2006). None of these events prevented Turkey’s new ambassador to the Holy See, when presenting his credentials on 19th January 2007, from telling Pope Benedict XVI that “as confirmed by the leaders of my country a few weeks ago, the Turkish Constitution guarantees freedom of worship and of conscience for all its citizens, whatever their origins or personal beliefs may be. Within the framework of secularism, the heart of democracy in Turkey, the Turkish State treats all religious communities according to criteria of equality. In other words, the individual freedoms of our citizens are correctly guaranteed in this sector, with no discrimination based on ethnic or denominational criteria.”

Sources Emre Oktem, “La spécificité de la laïcité turque”, Se Comprendre, Paris, No. 04/07, August-September 2004 Camille Eid, “Turquie, la voie étroite des minorities”, Oasis, Venice, No. 6, October 2007 Annie Laurent, “L’Europe malade de la Turquie”, published by F.- X. di Guibert, Paris, 2005 Andrea Santoro, “Lettres de Turquie” (preface d’Annie Laurent), éd. du Jubilé, Paris, 2007

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TURKMENISTAN

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AREA 488,100 kmq POPULATION 5,000,000 REFUGEES 125 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 87.2% Non religious 10.4% Affiliated Christians 2.3% Others 0.1%

Baptized Catholics 100

TURKMENISTAN

Niyazov’s death: while hoping for change reality remains unchanged The political event that characterised this recent period was the death by a heart attack of Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan’s tyrannical father for 21 years. In the eyes of the international community Niyazov is, regrettably, famous for having established one of the regimes that most seriously violated and repressed civil liberties and individual rights in the world: suppressing all political opposition and the independent press, as well as imposing an extremely powerful cult of the president’s personality. The Ruhnama, a religious text he wrote, has become compulsory in all schools, from kindergarten to high schools; he has changed the names of the months and days of the week, also decreeing that the period of his regency should be described as “the golden century”. Many international observers had envisaged a possible collapse of the country when he died; the situation was instead characterised by perplexing calm, with the Deputy Prime Minister Kurbanguly Berdhymukhamedov assuming control of the country, initially ad interim, and then permanently, after elections – judged by western countries as neither free nor impartial (AsiaNews, 14th February 2007) – had elevated him to the Presidency with 89 percent of votes casted. A former dentist, and sometime Minister, Berdhymukhamedov was one of Niyazov’s oldest supporters and had survived his many government reshuffles unscathed. Although promising a number of reforms, Berdhymukhamedov remained bound to the legacy of his predecessor. He maintained the powerful cult of the President’s personality. Compared to the previous regime however, there has been a change of direction in foreign policy; in fact, the country obliged by the rigid isolation resulting from Niyazov’s closed and dictatorial policies, has resumed contact with the international community and Ashgabad has become the location for intense diplomatic relations. Berdhymukhamedov’s participation in UN meetings provided a clear signal of this change (AsiaNews, 26th September 2007). On this occasion, on 24th September Berdhymukhamedov met with students at Columbia University in New York, and pressed for answers to their

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questions, he declared that in Turkmenistan there is full freedom of expression and of the press, and that no obstacles are posed to religious groups and foreign NGOs. Also within the framework of greater openness to foreign countries are the two most important new laws on human rights implemented by Berdhymukhamedov. The first is the decree passed in July 2007 (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 16th July 2007) abolishing the need for citizens to have permits for travel within the country and also simplifying a number of procedures for travelling to Russia and other bordering countries. This provision however, is far from extensively applied. There remains in fact a blacklist of citizens, many known to the government as being active in politics, religion or human rights, who are still forbidden from entering or leaving the country. The second is the reopening of internet cafés, a reform promised by Berdhymukhamedov during his election campaign and implemented soon after his election. But there are many difficulties preventing the people of Turkmenistan from having real and full access to the outside world through the internet, as emphasised by a special report from the IWPR and published on 28th November 2007. The most important obstacles being the excessively high cost of this service – the equivalent of about ten dollars an hour – as well as the slowness and unreliability of the connections, the many filters blocking access to many websites, and the extensive control exercised over surfing and all emails sent. Furthermore, to this day it is still impossible for a private citizen to have an internet connection in his own home. As far as other reforms are concerned, a year after Niyazov’s death, various analysts are united in judging Berdhymukhamedov’s government as devoid of any important new ideas, with just a few small improvements in health, pensions, and education, and they also emphasise how little has been done as far as civil freedom and human rights are concerned. Tajigul Begmedova, president of the Turkmen branch of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, as reported in an article published on TOL.cz on 10th January 2008, has stated that “many reforms have been announced but not implemented. In fact, politically speaking, Turkmenistan is the same as it was under Niyazov. The situation with regards to human rights remains extremely serious in this country, with no freedom of expression whatsoever. And, like his predecessor, the new president does not tolerate dissent.” Discouraging signals are also emerging as far as religious freedom is concerned. Shortly after the death of President Niyazov, Farid Tukhbatullin, an exiled Protestant and leader of the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights (AsiaNews, 22nd December 2006), stated that even if the new government was interested in answering international demands for greater freedom, the “overwhelming majority of police officials and MSS secret police have a vested interest in preserving the current situation, under which they enjoy unlimited rights.”

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The Christian NGO Open Doors also emphasised (AsiaNews, 14th February 2007), how the new president had not mentioned in his programme “political change, freedom for the press or the release of political prisoners”. Felix Corley, leader writer for Forum 18 News Service, the news agency specialised in addressing the subject of religious freedom in the former Soviet Republics and Eastern Europe, declared (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 21st August 2007), that “religious freedom does not exist in Turkmenistan. The government controls the Islamic religion from within – to the extent that it has become a branch of the government. […] All other religions are controlled from the exterior through the secret police and other government agencies. They are all extremely restricted in the activities they are permitted to carry out”. A number of members of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom in the World have shown more optimism with regards to a positive evolution for human rights in this country after a recent visit to Turkmenistan in August 2007 (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1st September 2007). Michael Cromartie, president of this Commission, commented that: “In Turkmenistan there is still a repressive situation, but there are also signs that the government is aware of this and wishes to improve matters […] In a while we will judge whether these intentions are real and we will have proof of this. [For the moment] we have listened to their words, but we have received no proof.” On 2nd May 2007, the same US Commission had recommended that Turkmenistan should be listed among its “Countries of Particular Concern”, i.e. nations in which the authorities are involved in systematic violations of religious freedom (ZENIT, 7th May 2007). Catholics There is a very small Catholic community in Turkmenistan, with about 64 baptised Catholics, 50 catechumens and about the same number of sympathisers, out of a population of 5 million inhabitants. However, Father Andrzej Madej leads the Turkmen mission, whose activities continue with enthusiasm and vigour even though there are only two priests and no churches; Masses and other religious activities are held in private homes or at the nunciature in Ashgabad, which is Vatican diplomatic territory (ACN News, 30th August 2006). The Catholic community in Ashgabad has not presented a registration request since it cannot satisfy the requisite establishing that the community must be led by a local citizen the two priests being of Polish origin (Forum 18 News Service, 24th May 2006). The Armenian Catholic Community is larger, however, but on a variety of pretexts, it is always denied public recognition (AsiaNews, 22nd December 2006).

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Orthodox The Russian Orthodox Church’s Holy Synod, held in Moscow on 12th October 2007 has decided to separate the ecclesiastical territory of Turkmenistan from its central Asian diocese, which is based in the Uzbek capital Tashkent and led by Metropolitan Vladimir (Ikim) (Forum 18 News Service, 19th October 2007). A request to this effect had already been made in 2005 in a letter from the then President Saparmurat Niyazov to Patriarch Alexei II, who had politely declined this proposal. Father Georgi Ryabykh, assistant to Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad who is responsible for the Moscow Patriarchate’s foreign relations, while not denying that pressure had been applied in this sense, added however that the decision had been motivated by practical reasons, since the Turkmen community was rather more isolated than others: “The diocese’s main city, Tashkent, is too far from Turkmenistan […] and then there is the problem of the rivalry between these two states. […] Turkmenistan does not like the Uzbek influence.” Although the Russian Orthodox Church is one of the two officially acknowledged religions, it certainly still experiences difficulties. In was only in November 2005 that the first parishes managed to obtain re-registration. Furthermore, the authorities continue to deny the Church permission to build a new cathedral in Ashgabad, as had been planned in the mid-Nineties, nor has permission been granted to complete the church still under construction in Dashoguz. In compliance with the existing ban on subscriptions to foreign newspapers Orthodox believers in Turkmenistan are not permitted to receive the Patriarchate of Moscow’s newspaper or other Orthodox publications. Muslims In 2007 too, the State continued to restrict the number of citizens permitted to participate in the haj pilgrimage to Mecca: only 188, carefully selected by the government, after receiving approval from the Gengeshi (Council) for Religious Affairs, were able to fulfil their religious obligation, although Saudi Arabia custodian of this Holy Cityhad given Turkmenistan a quota of 5 thousand pilgrims. For years Turkmenistan has justified the small number of pilgrims, with the excuse of high travelling expenses, since these are provided by the State; this year however, the higher spheres of government had promised that anyone who wished to would be permitted to make this journey at their own expense; this promise was not kept (AsiaNews, 14th December 2007). The situation of the minority religious groups In this country all activities by non-registered religious groups are forbidden; they are not even allowed to gather and pray.

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The situation of such religious groups, which had slightly improved during the last period of Niyazov’s government, has once again become difficult and tense with the new president Gurbanguly Berdhymukhamedov’s rise to power. Controls and attacks on religious minorities have started again as well as their members being brought to trial. Local officials and police officers continue to threaten members of non-registered minority religious groups; on the other hand registration is nearly impossible to obtain, and exposes religious communities to an even worse risk of almost total interference in and control over their activities by the state authorities. Many active representatives of religious communities are still forbidden from leaving and entering the country and various provisions of this kind have been ordered over the past two years. The Baptist minister Vyacheslav Kalataevsky, a Ukrainian citizen who was however born and grew up in Turkmenistan, was expelled from the country in 2001; he returned in secret to join up with his wife and children, but was discovered and arrested, and in May was sentenced to three years in a work camp. Released thanks to the amnesty of 9th October 2007, celebrating the end of Ramadan, on 11th December he was once again obliged to leave the country (Forum 18 News Service, 10th January 2008). The same destiny was suffered by the Russian Baptist Yevgeny Potolov, resident in Turkmenistan since 1998; he too was expelled in 2001 for having participated in the activities of a non-registered religious group and returned in secret to rejoin his family, only to be once again deported in July and separated from his wife and seven children (Forum 18 News Service, 18th July 2007). Jehovah’s Witnesses also experience a very difficult situation, especially in the absence of a law on conscientious objectors. In 2007, six Jehovah’s Witnesses were sentenced for having refused to do military service. Three of them were among the 9 thousand prisoners released thanks to the amnesty of October 9th (Forum 18 News Service, 9th October 2007). Another Jehovah’s Witness, Begench Shakhmuradov, not among those pardoned, was sentenced twice for the same offence. On 12th September 2007 he was sentenced to two years in prison with a suspended sentence, the same punishment had already been imposed in February 2005 (AsiaNews, 15th September 2007). According to reports from the Jehovah’s Witnesses pressure on their community has increased since the beginning of 2007. Members of this religious group have suffered: raids on their meetings; religious material burnt; imposition of fines; dismissal from existing jobs; or found it impossible to get new jobs. In April various incursions by armed forces interrupted ceremonies for the Remembrance of the Death Of Christ

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both in the city of Turkmenabad and in Ashgabad. This is the most important event of the year for Jehovah’s Witnesses and in both cases, after searching the apartments and removing religious material, members of this community – both adults and children – were taken to local police stations to be interrogated, and then obliged to sign written statements (Forum 18 News Service, 20th July 2007).

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TUVALU

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AREA 26 kmq POPULATION 10,000 REFUGEES --INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 89.3% Non religious 5.7% Baha’i 5%

Baptized Catholics 100

TUVALU

As the Preamble to the Constitution states, this country is “an independent state founded on Christian principles, a state of law, and based on the customs and traditions of Tuvalu”. Religious freedom is acknowledged in detail in Article 23 of the 1978 Constitution, amended in 1990. All groups with more than 50 members must register. Missionary activities are admitted with no restrictions. In practice however, in this tiny nation, the profession of religious beliefs differing from those generally recognised has at times resulted in discrimination. In the various islands, the Council of Elders traditionally has the power to restrict freedom of worship if it is considered contrary to customs and traditions. In 2003, on the atoll of Nanumanga, the island’s Falekaupule (Council of Elders) “forbade the profession” of the Tuvalu Brethren Church, to which a number of residents had converted. Part of the community then opposed this new faith by throwing stones and constantly threatening people. The Brethren Church took the case to court, complaining that this decision violated the right to freedom of worship. In October 2005, the courts however rejected this request, observing that in addition to human rights, local customs and traditions are also recognised (mentioned in the introduction) and that the Council’s decisions are part of this provision. The Brethren Church appealed to the High Court (the first appeal in the history of this country), but at the end of 2007 a decision had still not been reached. In the meantime, in April 2006, the Council had decided to dismiss public officials who belonged to the Brethren Church. In spite of a High Court order opposing this, in June 2006 the Council of Elders dismissed five of its officials who were members of this Church. In January 2006, the Council of the main island Funafuti, also forbade the practising of “new religions”, a ban aimed above all at the Brethren Church. The High Court stopped all actions against this church and its faithful but proceedings against this order have not yet started. Similar problems have also been reported in relation to other new beliefs, and sometimes the local communities rise up against such activities and proselytising, protesting that these subvert the traditional social order.

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UGANDA

UGANDA

AREA 241,038 kmq POPULATION 28,704,000 REFUGEES 228,959 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 1,030,893

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 88.7% Muslims 5.2% Ethnoreligionists 4.4% Others 1.7%

Baptized Catholics 12,274,000

Article 32c of the 1995 Constitution recognises full religious freedom. All private associations must register, including religious groups. This procedure takes several weeks and generally there are no problems. The government denies or revokes the registration of cults which practise rituals that are contrary to public order, often passing themselves off as new Christian demoninations. In September 2007, for example, the police in Gulu arrested twelve followers of the Church of New Jerusalem, a cult that preaches the imminent end of the world and the Last Judgement. In October 2007, once again in the district of Gulu, the police freed more than 200 children who had been “lured” by three self-proclaimed pastors of a new “Christian” church, on the pretext of enrolling them in a new but still non-existent school. To oppose the proliferation of such false churches, a draft law now proposes that new groups should provide accreditation in the form of a letter of presentation from an authoritative and recognised religious authority. Holding night-time prayer meetings is still forbidden in some areas, because of the fear that some gangs of criminals might use this excuse to meet before going into action, and also to ensure that public order is respected. There are many private Christian schools and Islamic madrassas. Religious instruction is optional in state schools and includes the study of all the world religions, rather than one specific faith. Missionaries are permitted in this country and are fairly active. The violent attacks on religious groups and believers are the result of the war between the army and the rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which has been running for over two decades is still ongoing. In recent years, however, there have been a series of armistices and partial agreements. On 23rd February 2008, the government and the rebels met in Juba (Sudan) and signed a final ceasefire, which establishes that the rebel leaders will be tried by an Ugandan court for crimes committed in recent years. However, shortly after the leader of the LRA, Joseph Kony, left his base in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and it remains to be seen whether he will respect this agreement. This conflict, with its ethnic origins, has caused

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“No one listens to our call for help” “The world never pays attention to our condition. We do not have the means to make ourselves heard.” In June 2007 Father Thomas Achia, director of the Centre for Social Services and Development Aid in the diocese of Moroto, described the extremely difficult conditions in the Karamoja region, in North-Eastern Uganda, where the poverty is beyond anything one can imagine, to Aid to the Church in Need. “Anyone who manages to eat one apple in the course of the day is lucky.” In addition to the poverty, the long civil war has left an glut of weapons. Gunfights and car thefts are daily events, in broad daylight and in the streets. One of Father Achia’s assistants was also murdered, and many aid agencies are afraid to send personnel to this region. It is not only the remaining rebels but also the army that generates yet more rage and resentment by attacking and killing civilians. People do not even feel safe in the refugee camps and try to gather in small spaces. “The lack of hygiene is unimaginable, in the best cases there is one latrine for three thousand people.” “There are no medicines, nor vehicles for transporting people to hospital. Many die of diseases such as malaria and cholera, many women die in childbirth due to the dreadful hygienic conditions. Neonatal and child mortality is also terrifying and life expectancy is even lower than the Ugandan average, already an appallingly low 39 years.” Tribal customs are also very widespread and diseases are considered the work of witchcraft. When a man dies his widow must marry his brother and “many people know only the law of kill or be killed and are totally unaware even of the existence of human rights”. The Church runs schools and educational programmes to help people produce more food, it teaches reading and writing, catechism, and helps to explain the meaning of all this and how to lead a better life. There are 16 priests and nuns who share these harsh and difficult conditions.

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bloodshed in Northern Uganda since 1986, causing more than 100,000 civilian deaths and over 2 million refugees, most of whom are now in camps where health is precarious and food is lacking. Thousands of children (12,000 according to official data, but believed by some to have been as many as 80,000) have been kidnapped and enslaved, with the boys “enlisted” and the girls reduced to sexual slavery. There is still a widespread belief in witchcraft; in June 2007, in the Kitgum district, the crowd stoned and then burned alive three women accused of being witches and of having caused the death of a motorcyclist.

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Anglicans On 25th November 2006, the Anglican priest Godfrey Tabura was killed by unknown snipers while on his motorbike in Kyenda, in the district of Mubende. The reason for this murder is unknown, although the police exclude robbery, since not even the motorbike was stolen. Other Christians On 25th February 2006, six people escaped from prison, all accused of murdering the Ugandan student, Isaac Juruga and the American Evangelical couple, Warren and Donna Petty, who were killed in March 2004, at the Evangelical technical school in the district of Yumbe. It has never been established whether these murders were carried out in order to steal from the victims, or out of hostility to the Evangelical presence in an area that is predominantly Muslim, or perhaps even because of rivalry between clans.

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UKRAINE

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AREA 603,700 kmq POPULATION 46,760,000 REFUGEES 7,277 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 83% Non religious 14.9% Others 2.1%

Baptized Catholics 4,826,000

UKRAINE

Since 2005 the Ukrainian government has taken various steps to grant religious organisations the status of a legal person, which gives them, for example, the right to set up their own schools as well as exempting their clergymen and aides from military service. Likewise on 30th June 2006, the Ukrainian parliament approved some amendments to the Land Code, giving religious organisations the right to permanently use state and municipal land pursuant to their status as non-profit organisations that perform socially useful activities and in keeping with their spiritual, social, moral and educational character. On 8th November 2006, the Department of Religious Affairs (which had been set up on 26th May 2005 within the Justice Ministry) was replaced by the State Committee for Nationalities and Religion. It is directly answerable to the Council of Ministers, thus giving it a higher status than its predecessor. The number of religious communities rose by 857 in 2006 to a total of 33,063 as of 1st January 2007, according to official data on the current situation of religious groups in Ukraine (RISU, 6th July 2007). Orthodox Christians have a majority, 16,581 in all or 50.1 percent of the total. Of these, 10,972 are loyal to the Patriarchate of Moscow whilst another 4,007 are attached to the Patriarchate of Kiev. The Greek-Catholic Church has some 3,628 communities, 1,532 of which (43 percent) are located in and around the city of L’viv where they constitute the largest religious group. By comparison, in the same area the Orthodox Patriarchate of Kiev has only 442 communities, another 62 Orthodox communities are loyal to Moscow and 146 attached to the Latin-rite Catholic Church. In an interview, Achmed Tamin, head of the Spiritual Direction of the Muslims of Ukraine and rector of the Islamic University (RISU, 29th June 2007), made an important observation, namely that the country is home to some 2 million Muslims, who either belong to its national minorities or are Russians and Ukrainians who converted to Islam. Overall, the last two years have been difficult for Ukraine because of the unstable political situation caused by the split in the forces that were behind the 2004 “Orange Revolution”. It is therefore not surprising that important draft legislation like the “Bill on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organisations”

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(a draft bill that was vetted in July 2006 and favourably received by the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission) has not yet been passed. In practice this has meant that local economic interests have tended to prevail at the expense of believers’ moral rights. One example, according to Mgr Stanislav Padewski, Bishop of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhya, is the expulsion on 27th June 2007 of a group of women from a Latinrite Catholic Church in Dnipropetrovs’k that had been confiscated in Communist times and privatised in 1998 (ACN-News, 6th July 2007). On this occasion the current owners did not hesitate from employing strong-arm tactics to protect their property rights. The 22nd International Congress on the Family was held on 9th-11th May 2006 in Kiev under the chairmanship of Cardinal Ljubomir Husar (primate of the Greek-Catholic Church). All of the country’s main religions were represented (ZENIT, 24th April 2006). In the Ukraine the institution of the family is still suffering from decades under an atheistic regime which deprived it of its Christian values and threatened its very existence. The Ukraine declared 2006 as the Year of the Child’s Right to Protection, this was followed by the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in co-operation with other Christian Churches declaring 2006 as the Year of the Child’s Spiritual Protection. Catholic Church The country is home to a large Catholic community, the Greek-Catholic Church, which follows the Byzantine rite (it was banned under Stalin but re-legalised on 1st December 1989), as well as a Catholic community that follows the Latin rite. In March 2006 the Greek-Catholic Church commemorated the 60th anniversary of the socalled ‘L’viv Synod’ when Soviet authorities forced it to join the Orthodox Church. In a message commemorating the event, Cardinal Husar stressed that the anniversary should encourage the country’s Christians towards greater unity. On that occasion, Pope Benedict XVI wrote a letter to Cardinal Husar that made reference to the “unspeakable trials and sufferings” that the Greek-Catholic Church had to endure, but also stressed its dual mission, namely that of maintaining “the visibility of the Eastern tradition in the Catholic Church” and facilitating “the meeting of the traditions, witnessing not only to their compatibility but also to their profound unity in diversity” (ZENIT, 16th March 2006). An invaluable tool for learning about the martyrs of the 20th century is the collection of historical documents titled “The Liquidation of the UGCC: 1934-1946”, the first volume of which was published in August 2006 (ZENIT, 17th September 2006). It must be noted that the Patriarchate of Moscow never disavowed the ‘pseudo-synod’ of L’viv. Instead in a note dated 17th August 2005 Russian Orthodox Patriarch Aleksij renewed its accusation against the Greek-Catholic Church of engaging in proselytism in Ukraine and listed the “merits” of the Russian Orthodox Church accumulated since

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Orthodox Churches The country’s Orthodox community continues to be troubled by divisions. There is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Patriarcate of Moscow (UOC-MP), the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyvian Patriarchate (UOC-KP), which is considered non-canonical because it is not under the jurisdiction of either Constantinople or Moscow, and also the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC), which is considered non-canonical for the same reasons as the UOC-KP. Civil authorities have been pushing for an end to the schism and the re-establishment of a united Ukrainian Orthodox Church, an issue that is indeed of concern to the various Church communities themselves. In February 2006 the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church loyal to the Patriarchate of Moscow decided to renew the dialogue with the Autocephalous Church and revive the Joint Commission set up on 22nd November 1995 (Sedmica.ru, 16th February 2006). The Commission has since met on a regular basis but both sides have excluded the possibility of involving the Patriarchate of Kiev despite President Yushchenko’s request to that effect in February 2007. Their reason is that the Patriarchate is not a canonical structure (Blagovest-info.ru, 6th March 2007).

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1946, highlighting the help and care it provided to the faithful of the Greek-Catholic Church when it was suppressed. The Russian Orthodox Church has been especially adamant about local authorities in L’viv refusing to grant the GreekCatholics land to build another place of worship. The Latin-rite Catholic Church is comprised of the metropolitan archdiocese of L’viv (L’viv of the Latins) and six suffragan dioceses for a total of some 800 parishes. The proposal to set up an autonomous diocese within the “Orthodox canonical territory” that overlaps with the area of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Exarchate (Odessa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Kirovohrad and Crimea), and to create a new seminary in Odessa, angered the local Orthodox Church (Spravedlivost, No. 3, 2006). The latter has complained that the proposal far exceeds what the local Greek-Catholic community needs based on its actual size, a point that underscores what it sees as the proselytising aim of the proposal. The Catholic bishops of the Latin rite in Ukraine together with a delegation of Catholic bishops of the Byzantine Rite made an ad limina visit in September 2007 (ZENIT, 24th and 27th September 2007), receiving from the Pope a warm exhortation to “intensify cordial collaboration […] for the good of the entire Christian People,” giving special “attention to the proposal of at least one annual meeting that would gather together the Latin-rite Bishops and those of the Greek-Catholic- rite, to discuss together how to make your pastoral action increasingly more harmonious and effective” in view of increasing the missionary and ecumenical spirit.

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Conflicts between different Orthodox communities have been reported over the ownership and right to use of certain places of worship, like the Church of the Resurrection in Ostroh (HRWF, 23rd February 2006), Trinity Church in Rochmaniv (Ternopil province), and the Church of Saint George in Subranec (RISU, 5th February 2007). In particular Interfax reported (2nd October 2006) that the Orthodox in L’viv picketed the local city council to protest against the authorities’ decision to officially give to the Patriarchate of Kiev the land on which is built the Church of Saint Vladimir (the property itself belonged to the Moscow Patriarchate since 1991 but was later seized by its opposite in Kiev). The community loyal to Moscow had built a chapel on this land which it has now lost.

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UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Christians On 12th December 2006 the local press reported the dismissal of a foreign teacher for having attempted to convert her pupils to Christianity. According to the head teacher, this teacher was later expelled from the country. Father Tony Kuruvilla, a Salesian, said he was surprised by the “devotion observed among immigrants of many different nationalities”. In fact the attendance of the faithful at the Mass

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AREA 83,600 kmq POPULATION 4,006,000 REFUGEES 159 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 75.6% Affiliated Christians 11.1% Hindus 7.6% Others 5.7%

Baptized Catholics 459,000

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Islam is the official religion of all seven emirates in the Federation and likewise for the Federal Constitution. The State’s fundamental charter guarantees religious freedom for non-Muslims on condition that they do not offend against the law or public morals. Article 75 of the provisions relating to the Federal Supreme Council specifies that “the rules of the Islamic Shari‘a shall apply, as shall those federal and other laws in force in the member emirates of the Federation that are in harmony with the provisions of the Shari‘a. Further, those customary rules and principles of natural and comparative law shall apply where not in contradiction with the rules of Shari‘a”. As in other countries in the Gulf, proselytism is forbidden here – leading to threats of expulsion against a number of missionaries – as is the distribution of non-Islamic religious literature. Strict government control can be inferred from a statement made by the Vicar Apostolic of Arabia, Monsignor Paul Hinder, who in 2004 said: “We would never be able to accept the conversion of a Muslim. Such an event would create extremely serious risks, not only for those concerned but for the entire Church”. The authorities are tolerant in granting permits for the building of non-Islamic places of worship and schools, in particular Christian ones. There are in fact at least 31 Christian places of worship in this country, built on land donated by the royal families of the individual emirates. The emirates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi have given land for building Christian cemeteries, and likewise for cremation facilities for the Hindu community. Dubai also has two Hindu temples, one of them also used by the Sikhs. However, official permission is necessary for every single use of the building.

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and parish activities creates overcrowding problems. “I have often wondered about the reason for this devotion to faith”, reflected Father Kuruvilla. “I fear that it is influenced by the atmosphere of encirclement that weighs upon the Christians.” At the end of May 2007, the Holy See and the United Arab Emirates announced the decision to establish diplomatic relations. The joint communique emphasised a desire for “reciprocal friendship” and for “greater depth in international cooperation” also specifying that the level of their respective representatives would be that of Apostolic Nuncio for the Holy See, and that of Ambassador for the Emirates. The United Arab Emirates are part of the Apostolic Vicariate of Arabia, with its headquarters in Abu Dhabi, under Monsignor Paul Hinder. According to reliable estimates there are somewhere over a million Christians, mostly Catholics, belonging to over one hundred different nationalities, who contribute to the good of society in the emirates. In the churches of this country, Mass is celebrated in a number of different rites and languages, while a variety of religious congregations lend their services in education, as teachers in the Christian schools. Various In July 2006 the daily newspaper Gulf News reported on the confiscation of material described as “linked to witchcraft” in various border areas, such as ancient engravings on stone tables, animal claws, amulets dating back to pre-Islamic eras and other objects. The authorities believe that many of these confiscations concern people who own these objects for “personal use”, but many speak of the existence of organised trading in the region. Abdullah Ibrahim, one of those responsible for the consumers’ department in Abu Dhabi, explained that “this material is confiscated because it is considered illegal; most of these objects in fact date back to pre-Islamic periods and therefore are contrary to Islamic principles”. Ibrahim states that the Abu Dhabi Emirate destroys the confiscated material without punishing the smugglers transporting it, and gives an assurance that the inspectors responsible for these confiscations are qualified to recognise objects of particular historical and artistic value, which are then handed over to museums. Sources AsiaNews Gulf News Vatican Radio

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UNITED KINGDOM

In England and Wales the law requires some sort of collective worship in schools (School Standards and Framework Act 1998), which usually takes the form of an assembly. “Collective worship” is supposed to differ from “corporate worship”, where everyone is a member of a particular faith, by acknowledging that school pupils will hold different beliefs among themselves. Schools may organise a single act of worship for all pupils or separate acts of worship for pupils in different age or school groups, which must be “wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character”. Such provisions are opposed by the British Humanist Association which condemns them as “unworkable, hypocritical, counter-productive and divisive” and actively campaigns for their abolition. The educational system, which includes religious instruction for students up to the age of 19, also allows for exemptions. Some denominational schools receive funding from the state, but there are still significant restrictions to obtaining recognition.

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AREA 230,762 kmq POPULATION 58,115,000 REFUGEES 299,718 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 82.6% Non religious 13.2% Others 4.2%

Baptized Catholics 5,153,000

UNITED KINGDOM

The Church of England is the state church in England, and the British Sovereign must be a member under the 1688/89 Bill of Rights. While being supreme head of the episcopalian Church of England, the monarch is also the sworn protector of the presbyterian Church of Scotland (though in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland there is no State Church). In any event, no Catholic and no one married to a Catholic may become King or Queen of the United Kingdom. The Sovereign has a number of powers in making ecclesiastical appointments. The two archbishops, of Canterbury and York, and the 24 bishops of the Anglican Church, known as “Lords spiritual”, sit in the House of Lords. Other religious communities are independent from the State and organised according to Common Law. No church is financed by the State, which does however guarantee tax emption for properties owned by charitable organisations, a category that most religious denominations currently belong to. Citizens may abstain from working on the rest days established by their own religion, on condition that this does not cause conflict and/or obligations for their colleagues. Exceptions are made for Sikhs in the workplace, allowing them to wear turbans instead of crash helmets or protective headgear.

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Since 2nd December, 2003, under the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations, it has been unlawful to discriminate against workers because of religion or similar beliefs. Also, following the approval in October 2007 of a law on racial and religious hatred, those found guilty of this offence now face up to seven years imprisonment. There is also an anti-terrorism law in force since 2001 that strictly punishes all crimes committed for religious motives, while in April 2006, a law was passed (the 2006 Terrorism Act) banning all organisations that glorify or incite terrorist acts, and also forbidding the distribution of material praising armed struggle. Still within the area of legislation, the Sexual Orientation law, approved by both houses of Parliament which came into force in Great Britain (i.e. excluding Northern Ireland) on 30th April 2007, and obliges adoption agencies to entrust children to homosexual couples, has caused uproar as there are no exceptions whatsoever for conscientious objection, Judge Andrew McClintock was forced to stand down from serving on the Family Panel. His appeal on the grounds of freedom of conscience, and of religious discrimination was rejected by the Sheffield Employment Tribunal on 28th February 2007. The Catholic Church Due to a latent suspicion of Roman Catholicism at the heart of the nation’s institutions, the formal conversion to Catholicism of former Prime Minister Tony Blair only took place after he had resigned his government position in 2007, so as to avoid embarrassment for the Labour Party. Gordon Brown considered ending Britain’s historic discrimination against Catholics, by repealing the 1701 Act of Settlement, under which the monarch is forbidden to marry a Catholic, and a member of the Royal Family who marries a Catholic loses his or her place in the line of succession, but decided not to proceed with the changes. His decision to keep the law as it stands drew harsh comment from Church leaders, particularly Scotland’s Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who accused the new Prime Minister of supporting “state-sponsored sectarianism”, making explicit reference to the antiCatholic sectarian violence that takes place in Scotland particularly on the occasion of sports events. Cases of Christianophobia In any case, the level of social tolerance experienced by Christians in some areas is not high. Nadia Eweida, working at the British Airways check-in counter, experienced this and was dismissed in September 2006 for having continued to wear a cross around her neck and over her uniform, in spite of the company forbidding this. The woman, who is an Anglican, lost her petition to the company in November 2006, but

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Islam Shortly before his lecture at the Royal Courts of Justice, where he called for elements of Shari‘a law to be considered on 7th February 2008, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams said, on BBC Radio 4’s ‘World at One’ programme, that British Law had already accommodated aspects of the internal law of other religious communities and that, in his opinion, it would be opportune to find a “a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law” for matters such as family law and financial issues. The previous week, the British Minister for Labour and Pensions, had announced that polygamists could obtain family allowances for all their wives, on condition that they had married them abroad. This judgement might have appeared to be in line with opinions expressed on 13th June 2006 by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who considered “realistic and feasible” the idea of “making Great Britain the gateway for Islamic finance and exchanges”. A year and a half later however, now as Prime Minister, Brown responded to the statements by Archbishop Williams by declaring that the Shari‘a “cannot be used as a justification for breaking British Law, nor can the principles of the Shari‘a be pleaded in a civil court […] the Prime Minister believes that in this country one should apply British Laws based on British values”. In the meantime, the positions adopted by the Church of England have also fallen into line. Paradoxically, after the suicide attacks of July 2005 in London, carried out by an Al Qaeda cell, two ideologists of Islamic extremism, Yussuf Al Qaradawi and Tariq Ramadan became, respectively, advisor to the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, and advisor to the British government. However, not everyone within the Anglican hierarchy agreed with these choices, to the extent that in September 2005, the Sunday Telegraph published the text of a private document written by Guy Wilkinson, Archbishop Williams’ advisor for interreligious dialogue. Accusations addressed at the British government, then led by Tony Blair, were that it had encouraged a “schizophrenic” approach to multiculturalism. Instead of integrating minorities, its policies had made society “more separate than before”. The Muslim population of about 1.8 million – only 3 percent of the total – had, the Anglican leaders complained, been given “privileged attention”, thereby marginalising the “remaining” majority of citizens. Now however, Archbishop Williams has acknowledged that “certain provisions of Shari‘a are already recognized in our society and under our law, so it’s not as if we’re

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later, giving in to pressure from public opinion, in January 2007, British Airways changed its company policy, allowing the wearing of religious symbols by uniformed staff also. Once again in January 2007, a school in Gillingham forbade a thirteen year old girl called Samantha Devine from wearing a crucifix, threatening to expel her.

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bringing in an alien and rival system”. He accepted that “nobody in their right mind, I think, would want to see in this country a kind of inhumanity that’s sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states – the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women”. But, he claimed, adopting the Shari‘a need not mean denying people “the rights that are guaranteed to them as citizens in general”. A few days earlier the Anglican Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, had had a totally different experience, having received death threats in response to an article he had written in which he said that Islamic extremists had transformed some areas of the United Kingdom into no-go areas for non-Muslims. Bishop Nazir-Ali’s remarks were widely shared by public opinion, and were backed up by the results of a report entitled “The Hijacking of British Islam”, by researchers from the Policy Exchange centre, who revealed that in a quarter of the one hundred mosques they had visited in the country, they had found extremist literature in which British Muslims were invited to segregate themselves from non-Muslims and in which the beheading of apostates, the stoning of adulterers and jihad were all justified. There are examples of converts to Christianity from Islam being targeted. Nissar Hussein, 43, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who was born and raised in the UK converted to Christianity from Islam with his wife, Qubra, in 1996. In April 2008, the family suffered a number of threats and, after being told that his house would be burnt down if he did not return to Islam, he reported the threats to the police. Reports say that police were unhelpgul and told him that such threats were rarely carried out. A few days later the unoccupied house next door was set ablaze. On the other hand, incidents of so-called “islamophobia” are on the increase. In 2005 a Muslim man was been beaten to death by youths in Nottingham who yelled anti-Islamic abuse at him. Within the educational system, the controversy over the Islamic veil still plays a significant role. According to the guidelines issued by the government in October 2007, it is legitimate to wear the veil in state schools, although school authorities are allowed to adopt specific rules in the case of veils which cover the whole face. In March 2006 the House of Lords overturned a Court of Appeal ruling that Denbigh High School’s muslim headmistress, Yasmin Bevan, was wrong to exclude pupil Shabina Begum from school for wearing the head-to-toe jilbab garment. The Lords debate did not consider the issue of religious dress per se, but rather ruled that the school was entitled to enforce its uniform policy. The Muslim Council of Britain described the ruling as a “common sense approach”. Judaism Since 2000 there have been more than 100 attacks on synagogues, as well as acts of vandalism and desecration of grave stones in Jewish cemeteries.

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Sources Collective Worship and School Assembly: What is the law? What are your rights?, http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/contentViewArticle.asp?article=1252 Vikram Dodd, Islamophobia blamed for attack, The Guardian, 13th July 2005 The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 No. 1263, http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2007/uksi_20071263_en_1 Girl banned from wearing cross at school, AFP, January 13th 2007. Escuela inglesa prohíbe que alumna católica luzca crucifijo, ACI-Prensa, 15th January 2007 Laura Clout, British Airways Caves in on Cross Ban, Telegraph, 19th January 2007 Idem, Opt-out Refusal ‘Bans Church From Public Life’, Telegraph, 30th January 2007 Richard Woods - David Leppard, How liberal Britain let hate flourish, The Sunday Times, 12th February 2007 Andrew Fletcher, Hardline takeover of British mosques, The Times, 7th September 2007. Hannah Fletcher, Christian JP refused to rule on gay adoption, The Times, 23rd October 2007 Ruth Gledhill, British Muslim ‘bullied’ for converting to Christianity, The Times, 28th April 2008 Marke Greaves, Brown ditches plan to repeal anti-Catholic law, Catholic Herald, 11th July 2007 Religious hatred law in force, PA News, 1st October 2007 School wins Muslim dress appeal, BBC News, 22nd March 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4832072.stm Patrick Wintour, Muslim groups draft rulebook for mosques to drive out extremists, The Guardian, 30th October 2007 Severin Carrell, Catholics bear brunt of Scottish sectarian abuse, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/nov/28/religion.catholicism

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

AREA 9,372,614 kmq POPULATION 299,296,000 REFUGEES 281,219 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 84.7% Non religious 9.4% Others 5.9%

Baptized Catholics 67,530,000

There are a number of Constitutional provisions, such as the 14th Amendment, which prohibit discrimination based on race, colour, religion, gender or nationality, as well as numerous laws safeguarding religious freedom. Over time more specific rules were added and respect of these rules is guaranteed by the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The Educational Opportunities Section, integrating Titles IV and IX of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, forbids religious discrimination in primary and secondary schools, in high schools and in universities. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ensures the respect of Title VII in this same law and forbids discrimination in the workplace, while the Housing and Civil Enforcement Section is responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws on housing and credit, and Title II of the same law covers access to public places. In the year 2000 the so-called RLUIPA (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act) was passed, a law aimed at safeguarding individuals, places of worship and other religious institutions from any possible legislative discrimination as far as city planning is concerned. In the course of recent years, this juridical system has permitted an ever increasing number of cases involving religious discrimination to be addressed. According to the Civil Rights Division, there was a significant increase in such cases between 2001 and 2006, as compared to the 1995-2000 period, in particular in the educational sector, where the figure rose from one single case examined and no formal investigation, to 82 cases, involving 40 investigations; as far as housing and civil enforcement was concerned, the figure rose from 4 investigations and 1 court case to 18 investigations and 6 court hearings; the RLUIPA was applied in 118 revisions of cases and in 26 investigations, of which 15 were resolved without resorting to the courts and 4 led to civil lawsuits. With regard to family law, cases involving religious issues rose from 1 to 16. On this subject, on 20th February 2007, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced that the Department of Justice was to adopt a programme entitled “The First Freedom Project”, to protect citizens involved in controversies having religious

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implications. At the same time, the Department of Justice (which since 2004 has published a newsletter on the more significant legal cases addressing this subject) has published its own “Report on Enforcement of Laws Protecting Religious Freedom: Years 2001-2006”. In the course of 2007, there was a significant increase in sentences concerning issues related to the Islamic religion. With a total of 888 judicial cases, the phenomenon has reached such proportions that the number is higher than that for the whole period between 1980 and 2006. There are seven different categories of juridical issues addressed. The most numerous cases concerned events in prisons, with 280 cases in which Muslims complained that their constitutional rights had been violated. In light of this 212 requests were made for political and humanitarian asylum, with half of the cases involving non-Muslim Indonesian citizens, while 44 cases were presented by Muslims (12 from Pakistan and 6 from Bangladesh). There were also 69 complaints of discrimination in the workplace, though in fact the verdict was found in favour of the employer in every case except one. From a penal point of view, in addition to judging common crimes involving circumstances linked to the Islamic religion, the courts were also involved in various cases linked to terrorism of Islamic origin. However, only three cases involved acts of violence inspired by anti-Islamic feelings. On the other hand, there were various occasions in which a number of American citizens in turn questioned the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Republic of Sudan, and also a number of Islamic banks or organisations for having facilitated acts of terrorism. There were also three cases involving insults, as well as numerous judicial litigations based on accusations of slander, albeit often in conflict with the constitutional right to freedom of speech. Of a more political nature, though still with potential legal implications, was the litigation brought by a number of Islamic associations against the US administration and government agencies within the framework of challenges to the Patriot Act on the issue of national security. The overall picture is completed by rulings made by judges called upon to express opinions on issues concerning family law, a subject in which the customs of immigrants often conflict with American judicial provisions. Sentences did not however always respect the rights of individuals and families, to the extent that a Federal judge in the State of Massachusetts was able to order that Christians attending state schools should be taught “gay” priorities, considering these lessons as necessary for becoming “engaged and productive citizens”. On 24th February

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2007 district magistrate Mark L. Wolf rejected a civil rights case presented by David Parker, intimating that it was reasonable, even compulsory, for state schools to teach children to accept and approve of homosexuality. Basically, Wolf shared the arguments adopted by a group of pro-homosexual associations, according to whom the freedom of religious rights and the control exercised by parents over the education of their children undermined the foundations of teaching and learning. The case had been brought by David and Tonia Parker and Joseph and Robin Wirthlin, whose children attended school in Lexington, in the State of Massachusetts, and who alleged a violation of their civil rights and those of the state by officials and staff at the Estabrook primary school, since they were indoctrinating their children on lifestyles that are considered immoral by them as Christians. The only choice remaining for the Parkers, the judge told them, was to send their children to a private school, teach them at home, or elect a School Council with a majority of people sharing their beliefs. The judgement in fact asserts that even to allow Christians to withdraw their children from school or from those parts of the lessons which violate their religious principles, was not a reasonable option. In his ruling, Judge Wolf states that “An exodus from class when issues of homosexuality or same-sex marriage are to be discussed could send the message that gays, lesbians, and the children of same-sex parents are inferior and, therefore, have a damaging effect on those students.” Since 31st May 2006, thanks to a law passed in South Carolina, at state level religion can be taught as part of the curriculum in high schools, on condition that these courses are taught outside the school buildings. In practice, parents can provide their children with permission to leave so as to attend private courses, as previously established by the United States Supreme Court in 1952, on condition that participation is voluntary and that public funding is not used. According to the Bible Education in School Time Network, there are about 270,000 students across the country who attend these programmes, but above all in the primary and middle schools, only the states of Georgia and South Carolina acknowledge their validity and provide the relevant educational credits for attendance. The debate continues over the students’ right to manifest their beliefs at school and in universities. The crucifix removed in October 2006 from an altar in a chapel, on the orders of Gene Ray Nichol, the headmaster of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, is now to be replaced, although placed in a glass cabinet. A national debate had arisen addressing this case, following protests from the families of students, who had threatened to withdraw their donations to this institute. In their complaints, it was pointed out in particular that in this place of worship, although it was originally Anglican and later Episcopalian, the crucifix could be removed, if desired, by those using it for ceremonies or meetings.

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The Catholic Church The press paid significant attention to the position of the US Catholic Bishops’ Conference, outlined in a document entitled “Statement on Responsibilities of Catholics in Public Life”, dated 10th March 2006, in which the bishops reiterated the non-negotiable principles guiding the work of the Church – and hence also of the Catholic faithful – within the political sphere. Sources Journal of Church and State, Baylor University, Waco, Texas: Volume 48 Summer 2006 Number 3 Volume 48 Autumn 2006 Number 4 Volume 49 Winter 2007 Number 1 Volume 49 Spring 2007 Number 2 Volume 49 Summer 2007 Number 3 Usa: il ruolo dei cattolici nella politica. I vescovi rispondono ad un documento di 55 deputati democratici, ZENIT, 13th March 2006 Jon Hurdle, Pennsylvania Students Sue Over Religion Policy, Reuters, 21st April 2006 Father John Flynn, Religious symbols in the cross hairs. Hostility to signs of Christianity mounts, ZENIT, 12th March 2007 Brett Martel, ACLU sues eastern LA schools again Associated Press, 17th May 2007 Judge rules against evangelist in free speech. Associated Press, 5th July 2007 Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, Washington D.C. (U.S.A.) 2008 Report on the application of laws protecting religious freedom: Years 2001-2006”: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/religdisc/ff_report.htm Newsletter from the Justice Department on judicial cases: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/religdisc/newsletters.html Jeff Breinholt, Islam in American Courts: 2007 Year in Review, http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/challenges.php?id=1386082

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URUGUAY

URUGUAY

AREA 175,016 kmq POPULATION 3,310,000 REFUGEES 140 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Uruguay is the country with the longest tradition of secularism, and one of the first to legislate against the Catholic Church. In the same spirit, this country on the eastern coast is moving towards the legalization of surgical abortion. The state already distributes contraceptive drugs that induce chemical abortion (Noticias Globales, 11th April 2006). On 17th October the Uruguayan Senate rejected abortion, but on 6th November it finally approved the law on sexual and reproductive health, which effectively legalizes abortion. This is now permitted during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, for reasons of financial hardship, health, risk to the mother’s life or fetal abnormality (Noticias Globales, 6th November 2007). The law now needs to be approved by Congress and signed by the president of the republic. In this were to be the case, President Tabaré Vázquez (a member of the left-wing coalition, Frente Amplio) has stated that, as a qualified doctor, he would not sign the legalization of clinical abortion into law. At the same time, on 19th December, the Senate approved the law on civil partnerships, which accords homosexual couples the same rights as married couples (Noticias Globales, 20th December 2007).

Affiliated Christians 65.3% Non religious 33.1% Others 1.6%

Baptized Catholics 2,549,000

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UZBEKISTAN

499

AREA 447,400 kmq POPULATION 96,468,000 REFUGEES 1,054 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 3,400

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 76.2% Non religious 21.6% Affiliated Christians 1.7% Others 0.5%

Baptized Catholics 4,000

UZBEKISTAN

Legislative overview Articles 18, 31 and 61 of Uzbekistan’s Constitution guarantee freedom of religion for individuals and groups. However, turning rights into actual practice has proven difficult because of the regulations of the existing regime. On top of an already restrictive law on religious freedom adopted in 1998 Uzbek authorities amended the country’s penal and administrative codes in June 2006 by introducing new penalties “for the illegal production, conservation, importation and distribution of unauthorised religious literature.” With these measures now in place the censoring of religious literature has intensified, with the courts frequently ordering the destruction of seized material. Changes to media legislation adopted in January 2007 include stiffer penalties for anyone criticising the actions of the government via the Internet or in articles, commentaries or news reports published abroad, effectively defining such actions as unlawful, anti-constitutional propaganda. Not only has this meant shutting down many political or news websites and blogs, it has also led to the blocking of www.portal-credo.ru, one of the main Russian language religious news websites. Similarly, according to a report by the Forum 18 News Service published on 10 April 2007, Uzbek authorities have blocked independent online news magazines such as www.centrasia.ru, www.ferghana.ru and www.uznews.net. These steps were taken just after the last two news websites had reported on the government’s growing control over religious affairs and the activities of various Muslim and Protestant groups. In an article dated 22nd August 2006, AsiaNews reported that a meeting of religious leaders called by the state Religious Affairs Committee was held in Tashkent on 4th August 2006 to discuss the draft of another proposed bill that would outlaw talking about religious issues outside “recognised” places of worship, imposing fines ranging from 200 to 600 times the average monthly salary (about US$ 10) on first time offenders and jail sentences of up to eight years on those guilty of re-offending. Over the past two years the Uzbek government has tried to improve its international image on human rights and religious freedom. And yet, however good its intentions might have

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been, its words soon appeared to be hollow because of its de facto authoritarian and repressive policies. Uzbek authorities have been particularly active since the United States State Department added Uzbekistan to its list ‘Countries of Particular Concern’ in its 2006 report. They have mounted a public relations campaign to show how much the country supports religious tolerance and that the question of human rights is a government priority. As part of this charm offensive, the Uzbek government has organised international events. Christian Solidarity Worldwide for example reported on 7th February 2007 that the Uzbek Embassy in the United Kingdom organised a one-day seminar on “Uzbekistan’s experience in achieving inter-religious harmony.” Intentions aside, Uzbek government officials have had their feathers ruffled by foreign interference. The Uzbekistan Daily Digest on 2nd November 2007 reported that Uzbek Ambassador to the United Nations Alisher Vohidov in his 31 October speech to the United Nations General Assembly criticised the use of human rights as a pretext to interfere in the domestic affairs of his country. Similarly, in an article published by AsiaNews on 5th April 2007 Uzbek Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov said during a meeting between a delegation from the European Union and representatives of Central Asian nations held on 27th-28th March 2007 in Astana (Kazakhstan) that as far as his government was concerned it did not intend “to explain itself” to anyone on human rights. In spite of the dearth of positive signals, on 15 October 2007 European Union foreign ministers “suspended” a travel ban on eight senior Uzbek officials for six-months, which had been imposed two years earlier in response to an incident in May 2005 in which Uzbek police fired on unarmed demonstrators in Andijan. According to a report released on 23rd October 2007 by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, the decision was criticised by many human rights activists who accused the European Union of sacrificing human rights in order to protect its interests in the country’s oil and energy resources, despite all the clear signs that the Uzbek government was as repressive as ever. Religious freedom is severely restricted, not only by law but also by the tight control exerted by the state on religious groups and their activities. Uzbekistan’s secret police, the National Security Service or NSS (in particular its anti-terrorism department), and the mahallas (neighbourhood-level administrations) are powerful tools in the hands of the state to exert such control. In a survey of various Christian groups published by Forum 18 News Service on 5th September 2007 many believers have confirmed that NSS agents carry out close surveillance of places of worship, video-taping who comes and goes, and occasionally, recruiting “collaborators” to inform on other worshippers and their activities. This has inevitably led to mutual suspicions and sown divisions within religious groups. Other

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Limitation on free religious practice Uzbekistan’s tiny Catholic Church has not complained of any particular problem. Only the Sisters of Mother Teresa, the Missionaries of Charity, feared the government might take action against them, this according to an article by AsiaNews dated 5th October 2006, after the Uzbek Justice Ministry went ahead with a “planned” check of possible irregularities with regard to their presence in the country. “The ministry,” AsiaNews wrote, “will examine the representative office of this Indian NGO, as to its compliance with Uzbek law and the goals set in the charter.” For now the check has not interfered with the nuns’ presence or their activities. The same can be said about the Orthodox Church, whose members are mostly ethnic Russians. By contrast, Protestant groups and Jehovah’s Witnesses have had a rough time in freely practicing their faith either because they are essentially seen as “Western” or because they are very active and perceived as a great danger for their proselytising. A programme on Uzbek state television titled “Hypocrites” accused these religious groups of coercing people, reported the Forum 18 News Service on 19th December 2006. “On the pretext of financially helping people in need, they [the aforementioned groups] instil their own teachings in […] people’s minds. As it turns out, soon the targeted people become complete zombies” and before long the “family, neighbourhood and society have lost [this or] that young person”. Thus “[a]lthough our people have left behind the afflictions of the Soviet system,” the programme said at its start, “even more dangerous afflictions are emerging” as a result of the activities of “certain missionary communities”. An article in Narodnoe Slovo (24th April 2007) by Prof Mansur Bekmuradov reflected similar views. In it the scholar from the Tashkent State Institute of Culture claimed that some missionaries are trying to turn the Uzbek population into zombies. Similarly, he said, anyone trying to share his or her faith with others was guilty of “religious violence” and constituted “one of the most dangerous social, political, ideological and moral problems” the country had to deal with. In addition to enduring such highly defamatory views, these groups have had to put up with police raids. More often than not believers who gather in the privacy of their homes have had to face legal penalties, including prison. And whatever religious material they might have had is usually seized and destroyed.

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worshippers have said that their phones have been tapped, a common practice for anyone suspected of involvement in political, social or religious activity or working for human rights. “Often when we talk on the phone for a long time about Christianity,” said one Protestant activist, “a voice just tells us to stop talking and put the phone down.”

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Among the stiffest sentences imposed on anyone for engaging in religious activities there is that of Protestant clergyman Dmitri Shestakov who was sent to a labour camp for four years for “illegal organisation of social or religious groups,” “ethnic, racial or religious hatred” and “distributing materials containing ideas of religious extremism” (see Forum 18 News Service, 8th February 2007). Likewise the authorities have tried to isolate religious communities from the outside world, not only by denying Uzbek citizens the right travel abroad, but also by expelling foreigners suspected of having contact with local religious communities. State interference with and control over religious groups has even been greater among Muslim communities. The state has used its media and educational institutions to train a class of loyal imams whom it has placed at the helm of local mosques. During Friday prayers, imams must deliver sermons that have been pre-approved by the Mufti Council, which is de facto under state control. Mosques that are not under state control cannot register and are used instead as clubs, libraries, and museums as in Soviet times. Religious education outside state control is banned on pain of stiff fines or prison. At school, students must fill out questionnaires to determine their “political loyalty” to the president. The state also picks who can go on haj to Makkah (Mecca) in fulfilment of one of Islam’s five pillars; a duty every adult Muslim must do at least once in his or her lifetime. In the last two years the Uzbek government has allowed 5,000 of its citizens to go on the pilgrimage even though Saudi authorities, as custodians of the holy city, have set a quota of 25,000 pilgrims per year for Uzbekistan. Even then Uzbeks must first get a permit from their local mahalla committee and then by the National Haj Commission, and are required to fly the national airline. In the end the state can exert considerable control over the whole process. For some international observers however, such an intrusive and repressive attitude on the part of the authorities might be counterproductive on the long run. In an article published on 1st December 2006 by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, a Western analyst was quoted as saying that even if in “the short term it has been very successful in terms of preventing any further violence in Uzbekistan […] until social conditions improve, and other outlets of protest are allowed, Islamic radicalism may remain the only means for people to express their frustrations.” Limitation on the actvitities of foreign human rights organisations Human rights groups, especially those suspected of ties with religious groups or of receiving help, economic or otherwise, from Western nations, have likewise become victims of government action. In 2006 a court suspended more than ten such associations on a permanent or a temporary basis. A similar number now are expected to suffer a similar fate. By accusing foreign NGOs of “unlawful religious activities” the

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Uzbek government is terminating their activities, thus removing any possible influence of Western culture in the country, this according to a report by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on 7th February 2007. AsiaNews reported on 14th July 2006 that Uzbek authorities in Tashkent had shut down the NGO Central Asia Free Exchange or CAFE after a court found its members guilty of unlawful religious activities for the purpose of Christian proselytism. The group, which was involved in projects like training medical staff, building orphanages and teaching English, was also charged with the unlicensed use of the Internet and using an unauthorised logo. On 5th June 2006 Human Rights Without Frontiers quoted an Associated Press news release from four days earlier to report that other organisations had suffered the same fate for the same reasons, including Global Involvement Through Education. Again Human Rights Without Frontiers quoted MoscoNews.com on 29th August 2006 to report that US-based Partnership in Academics and Development, two South Korean NGOs, the Korean Foundation for World Aid and the Institute of Asian Culture and Development were also shut down. Crosslink Development International was also told to wind up its operations for allegedly undertaking activities contrary to its statute and for providing economic help to the Christian Church of the Full Gospel, this according to a report by Ria Novosti dated 23rd August 2006 picked up the next day by Human Rights Without Frontiers. On 17th April the Uzbek justice minister told the TASS Russian news agency that Friendship and Hope International activists (involved in humanitarian work since 1995) were warned in writing that they should cease and desist from all “missionary activity” or face punishment otherwise. In a report dated 26th February 2007 News Briefing Central Asia said that the Uzbek justice ministry had warned World Vision International, a US-based Christian organisation, that it was violating local laws.

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VANUATU

VANUATU

AREA 12,189 kmq POPULATION 220,000 REFUGEES 1 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

The 1980 Constitution acknowledges religious freedom (Art. 5) and the introduction refers to “traditional Melanesian values, faith in God and Christian principles”. Religious groups must register, but non-registration does not result in any adverse consequences. The traditional and most popular churches at times oppose missionary activities undertaken by new groups. In rural areas there is still the custom of approving innovations based on majority wishes and this also applies to religious matters. Generally speaking those wishing to build a new church must obtain approval from the community. Those who do not above all risk social disapproval and can appeal to local leaders so as to have their rights acknowledged. In 2007 there was widespread opposition of a planned visit by Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Church of Unification; the visit was later cancelled. The government finances Christian schools but not the few existing non-Christian religious schools that are however allowed to operate. Religious instruction is also available in state schools.

Affiliated Christians 93% Ethnoreligionists 3.5% Others 3.5%

Baptized Catholics 33,000

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VENEZUELA

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AREA 912,050 kmq POPULATION 27,030,000 REFUGEES 200,907 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 94.8% Non religious 2.2% Others 3%

Baptized Catholics 23,526,000

VENEZUELA

This country is going through somewhat precarious times: at the economic level, poverty and insecurity have increased; while at the political level, President Chavez is introducing profound institutional changes. The Church is concerned about the difficult situation of the country and is calling for the upholding of freedoms throughout Chavez’s reforms (Fides, 17th January 2006). However, President Chavez has fiercely criticised the hierarchy of the Church, accusing them of fomenting rebellion among the opposition. For their part, the bishops have defended the need to preserve freedom of speech and have described the provocations by Chavez as an attempt to distract society from the real problems of the country (Radio Giornale Vaticano, 20th January 2006). Worst of all, however, was the murder, in unexplained circumstances, of the assistant secretary of the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference, Father Jorge Piñango Mascareño (ZENIT, 25th April 2006). Despite this, the Church, via Cardinal Jorge Urosa, has called on the government to respect religious education in the schools, and has proposed a number of modifications to the new education law, aimed at guaranteeing respect for spiritual and higher values (Fides, 21st June 2006; ZENIT, 23rd June 2006). The Church – as Bishop Mario del Valle Moronta of San Cristóbal has observed – has pointed to the need for both government and opposition to work out a shared vision for the country, and at the same time has suggested the urgent need for a new evangelisation (ACN News, 2nd August 2006). In accordance with this view, the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference issued guidelines for those voting in the presidential elections, based on the principles of the Gospel and safeguarding the values of justice, freedom, democracy and peace. But at the same time they reminded people of the prohibition in Canon Law against priests standing for electoral office (ZENIT, 5th November 2006; Radio Giornale Vaticano, 24th November 2006). In the same way they hoped through their declarations to put an end to the climate of violence that was developing as the confrontation between the politicians of the government and of the opposition increased. (Reuters, 28th November 2006).

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Following the reelection of Hugo Chavez as president of the country, but before he announced his intention of adopting socialist principles, the Episcopal Conference had appealed through its president, Cardinal Jorge Urosa, for the country to follow a path of transformation into a Venezuela that was open to higher values, which avoided a Marxist socialism that tended towards totalitarianism (ZENIT, 21st December 2006). Despite this appeal, the response of the Venezuelan president was aggressive: he accused the Catholic hierarchy of talking nonsense; of defending the indefensible; and advised them to read Marx, Lenin and the Sermon on the Mount in the Bible, in order to learn where socialism had begun (Vatican Radio, 9th January 2007). The tension continued on other issues, such as the defence the bishops’ conference made of freedom of speech when the television channel Canal Radio Caracas de Television was about to be closed down – the response by the Venezuelan leader being further insults against the bishops. (ZENIT, 10th January 2007; L’Osservatore Romano, 6th January 2007). These clashes produced further declarations, such as that by Archbishop Roberto Lückert of Coro, who denounced the autocratic and militaristic methods of President Chavez, after he had declared Jesus as the greatest socialist in history (ZENIT, 14th January 2007). Or again, by Cardinal Rosalío Castillo Lara, who stated “On this solemn occasion I wish to ask you to join together and fervently pray to the Divine Pastor to save Venezuela”, adding that “We find ourselves in a situation of extreme gravity, such as [we have faced] very few [times] in our history” (ACI Prensa, 15th January 2006). The bishops of Venezuela published a document, the fruit of their 87th plenary assembly, proposing that whatever political system was adopted, it must be centred on the human person, must guarantee private property and its social function and promote democratic values (Vatican Radio, 16th January 2007; ZENIT, 16th January 2007; L’Osservatore Romano, 3rd-4th January 2007). Nonetheless, in their latest meeting of July last year, the bishops were forced to voice their doubts regarding the democratic nature of the constitutional reform. The concern of the bishops focused on the growing poverty and unemployment, the restriction of freedom of speech and the absence in the new law on education of details regarding the ultimate purpose of education, the rights of teachers and those of parents to request religious education in the schools (Fides, 10th July 2007). Following this the Archbishop of Caracas, Cardinal Jorge Urosa spoke of the need for calmness and reason and of the right of the opposition to protest against government measures. But he underlined the gravity of the possibility of private education being nationalised, even if not even turned into an education system modelled on Bolivarian values – i.e. a combination of patriotism, based on the figure of Simón Bolivar, and socialism (Vatican Radio, 19th September 2007). He also warned that the Church would oppose the so-called “Socialism of the 21st century” if

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Since then the bishops have observed the political developments within the country. In August they published an exhortation: “Llamados a vivir en la libertad” (“Called to live in freedom”) in which they gave their considered view that the proposed constitutional reform was unacceptable because it limited the fundamental rights of the democratic system and of the individual (Fides, 22nd October 2007; ACI Prensa, 28th November 2007; La Civilta Cattolica, 3rd March 2007). Needless to say, this stance by the bishops prompted ferocious criticisms and insults from the government, which only increased in the run-up to the referendum on constitutional reform – which President Chavez finally lost by the narrowest of margins. The Bolivarian leader accused the Church of manipulation and lying (Avvenire, 14th July 2007; ACI Prensa, 17th July 2007) and even went so far as to call the Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Madariaga an “imperialist clown” (ACI Prensa, 24th July 2007). A short time after this he accused the Catholic Church of defending immorality and lies (ACI Prensa, 7th August 2007). In December the Archdiocese of Caracas rejected the accusations by Vice President Jorge Rodriguez to the effect that the Catholic Church was sponsoring political meetings in opposition to the constitutional reform in a place of worship – a former chapel. He explained that the meeting referred to had been an initiative of the laity and had taken place in a community centre that is not parish property (ACI Prensa, 6th December 2007). Nonetheless, a short time afterwards, there was great concern when Cardinal Jorge Urosa was physically attacked and insulted by a gang of 15 or so members of the government group La esquina caliente, while the police stood by and did nothing (ACI Prensa, 9th December 2007). A few months earlier, not a single government representative attended the funeral of Cardinal Rosalío José Castillo Lara (ACI Prensa, 20th October 2007). By contrast, the response of the bishops to the defeat of Chavez in the referendum was a call for everyone to work together for reconciliation and peace (ACI Prensa, 4th December 2007). But tension is increasing between the institutions of the Venezuelan government and the Catholic Church, as the former continues to push forward its plans to establish a Bolivarian socialist experiment.

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it proved to be a totalitarian power as was the Marxism developed by the old communist countries (ACI Prensa, 2nd August 2007). His opinion was shared by the other members of the Venezuelan episcopate, for example one month later, by Archbishop Balthazar Porras of Merida (ACI Prensa, 8th September 2007) or a few months earlier by Emeritus Archbishop Pérez Morales of Los Teques, warning people against an approaching totalitarianism (ACI Prensa, 7th February 2007)

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VIETNAM

VIETNAM

AREA 331,689 kmq POPULATION 84,110,000 REFUGEES 2,357 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Buddhists 49.5% Non religious 20.5% New religions 11.3% Ethnoreligionists 8.5% Affiliated Christians 8.3% Others 1.9%

Baptized Catholics 5,990,000

Things have improved somewhat in Vietnam but it is not yet possible to say that freedom of religion is completely respected in this country. A new religious law came into effect in February 2007: it treats the country’s different faiths as social forces that can and must contribute to its progress, under the guidance of the all-powerful Communist Party. From this perspective religious activities are still subject to the approval of the civil authorities. For example, at the start of the year all religious leaders must submit an annual plan of activities, and it is not certain that everything will be approved. Under the law some domains remain officially off-limits, but some leeway does exist in practice, a member of the Paul Nguyen Van Binh’s Club in the archdiocese of Ho Chi Minh city told AsiaNews. “According to the ‘Religions Law,’ activities like education, health care, communication, newspapers, and religious publishing must respect the law to the letter. And no explanation has been given as to why the law does not allow religious organisations to play a role in secondary education, the universities and hospitals.” In fact, the law does allow “religious leaders, nuns or priests” to “work in education, the media, social work and health care,” as individual citizens; but it does ban “religious organisations from doing so”, said Mr Phuong, a Catholic attorney. In practise the level of religious freedom is directly related to what local authorities are willing to allow, especially in areas that do not normally come under international scrutiny. Indeed they tend to tightly limit religious freedom when they are not actually engaged in persecutory actions. The United States and the Holy See have publicly acknowledged that the situation has improved in the country. The State Department has removed Vietnam from its list of countries of particular concern with regards to religious freedom. And the United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom John V. Hanford III, head of the Office of International Religious Freedom, said that “Vietnam has made significant improvements toward advancing religious freedom.” The Vatican, in a press release issued on 25th January 2007, on the occasion of the first meeting between Vietnam’s Prime

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Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and the Pope, said that “relations have, over the last few years, made concrete progress, opening new spaces of religious freedom for the Catholic Church in Vietnam.” However, the same statement referred to unspecified “problems that remain” which can hopefully be resolved “through existing channels of dialogue.” Tan Dung’s visit to the Vatican not only started the year but also raised hopes that the two sides might re-establish normal diplomatic relations after they were cut off following the Communist takeover in 1954. That possibility was even mentioned in Vietnam’s tightly controlled press which reported that the prime minister himself had talked about the issue. The Vatican mentioned it as well in a statement issued on 12th March 2007 at the end of a visit by a Vatican delegation headed by Mgr Pietro Parolin, undersecretary of the Section for Relations with States, to the South-East Asian country. The Vatican delegation met Le Cong Phung, deputy minister for Foreign Affairs; Pham Xuan Son, deputy chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Communist Party Central Committee; and Vu Mao, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Vietnam’s National Assembly. “On these occasions, the normalization of relations with the Holy See is always brought up.” As to this, the Vietnamese authorities gave assurances that, following the prime minister’s instructions, “the competent bodies are already at work, and certain concrete ways to begin the process of establishing diplomatic relations have been examined,” the Vatican statement said. The government in Hanoi has among other things an interest in getting the collaboration of the country’s 8 million Catholics (about 10 percent of the population). At each party congress the need to fight corruption is articulated time and time again as a way to guarantee the country’s progress, at a time when the authorities are hard pressed to provide assistance to the more marginalised sections of society. In this context one can understand the hope expressed in the Vatican statement of 25th January 2007 that “Catholics can, ever more effectively, make a positive contribution to the common good of the country; by promoting moral values, in particular among the young; by spreading a culture of solidarity and to charitable assistance in favour of the weaker sectors of the population”. The Montagnards (who are largely Protestant, Catholic or followers of traditional religions) from the central plateaus are in a separate category altogether because of the role they played during the Vietnam War against the Vietcong. In a report released on 14th June, 2006, Human Rights Watch found that Christians in this region were still being forced to sign statements renouncing their religion even though the law itself bans such a practice. Here the authorities have strictly limited the freedom of movement and assembly for religious purposes. According to this report,

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more than 350 Montagnards had been jailed since 2001, mainly for their involvement in political or religious activities, however peaceful they may have been. But also in January 2007, Compass Direct News, a Protestant news agency which focuses on the persecution of Christians around the world, reported that 17 people had been arrested at a prayer meeting organised by the Mennonite Church at the home of Rev Nguyen Hong Quang. At the end of March an event took place that the Vietnamese authorities tried to explain away as strictly political. On 30th March 2007, Fr Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest, was sentenced to eight years in prison for anti-regime propaganda. Four other people were convicted along with Father Van Ly, who has already spent 14 years behind bars. The 60-year-old priest was charged with founding a pro-democracy movement called Bloc 8406 that was established in April 2006 with some 2,000 members. He was also accused of supporting illegal groups like the Vietnam Progression Party. In reaction to this, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution (No. 243) that called for his “unconditional release” and that of all political prisoners. Also on 30th March, on the pretext of enabling some villages to celebrate Easter Mass, the provincial authorities in Kontum (located in central Vietnam on the border with Laos and Cambodia) vowed to bring religion under their control and limit Catholic activities, especially among local minorities. As AsiaNews reported (30th March 2007) the local authorities sent the diocesan bishop, Michel Hoang Duc Oanh, a letter (No. 76/UBND) informing him that certain villages had been given permission to hold Easter Mass. However, the real intent was to assert their authority over Easter celebrations and ban religious activities in other villages, though these measures in fact violate the law. A Catholic lawyer, Phuong, told AsiaNews that “under Vietnam’s law on religious freedom,” the Vietnamese have the right “to practise their chosen faith” or practise none at all. “But many local governments are unaware of the law’s existence” or do not respect it and their “dealings with Catholics are dictated by the law of the jungle.” For this reason, “local governments still produce propaganda which portrays the Catholic Church as a hostile force. They are always suspicious of Catholics’ activities. So they react accordingly, violating the rights of the people.” In late April 2007 the country’s Catholic bishops spoke out. In an interview with VietCatholic News, an Australia-based Vietnamese news agency, Mgr Paul Nguyen Van Hoa, bishop of Nha Trang and chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Vietnam, reported that the bishops had raised the issue of religious freedom with the government, and stressed cultural and moral problems that affect young people as well as justice and truth. For Bishop Hoa the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Vietnam is the only institution in Vietnamese civil society that has the courage to openly talk about such issues with the state. He cited his own personal experience as an example. “Many people know that the Holy See wanted to appoint me bishop of Hanoi and that this

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appointment was never accepted,” he said. “This shows where I stand, what struggle I had to put up and is evidence of the perseverance with which I held my position.” Whilst criticising Father Ly’s decision to get into politics – ”a priest should work for everyone and not for one group against another”, the bishop said –, the prelate insisted that everyone still had the right to express his or her opinion on matters of justice, truth and society’s interests. This was the first explicit intervention by the episcopate against the government and once again it was the issue of Father Ly, despite its political aspect, that prompted it. In July Mgr Paul Nguyen Van Hoa formally denied a statement made by Vietnam’s President Nguyen Minh Triet in which the latter said that “the Bishops’ Conference and the Holy See” had agreed to Fr Nguyen Van Ly’s trial. Reported by Eglises d’Asie, the formal rebuttal was due to comments reprinted in the Vietnamese daily Tuoi Tre, which the Vietnamese president allegedly made on 23rd June in an interview with CNN during his trip to the United States, comments which did not however appear in the interview’s official transcript supplied by CNN. “President Nguyen Minh Triet’s answer does not correspond to the truth,” was Mgr Paul Nguyen Van Hoa’s blunt reply in an open letter sent to the president himself on 7th July. The toughest row came at the end of the year and involved Church property. For the first time Hanoi Catholics took to the streets on 18th December 2007, some four to five thousands of them demonstrating peacefully, praying and holding candles and calling on the government to return to the Church the Toa-Kham-Su Building, once home to the apostolic delegation. This “protest” prayer was their way to champion a letter, dated 15th December 2007, which Archbishop Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet sent to the local People’s Committee calling for the return of the building, seized by the government in 1959. The authorities had rejected the prelate’s request, and now it was about to be sold to developers who wanted to turn it into a supermarket and car park. For several days and nights, priests, nuns and lay people surrounded the statue of the Virgin located in the compound’s gardens and the big cross they had planted. A demonstration in solidarity with the protesters was also organised in Ho Chi Minh City, once known as Saigon. On 31st December AsiaNews reported that Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung had met the bishop of Hanoi to discuss the issue of Church properties seized by the government. On that occasion the Prime Minister saw for himself the thousands of protesters, who cheered him. The situation however was starting to get out of hand as protesters clashed with police and the People’s Committee threatened the archbishop and the “squatters”. As this unfolded Vietnamese-language newspapers and TV stations began attacking the Church’s demand. By contrast, Nham Dam, the Communist Party’s official newspa-

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per, reported on 28th January 2008 in its international edition that Archbishop Ngo Quang Kiet had met Patriotic Front Chairman Huynh Dam. Ostensibly, the purpose behind the visit was for the two men to exchange greetings for the start of Tet or the Lunar New Year (7 February). The paper also provided a general rundown of the humanitarian activities in which Catholics are involved and of the role they play in the peaceful development of the capital. It also mentioned the Front’s “appreciation” for their activities. Similarly, VNA, Vietnam’s official news agency, on 30 January reported another visit by the archbishop to the Front’s deputy chairman and secretary general, Vu Trong Kim, again officially for the Tet celebrations. In the news agency account, the talks gave the Communist leader an opportunity to say that “the Front is always open to Catholics who want to articulate their problems” and to show that “the organisation is committed to working with the appropriate authorities in order to address such problems.” On 1st February, local Church sources told AsiaNews that in order to “show good will and respect for the Pope,” the authorities were granting Catholics the use of the compound, thus bringing the demonstrations to an end. The positive outcome, which Archbishop Ngo confirmed the next day, came after Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of State, sent a letter to the archbishop of Hanoi. In it Cardinal Bertone said that Benedict XVI was closely following events in Vietnam and that the Vatican was going to raise the issue with the government. The purpose was to find a solution to the controversy that had set the archbishopric against city authorities over who owned or had usufructuary rights to the apostolic delegation’s former home. In his message the prelate expressed his “admiration” for Hanoi Catholics and their peaceful protest but also voiced his fears that the whole thing might get out of hand. He thus urged the parties to get back to “normal.” Although this incident ended on a positive note, this cannot be said for others. For instance, AsiaNews reported that on 24 December a prayer meeting was disrupted in a private home in Co Noi village in the northern province of Son La. A young man in attendance from a neighbouring province was brutally beaten and taken away, on criminal charges. He was eventually released but only after mass protest by the villagers. In the diocese of Son Tay, Fr Joseph Nguyen Trung Thoai was arrested to prevent him from celebrating Christmas Mass in Co Noi. In his case too release was obtained only after a mass rally by the villagers. In Muong La, Catholics were allowed to gather for a Christmas prayer meeting in a private home, but police prevented outsiders from attending. A group of Montagnards who had trekked 40 kilometres from Truong An to take part in the Mass in Muong La were turned away. A new chapter is starting in northern Vietnam. In early January 2008 members of Thai Ha parish requested the return of the land of their church. Such a situation is not dissimilar to the request by the diocese of Hanoi for the return of the old apostolic dele-

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gation building in Hanoi. The Redemptorist Fathers had bought the land in Thái Hà in 1928. A church, a convent and a seminary were built on the estate’s 60,000 m2 (about 650,000 ft2), but in 1954, when the Communists took over and the country was divided, the Thái Hà religious were jailed or deported. The 60,000 m2 were reduced to 2,700. Since then several petitions have been submitted to the authorities to get the land back, but over time a hospital had been built and several sections of the property had been transferred to government companies and officials. The latest incident, since the beginning of the year, involves a packing company, Chien Thang, which was granted a section of the estate and which did not wait long before building. When local parishioners began protesting at the action, they were met by the military which was deployed to allow the construction to go ahead. On 7th January 2008 the Redemptorist provincial superior, Fr Joseph Cao Dinh Tri, issued a statement expressing strong objection to the illegal seizure of land and the plans to build on it. On that day the authorities announced that construction would stop, but a day later Hanoi’s People’s Committee gave the company the green light to resume work. Feeling cheated, the parishioners resumed their peaceful protest after that. They took to the streets on 7th February again, marching and organising a prayer sit-in.

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YEMEN

YEMEN

AREA 527,968 kmq POPULATION 22,282,000 REFUGEES 117,363 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 27,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Muslims 98.7% Hindus 0.9% Affiliated Christians 0.2% Others 0.2%

The 1991 Constitution states that Islam is the State religion. Article 3 of the Yemenite Constitution establishes that “the Islamic Shari‘a is the source for all legislation”. Apostasy is mentioned among the hudud (Koranic crimes) in Article 12 of the 1994 Penal Code and is punishable with death. The other hududs are rebellion, robbery, stealing, adultery, false accusations of adultery and drinking wine. Christians Various articles in the Yemenite press during the period of this report addressed the issue of Christian proselytising activities, defined by Yemen as “an invasion”. In a report published by alHaqiqa al-Dawliya on 27th August 2007, Majed al-Kahlani wrote claiming that a large number of missionaries are hiding behind the humanitarian aid ‘label’ to carry out their proselytising activities, exploiting the financial needs of the young and their desire to have relationships with the opposite sex. AlKahlani speaks of 120 Yemenites who have converted to Christianity in the Hadramaut region alone, and also refers to the Yemen4Jesus website, created by the new Christians to spread their faith. The article also reports the views of the director of the Ministry for Religious Affairs, Sheik Hamoud al-Suaidy, concerning the punishment due to such apostates, namely death if they persist in their apostasy. The law currently lays down the death penalty for apostasy from Islam, but in practice it has never been applied.

Baptized Catholics 6,000

Muslims During this period the rebellion in the Saada province, in northwestern Yemen, continued; with clashes between the al-Shabab al-Mumin (the Believing Youth) led by the Houthi clan, and government forces. Official sources report over 5 thousand men killed in 2007 alone. The rebels belong to the Zaidi Shiite community, who have always been a thorn in the side of the government of President Alì Abdullah Saleh, who accuses them of wishing to destabilize the country so as to maintain exclusive control over the northern territories. A ceasefire mediated by Qatar was announced in June 2007, but only lasted a few months.

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In January 2006, for the second year running, the celebration of the Shiite festivity of Eid al-Ghadir was forbidden in a number of localities in the province of Saada, the stronghold of Houthi’s followers (see below). In May 2006, President Alì Abdallah Saleh pardoned two imams, Yahya Hussein alDailami, sentenced to death, and Mohammed Ahmad Miftah, sentenced to eight years in prison. The two imams were accused of having links with Iran, against their country’s interests. Actually, they had publicly criticised the action by the government against the al-Houthi rebellion in Saada province. However, they had both preached peaceful protest. During the month of Ramadan in 2007, one hundred ulema addressed an appeal to the civil authorities requesting them to shoulder their responsibilities with regard to the “degradation of customs” in the country. The ulema also mentioned the increase in Christian proselytism among young Muslims and the request to modify the Islamic laws “on the pretext of adapting them to international criteria”. The ulema also criticised the fashion shows involving Yemenite girls during the summer festival of Sanaa, sport for women, promiscuous dancing (as at the Hadramaut festival), the opening of massage parlours and the participation of Yemenite girls in plays and songs abroad. The government has implemented a new policy aimed at opposing the activities of Islamic extremist groups. It was hence decided to close down unauthorised schools and religious centres and to check on the preaching of radical imams; a number of festivals were forbidden and the opening hours of the mosques restricted. In an overview of the Yemenite government’s actions, the Yemen Times observed that those targeted are a few small Shiite groups with political affiliations, such as the al-Haq Party, closed because it was not in compliance with the law. Since the beginning of 2007, 4,500 non-authorised schools and religious centres have been closed down, on suspicion of providing an education diverging from the state educational programmes and of promoting extremist ideologies. The government has forbidden both private and state schools from using programmes differing from those officially approved. A number of books supporting fundamentalist positions have been banned. Imams inciting people to violence or making statements considered a danger to public order have been targeted. Private Islamic organisations can however maintain relations with international Muslim associations, although the authorities occasionally check up on them. Jews The members of the small Jewish community, now reduced to about 500, have the right to vote but cannot be elected. The thousands of Yemenite Jews who emigrated to Israel in past decades are allowed to visit the country if holding a non-Israeli passport. In January 2007 the small community from Saada (45 people) was moved to Sanaa

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following threats from a follower of al-Houthi. In the capital this community is protected by the State. Sources AsiaNews al-Ghad al-Haqiqa al-Dawliya

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ZAMBIA

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AREA 752,618 kmq POPULATION 11,800,000 REFUGEES 112,931 INTERNALLY DISPLACED ---

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 82.4% Ethnoreligionists 14.3% Baha’i 1.8% Others 1.5%

Baptized Catholics 3,794,000

ZAMBIA

Religious freedom is guaranteed by Article 19 of the 1991 Constitution, as amended in 1996, which in the introduction declares the Republic a “Christian nation”. Religious instruction for Christians is taught in state schools, while Islamic religious instruction – as well as other kinds of religious education – is permitted in the private schools run by the respective religious groups. Unregistered religious groups are not allowed to operate. Violators can face a fine and imprisonment for up to seven years. There was a controversy in 2006 involving the Universal Church of God. Lusaka residents rioted as they believed that church members were engaged in satanic practices. In 2006 the High Court overturned the government’s deregistration order so this Church continues operations pending judicial review. In March 2006, Foreign Minister Ronnie Shikapwasha stated publicly that the government would begin the practice of consulting with the Council of Churches in Zambia before it registers church groups. In March 2006, the ZENIT News Agency broadcast a report from Father Andrzej Halemba, a Polish missionary working in the diocese of Kasama, in northern Zambia. The priest noted a rapidly growing Islamic influence, due to foreign investment in the area. According to the priest, “Over the past 10 years, an aggressive presence of Islam has been built up in Zambia, a country that is Christian according to its Constitution.” Father Halemba added that in his diocese, which borders on Tanzania, the increased Muslim presence had created significant problems for Christians. For example, Muslim-run companies would only employ non-Muslims on condition that they converted to Islam, and those who did convert were offered financial support and free education for their children.” In 2007 the Oasis Forum (the Law Association of Zambia, NGOs Coordinating Committee, the Zambia Episcopal Conference, the Christian Council of Zambia and the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia) declared a “constitutional struggle” in order to call for the government to empower a constituent assembly to adopt a new Constitution by the end of 2008. However although the government strongly criticised the Oasis Forum for its stand, the leaders of Oasis have not been not prevented

ZAMBIA

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from criticizing the government, mobilizing public opinion, organizing happenings or other activities. Just before the presidential elections, the bishops of Zambia wrote a pastoral note entitled “The Truth will make you free”, to emphasise the importance of these elections for the future of democracy in this country. In this letter the bishops begged voters, in particular Christians, to vote in an informed and responsible manner. “A vote”, they say, “is not only a right but also a duty to the country, to help to identify and appoint credible people who are capable of making the state work for the common good.” Sources Equilibri, 6th November 2007 Vatican Radio ZENIT, 14th March 2006

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ZIMBABWE

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AREA 390,757 kmq POPULATION 15,217,000 REFUGEES 3,981 INTERNALLY DISPLACED 570,000

RELIGIOUS ADHERENTS

Affiliated Christians 67.5% Ethnoreligionists 30.1% Others 2.4%

Baptized Catholics 1,368,000

ZIMBABWE

The Constitution of 1979, as amended in 2000, recognises religious freedom in Article 19. In practice however, this right is not always respected. During the period addressed by this report, the government continued to criticise, interfere with and intimidate religious leaders who criticised government policies or reported human rights abuses by the authorities. In June 2006, for example Pastor Dandala, secretary general of the AACC (All Africa Conference of Churches) expressed grave concern, stating “We would like the world to help us find a permanent solution for the problems we have in Zimbabwe. We are indignant seeing the extent of the infringement of human rights in this country”. Religious groups are not required to register, although religious organisations operating in schools or medical centres must register with the ministries regulating these sectors. In July 2006, the previous Act for the Suppression of Witchcraft was substituted by a new Act, stating that those actions commonly associated with witchcraft will be considered a criminal offence if they are intended to cause harm. On the basis of this new Act, words alone are not considered witchcraft and hence are not illegal. The new amendment also criminalises witch hunts, imposes penalties on those who accuse others of witchcraft and rejects the plea of killing a witch as a defence for the charge of attempted homicide. Personal attacks on individuals thought to be practising witchcraft are prosecuted by the law if they involve murder, physical aggression or other crimes against the integrity of the person. The religious groups in the country have continued to challenge government laws restricting freedom of assembly, speech and association. Although not specifically directed at religious freedoms, the law on security and public order (POSA) has been repeatedly used to interfere in public meetings, including those of religious groups and members of civil society. In March 2007, the leaders of the main Christian denominations in the country published a joint statement addressed to the national political authorities. The religious leaders emphasised the profound crisis in the country, describing it as an extremely dangerous and unstable situation, clearly and unequivocally

ZIMBABWE

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siding with the use legitimate political authority and against the grasping of power by means of violence, oppression and intimidation. The European Union too, under the presidency of Mrs. Angela Merkel, has condemned the constant and violent repression of freedom of opinion and other basic human rights. It should also be noted that as early as February 2007, the EU decided to extend the sanctions imposed since 2002 in response to Mugabe’s authoritarian regime in the country until 2008. The reaction of the authorities in Zimbabwe was aggressive. On 19th March Foreign Minister Mumbengegwi even threatened to expel western diplomats, should their countries provide financial or diplomatic support to the opposition. Unlike previous years, there have not been reports of violence against religious leaders. During the period covered by this report, the divisions between the main religious groups and adherents of the traditional indigenous religions persisted. However, the interfaith council, formed in 2004, continued its work trying to establish closer relations between the various groups. It is estimated that between 70 percent and 80 percent of the population belong to mainline Christian denominations such as the Catholics, Anglicans and Methodists. However, in the course of recent years a variety of churches and groups practising indigenous traditions have broken away from these major groups. Although the country is almost completely Christian, most people continue also to practise traditional African religions to varying degrees. In October 2006, the police carried out an operation in the south of the country against a religious sect whose members were starving themselves to death while awaiting the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. This sect, previously affiliated to the Seventh Day Adventists, also included many children in a state of advanced malnutrition. In this country, which for years now has suffered an economic crisis that has brought it to its knees, many extremist sects have appeared recently and this worries the authorities. Only 1 percent of the population follows Islam, though this religion has continued to grow, especially in rural areas. In July 2007 the Zimbabwe state radio ZBC reported that one of President Mugabe’s most prominent critics, the Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, had been reported to the police for having committed adultery. The radio claimed that the Archbishop had been in a relationship with a married woman for two years, and that she had confessed this secret affair to ZBC News, which also stated that her husband had reported the priest. In August the Bishops decidedly rejected these slanderous allegations against Archbishop Ncube, expressing their indignation at this smear campaign against the priest. The bishops described this as an outrageous and absolutely deplorable accusation, adding that the Catholic Church had never been and was not an enemy of Zimbabwe. In the days leading up to this declaration, Archbishop Ncube,

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who is renowned for his open stance in defence of human rights and against Mugabe’s authoritarian regime, had been the object of an all-out press campaign aimed at proving his guilt. In September 2007, Pope Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of Archbishop Pius Ncube. The priest’s decision, as he himself explained, was not an admission of guilt but arose from his desire to avoid the Catholic Church being dragged through the courts. He insisted that this scandal was a deliberate attack by the government, not only against himself but also against the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe. It is strongly suspected that the entire incident was a set-up, because the bishop (who was defended by the Episcopal Conference) had become an extremely awkward figure for the regime. He opposed Mugabe’s re-election, accusing him of rigging the 2005 election in order to remain in power, as he had for the past 25 years, and he had called on all citizens to start a “non-violent revolution” following the example of Ukraine. He had also persuaded the bishops of Zimbabwe to condemn the dictator’s regime with a letter entitled: “God hears the cry of the oppressed” and issued appeals for help so that the people of this country need no longer go hungry.

ZIMBABWE

Sources Fides, 18th March 2007 AGI, 18th April 2006 Equilibri, 20th March 2007 KORAZYM, 11th September 2007 ICN NEWS, 23rd June 2007 PeaceReporter, 25th October 2006, 16th July 2007 Vatican Radio, 9th May 2007, 31st August 2007

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S O U R C E S C O N S U L T E D

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Sources consulted

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Research Reports Amnesty International, Report 2008 US Departement of State, Annual Report on International Religious Freedom 2006-2007, Washington 2007- 2008 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2008 Periodicals Actualité des Réligions - 163, bd Malesherbes - 75859 Paris Cedex 17 - France Catholic World Report - P.O. Box 1328, Dedham, Ma 02027 - USA Coscienza e Libertà - Lungotevere Michelangelo 7 - 00192 Rome - Italy Eglises d’Asie - 128, rue du Bac - 73341 Paris Cedex 07 - France Il dialogo-Ai hiwar - Via Barbaroux 30 - 10122 Turin - Italy Il Regno - Attualità e Documenti - Via Nosadella 6 - 40123 Bologna - Italy Il Segno - Via Aurelia 481 - 00165 Rome - Italy Jesus - Via Giotto 36 - 20145 Milan - Italy La Civiltà Cattolica - Via di Porta Pinciana 1 - 00186 Rome - Italy La Nuova Europa - Via Tasca 36 - 24068 Seriate (BG) - Italy L’Apostolo di Maria - Via Legnano 18 - 24124 Bergamo - Italy L’Eglise dans le Monde - 29, rue du Louvre - 78750 Mareil-Marly - France Mondo e Missione - Via Mosé Bianchi 94 - 20149 Milan - Italy Nigrizia - Vicolo del Pozzo 1 - 37129 Verona - Italy Note on Church-State Affairs - web site: www.baylor.edu/~Church State Offene Grenzen - Postfach 2010 - 38718 Seesen - Germany News papers al-Nahar - P.O. Box 11-0266 - Riad El Solh - Beirut - Lebanon al-Safir - P.O. Box 113/5015 - Mneimneih Street - Hamra - Beirut - Lebanon Avvenire - Piazza Carbonari 3 - 20125 Milan - Italy Corriere della Sera - Via Solferino 28 - 20121 Milan - Italy Il Foglio - Largo Corsia dei Servi 3 - 20122 Milan - Italy Il Sole 24 Ore - Via Paolo Lomazzo 52 - 20154 Milan - Italy La Croix - rue Bayard 3/5, 75393 Paris - France Korea Times - 43, Chungmuro 3-ga, Chung-ku, Seoul - Korea La Repubblica - Piazza Indipendenza 11/B - 00185 Rome - Italy Las Vegas Review Journal - 1111 W. Bonanza Road - P.O. Box 70 - Las Vegas, NV 89125, USA Le Figaro -37, rue du Louvre - 75002 Paris - France Libération -11, rue Béranger -75154 Paris - France

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Libero -Via Merano 18 - 20127 Milan - Italy Liberté - 37, Rue Larbi ben M’hidi, Alger – Algeria L’Osservatore Romano - Via del Pellegrino - 00120 Vatican City Financial Times - 1 Southwark Bridge - London SE19HL - UK The Christian Science Monitor - 210 Massachusetts Avenue - Boston MA 02115 - USA Daily Nation - Kimathi Street - P.O. Box 49010 - GPO 00100 Nairobi - Kenya The New York Times - 229 West 43rd Street - New York NY 10036 - USA The Wall Street Journal Europe - Boulevard Brand Whitlock 87 - Brussels - Belgium News Agencies ACI-Prensa - Apartado postal 040062 - Lima 4 - Peru ACN News - Bischof-Kindermann-Str. 23 - 61462 Königstein - Germany Adista - Via Acciaioli 7 - 00186 Rome - Italy AFP - Place de la Bourse - Paris - France AGI - Via Cristoforo Colombo 98 - 00147 Rome - Italy African News Bulletin (ANB-BIA) - Av. Charles Woeste 184 - 1090 Brussels - Belgium ANSA - Via della Dataria 94 - 00187 Rome - Italy AP.Biscom - Via del Gesù 62 - 00186 Rome - Italy Apic - Pèrolles, 42 - Case Postale 1054 - Fribourg - Switzerland Article 19 - Lancaster House 33 - Islington High Street - London N1 9LH - UK Asca - Via due Macelli 23/F - 00187 Rome - Italy AsiaNews - Via Guerrazzi 11- 00152 Rome - Italy Associated Press - 50 Rockfeller Plaza - New York, N.Y. 10020 - USA Catholic Information Service for Africa - P.O. Box 14861 - Nairobi - Kenya Compass Direct News - P.O. Box 27250 - Santa Ana - CA 92799 - USA Fides - Via di Propaganda 1/C - 00187 Rome - Italy Forum 18 News Service - Postboks 6663 - Rodeløkka N-0502 Oslo - Norway Human Rights Without Frontiers - Av. Winston Churchill 11/33 - 1180 Brussels Belgium International Islamic News Agency - web site: www.iina.com MISNA - Via Levico 14 - 00198 Rome - Italy Reuters - 85 Fleet Street - London EC4P 4AJ - UK ZENIT - C.P. 18356 - 00164 Rome - Italy The Voice of the Martyrs/The Persecution & Prayer Alert - P.O. Box 117 - Port Credit Mississanga - ON L5G4L5 - Canada

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Web sites www.kirche-in-not.org www.aed-france.org www.afrobarometer.org www.al-watan.com www.asianews.it www.barnabasfund.org www.cbn.org/cbnnews www.fides.org www.keston.org www.cesnur.org www.hazara.net www.hrw.org www.hrwf.org www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/ www.faluninfo.net www.forum18.org www.lorient-lejour.com.lb www.misna.org www.mindanews.com www.opendoorsusa.org www.persecution.net www.persecution.com www.persecution.org www.peacelink.it/anb-bia/anb.html www.iwpr.net www.rferl.org www.www.religionandpolicy.org www.religioscope.com www.worldevangelicalalliance.org www.memri.org www.ceri-sciencespo.com/publica/cemoti/presente.htm www.vidimusdominum.org www.washtimes.com www.zenit.org Statistical Data World Christian Encyclopedia - Second Edition 2001 - Oxford University 198 Madison Avenue - New York - USA Statistical Yearbook of the Church 2006 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana - 00120 Vatican City - © 2008

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UNHCR - 94, rue de Montbrillant - CH-1202 Geneva - Switzerland The Global IDP Project of the Norwegian Refugee Council - 59, chemin MoïseDuboule - CH 1209 - Geneva - Switzerland Calendario Atlante dell’Istituto Geografico De Agostini - Corso della Vittoria 91 Novara - Italy

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Index of countries

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Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Central African Republic

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Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo, Brazzaville Congo, Dem. Rep. of the Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Fiji Islands Finland France Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada

13 18 20 24 25 29 30 32 34 35 36 40 41 43 48 49 53 55 56 58 61 62 65 66 68 69 71 72 74 76 77 79 80

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Guatemala page Guinea - Bissau Guinea - Conakry Guyana Haiti Honduras Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel and Palestinian Territories Italy Ivory Coast Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Dem. People’s Rep. of Korea, Republic of Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People’s Dem. Rep. Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

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Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia, Fed. S. Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Norway Oman Pakistan

179 181 182 183 184 185 186 188 189 205 219 228 237 239 245 249 251 252 253 256 261 264 265 271 408 272 275 280 283 284 290 291 292

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Palau page Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa Spain Sri Lanka

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Sudan Suriname Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor Leste Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States of America Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe

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A N N E X

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Annex: Worldwide Freedom of Religion The Catholic point of view

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WORLDWIDE FREEDOM OF RELIGION The Catholic point of view Respect for freedom of conscience, creed and religion as a fundamental principle is neither obvious nor universal. Such respect has not traditionally been part of religious teaching, although every religion has always claimed the right to such freedom for itself. In Europe we learned such respect the hard way, through violent conflict, religious wars, inquisition and cruel executions for heresy. Harder than ever before was the European experience with Nazism and communism, the two totalitarian ideologies of evil dominating the Twentieth Century. Nazism perished and left Europe with the so called Order of Yalta. Communist persecution of the churches, aimed at their eradication, was still in full swing when the Second Vatican Council met. As Vaclav Havel wrote, the violence in the communist totalitarian system was spiritual rather than physical, designed “to achieve the gradual destruction of the human spirit, of basic human dignity.”1 It was in this political context that respect for freedom of religion was first proclaimed officially in the Catholic Church. On 7 December 1965, Pope Paul VI promulgated the: “Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, on the Right of the Person and the Communities to Social and Civil Freedom in Matters Religious” THE DEFINITION OF FREEDOM OF RELIGION The Declaration marked a true human rights revolution in Catholic thinking. Due to lack of agreement among the Council fathers, the document appeared as a Papal Declaration rather than a Constitution of the Second Vatican Council. In its second paragraph, the Declaration defines precisely what it means by the right of religious freedom: “2. This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.

1

Vaclav Havel, ‘The Power of the Powerless’. In: Vaclav Havel or Living in Truth. Edited by Jan Vladislav. Faber and Faber 1986.

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The council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself.(2) This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right. It is in accordance with their dignity as persons-that is, beings endowed with reason and free will and therefore privileged to bear personal responsibility-that all men should be at once impelled by nature and also bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth, once it is known, and to order their whole lives in accord with the demands of truth. However, men cannot discharge these obligations in a manner in keeping with their own nature unless they enjoy immunity from external coercion as well as psychological freedom. Therefore the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature. In consequence, the right to this immunity continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it and the exercise of this right is not to be impeded, provided that just public order be observed.”2 The right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person. It belongs to everyone because of his/her personhood, irrespective of what he/she believes or whether he/she is a religious believer or a non-believer. It is a pre-political right belonging to the essence of his/her personality and not a right granted by the state or society. The right to religious freedom is not to be restricted to a right to freedom of conscience in the private sphere. It is also a public matter as it includes the freedom to act publicly, alone and in association with others (“provided that just public order be observed”, as was added in a later draft). Respect for such freedom requires the absence of any form of coercion, whether physical, psychological, social, financial or economical. Prior to the definition in paragraph 2, the motives for the Declaration are given in the first paragraph: “1. A sense of the dignity of the human person has been impressing itself more and more deeply on the consciousness of contemporary man,(1) and the demand is increasingly made that men should act on their own judgment, enjoying and making use of a responsible freedom, not driven by coercion but motivated by a sense of duty. The demand is likewise made that constitutional limits should be set to the powers of government, in order that there may be no encroachment on the rightful freedom of the person and of associations. This demand for freedom in human society chiefly regards the quest for the values proper to the human spirit. It regards, in the first place, the free exercise of religion in society. This

2

Emphasis added. Compare: George Weigel, Freedom and its Discontents. Catholicism Confronts Modernity.Ethics and Public Policy Center Washington D.C. 1991.

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Vatican Council takes careful note of these desires in the minds of men. It proposes to declare them to be greatly in accord with truth and justice. To this end, it searches into the sacred tradition and doctrine of the Church-the treasury out of which the Church continually brings forth new things that are in harmony with the things that are old. First, the council professes its belief that God Himself has made known to mankind the way in which men are to serve Him, and thus be saved in Christ and come to blessedness. We believe that this one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church, to which the Lord Jesus committed the duty of spreading it abroad among all men. Thus He spoke to the Apostles: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have enjoined upon you” (Matt. 28: 19-20). On their part, all men are bound to seek the truth, especially in what concerns God and His Church, and to embrace the truth they come to know, and to hold fast to it. This Vatican Council likewise professes its belief that it is upon the human conscience that these obligations fall and exert their binding force. The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power. Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfil their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.”3 The Declaration, as shows this paragraph, belongs to the aggiornamento of the Catholic Church through the Council convoked by the holy Pope John XXIII. Until then, the Catholic Church had not been in the forefront of the modern human rights movement. What brought her there at the time were the American Jesuit Father John Courtney Murray and the severe persecution of the Church in the communist world. The first section of paragraph 1 is a true reflection of the American challenge to Soviet totalitarian repression. The Declaration signalled a “new appreciation for, and overt support of, the democratic revolution in world politics.” 4 According to the Declaration, the free exercise of religion is a fundamental human right founded in the dignity of the human person and needs democratic government (constitutional limits) to enjoy immunity from external coercion. In the same document, the Declaration also claims a special right to freedom for the Catholic Church by underlining the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and the one Church of Christ.

3

Emphasis added. George Weigel op.cit. p.37. He also calls Murray the chief intellectual architect of the Declaration. 4

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This, in summary, can be said to be the definition of freedom of religion in our Church since 1965, further elucidated and philosophically underpinned by Pope John Paul II in his great Encyclicals.5 Respect for the dignity of the human person is founded in the Gospel and in man created in God’s image with his transcendental destiny. THE FRAGILITY OF FREEDOM OF RELIGION The very need for this volume underlines the fragility of freedom of religion as a fundamental principle. Respect for our neighbour who professes another creed than we do, is the exception rather than the rule in our societies; belief in the truth of one’s own religion and toleration of other beliefs don’t go together easily. This is especially the case, where certain beliefs are at the origin of moral precepts and the laws of the land. In for instance family law, Christians, Muslims and secularists are on a collision course, on which toleration seems impossible. The necessary constitutional limits to assure such respect require democratic government and a clear separation of powers; a condition met only in a limited number of countries today. Even in these countries respect between majorities and minorities in society is fragile. Equality before the law between the dominant religion, minority churches and associations of non-believers remains problematic. Their constitutional and legal provisions are of recent origin and subject to frequent dispute and adaptation. The Declaration’s condition “that just public order be observed” leaves many questions unanswered. What is meant by a just public order? Is it the existing legal order in modern states? If it is not including the permissive order, challenged by the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, where is the just borderline? In the former communist countries and in the Eastern Churches respect for freedom of religion still is a controversial issue. Where the Orthodox Church is the predominant one as for instance in Russia, the harmony between Church and State rather than individual freedom is the guiding principle, in line with a tradition going back to the Roman Empire of Theodosius in 385. In their interpretation freedom of religion is not a personal right to be respected by the State but a national Church right to be protected by the State against “proselytism” from foreign churches and religions. Within our Catholic Church the promotion of respect for the fundamental human right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion requires humility, wisdom and courage. Humility is needed to realise that error had no rights6 in Catholic teaching before 1965 and that freedom of religion as a fundamental right emerged in Europe from Reforma-

5

In particular: Veritatatis Splendor, Redemptoris Missio. E.g. the wellknown Syllabus of Errors. Apostolic Constitution decreed by Pope Pius IX on 8 December 1864.

6

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tion and Enlightenment.7 Reformation and the French Enlightenment were in direct opposition to the power of the Catholic Church. Freedom of religion found its first constitutional expression in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. It reached Rome and most European countries only after the Second World War. Wisdom is required for us Catholics as latecomers in the pro-active promotion of the fundamental right to freedom of religion in our turbulent, secularised and multicultural world. With no more Soviet totalitarian system to challenge, we seem to be at a loss with respect to both the definition of this fundamental human right and the limits to the public order to be observed. In our Western societies believing in God has become no more than one human possibility among others. The right to freedom of religion had already been defined as just such a right among others in international, European and national constitutional laws before our recent Popes defined it as the fundamental right underlying all other human rights. Do we insist on writing this hierarchy into human rights law or do we accept and promote positive human rights law as it stands? Does this fundamental right include the right not to profess any religion and promote atheism? Do we accept the right of a father over life and death of his wife and children under Shari‘a as a “religious” right underlying all other human rights or should we reject it as contrary to (our conception of) a just public order? These are just a few of the question we face when moving from the claim that our (Catholic) freedom of religion be respected to the conviction that such respect is the fundamental right for every human person irrespective of his belief or non-belief. Courage is needed above all in the promotion of this right as the fundamental one underlying all other human rights. Its fundamental nature, though, supports the freedom of the Catholic Church to promote human rights in conformity with the Laws of God. The ideologies of evil of the Twentieth Century have been overcome, wrote Pope John-Paul II in his last book. Still he wonders whether – with respect to abortion and same-sex unions – we now have to cope with “a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden than its predecessors, which attempts to pit even human rights against the family and against man.”8 Meant are the efforts to rewrite human rights law in such a way that certain individual rights - to private life or to equal treatment on the basis of sexual orientation – are elevated to fundamental rights superseding others like freedom of religion.9 Courage is needed to expose and record such efforts as a serious threat to freedom of religion. Courage is also needed

7

Most influential were John Locke’s, Letter on Toleration.and Voltaire’s, Traité sur la Tolérance. Also: Stefan Zweig, Castellio gegen Calvin oder Ein Gewissen gegen die Gewalt. Fischer Taschenbuch 2003. 8 John-Paul II, Memory and Identity. London 2005. Chapter 2. 9 For a recent discussion, see Jakob Cornides, ‘Human Rights Pitted Against Man.’The International Journal of Human Rights. Vol. 12, No.1, 107-134. February 2008.

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to expose and record taking justice in one’s own hand, under Shari‘a, with respect to a person who changes his or her religion, towards women or in the exercise of paternal rights. In this volume and true to the guidelines of our Founder, we expose and record those violations to the fundamental right on freedom of religion that have come to our attention – whatever their source. Frans A.M. Alting von Geusau

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ACN in the world

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INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT

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