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Remembering Those Whose Stories Don't Make the Headlines
While it would be impossible to relate all the untold or lesser-known stories of
persecuted Christians worldwide, below are updates of a few in danger of being forgotten.
Shaiboub William Arsal [Egypt]
Two years ago, Shaiboub William Arsal was convicted of murdering his cousin and another
young Coptic Christian in El-Kosheh, a village in Upper Egypt. Then 38 years of age, he
was sentenced to 15 years at hard labor, the maximum penalty allowed for manslaughter
under Egyptian law.
But in fact, the illiterate day laborer had become the scapegoat in a flagrant cover-up of
police brutality in Egypt's Sohag province.
Arrested the morning after the double murder, Shaiboub was among more than 1,000 Christian
villagers interrogated, threatened and abused over the next few weeks by local police
investigating the crime. Rather than pursue the Muslim suspect named by the Coptic
community, the police seemed determined to find one or more Christian culprits.
But when the local Coptic bishop publicly protested against their harsh treatment of his
flock, police officials settled on Shaiboub as the guilty party. After holding two Coptic
army conscripts under torture for several weeks, the police forced them to sign prepared
statements that they had seen Shaiboub commit the murders.
The two Copts later retracted the confessions as false, declaring they were forced to sign
them. But the Sohag Criminal Court refused their retractions, declaring they were
"void of any credible evidence that the claims of coercion were true." Apart
from police testimony, the two written statements were the prosecution's only evidence in
the case.
Reacting to international inquiries on the case, the Egyptian government claimed the
murders were a "normal criminal incident" that had been "grossly
exaggerated" by the foreign press. A half-hearted inquiry into the alleged police
excesses was quietly whitewashed by a judicial investigation, and after repeated delays
and deferments, Shaiboub's guilty verdict was announced on June 5, 2000.
In contrast to Shaiboub's sentence, two self-confessed Muslim murderers who shot and
killed a Coptic monk in September 1999 were given only seven-year prison terms.
By August 2000, defense lawyers had filed an appeal of the Sohag Criminal Court's verdict
before the Court of Cassation, Egypt's highest court of appeal.
But to date, there has been no answer.
"The courts of Egypt are under no obligation to answer this appeal," Coptic
lawyer Mamdouh Nakhla told Compass. Although the Court of Cassation normally responds to
such an appeal application within six months to three years, the Egyptian legal system can
choose to ignore it entirely.
"Or, they could just refuse it, say no, and it would be finished," Nakhla said.
"That's just as likely," he admitted, noting that if Shaiboub's conviction
should be overturned, the courts would then be obliged to resolve the case by finding the
real culprit.
Shaiboub is currently incarcerated with some 1,500 other prisoners at a prison farm, part
of the Tora maximum-security prison complex on the southeast edge of Cairo. His family,
who live 330 miles away, can visit him once a month, for 30 minutes.
Although isolated in a solitary cell while under trial, Shaiboub now shares a cell with 25
or 30 other prisoners at a time, his lawyer said. Under current prison regulations, after
serving three years of his hard-labor sentence, he would be eligible on the basis of good
behavior for transfer to a general or light-security prison.
Shaiboub and his wife Suad have two sons, Emad (13) and William (7), and a daughter, Basma
(8). Together with his mother in her 70s, they are being supported by his brother and
church sources.
***A photo of Shaiboub Arsal and family is available electronically. Contact Compass
Direct for pricing and transmittal.
The "Padang Six" [Indonesia]
One of Indonesia's worst miscarriages of justice against Christians took place in Padang,
Sumatra island in 1998-99. Three Christians, including two pastors, were arrested and
jailed for their role in helping a young Muslim girl who came to them claiming to have
become a Christian.
In what may have been an elaborate sting operation, the Christians were accused of raping
and abducting her. In 1999, with Muslim crowds outside the court baying for blood, they
were sentenced on the flimsiest evidence.
Mr. Salmon Ongirwalu was sentenced to 10 years in prison; the Rev. Yanawardi Koto was
given seven years, and the Rev. Robert Marthinus was given six years. In addition, the
wives of Mr. Ongirwalu and Rev. Marthinus, and the church secretary, Ms. Jenny Mendrofa,
were each handed six-year sentences for complicity, though none were asked to serve their
sentences.
The three men appealed to the Indonesian Supreme Court. But in early 2001, the court
refused to hear the case. The case was then referred to Indonesian President Wahid, who
had the power to offer a pardon. Wahid was known to be sympathetic to their plight, but
politics cruelly intervened and he was impeached and replaced by Megawati in mid 2001.
President Megawati has shown no interest in the case.
All three continue to serve their sentences. Salmon Ongirwalu at first lost weight and
contracted diseases from the prison food. His wife, however, is now able to bring him food
every day, and this has greatly improved his health. If he qualifies for a government
remission program, the earliest he can hope for release is at the end of 2003.
Yanawardi Koto works in the rehabilitation program of the jail and often travels outside
the prison on project work. He is also considered so trustworthy that he is given a
special one-night pass each month to spend with his family. He has a wife and two young
children. If remission is granted to him, then he might also be free in the second half of
2003.
Robert Marthinus has also impressed the prison authorities with his good conduct. He is
given a one-day leave once a month also, and often uses this time to lead services at his
church. If remission is applied, he can expect to be freed later this year or in the first
quarter of 2003.
After the justice question, the biggest issue was support for the families. Salmon and
Yanawardi both have two children and Robert has three. But local Christians rallied around
the families, and some missions have also given money to the families. So they have
survived, and the children continue to be educated.
The area remains raw with the memories of the trial and riots. Christians number barely
400 in an area dominated by the staunchly Muslim Minang people, four-million-strong.
Indonesia's reputation as a place where Christians may receive a fair trial remains in
tatters. This is the country where three men who took pity on a girl claiming to have been
rejected by her Muslim parents have served a total of 12 years in prison thus far for
their kindness. They remain jailed.
***A photo of the "Padang Six" is available electronically. Contact Compass
Direct for pricing and transmittal.
Ranjha Masih [Pakistan]
When he was arrested four years ago during funeral processions for Catholic Bishop John
Joseph of Faisalabad, Ranjha Masih was 50 years old. Jailed without bail ever since, his
hair and beard have turned white in the local jail, and his health is failing.
"He's becoming weaker and weaker each time I see him," his wife Rashidaan Bibi
told Compass, wiping her eyes with the end of her wrinkled dupatta, the traditional long
scarf worn by rural women of the Punjab.
Ranjha's wife said her husband, a long-time personal friend of Bishop John, had been
deeply shocked by the prominent cleric's suicide, made in protest against the
victimization of Christians and other religious minorities under Pakistan's notorious
"black laws" on blasphemy.
"Bishop John really loved my husband," she said, and their entire family joined
the sad processions through Faisalabad on the bishop's burial day, May 8, 1998.
While returning home afterwards at dusk with his brother and three of his sons, she said,
the men met a large procession. Thinking that the group were Christians, Ranjha shouted at
them to return home, saying that the funeral was over.
But without warning, her sons later told her, the crowd rushed at their father with
weapons and sticks in their hands. The mob of angry young Muslims grabbed Ranjha and began
beating him, accusing him of throwing a rock that broke a neon sign bearing a verse from
the Quran.
When the police arrived, Ranjha was arrested and taken off in a jeep. After his sons crept
home and reported the incident to the family, the mosque loudspeakers in their
neighborhood blared late that night, declaring that "Ranjha Masih was a blasphemer
who should be killed and his house burned." Together with most of their Christian
neighbors, the entire family fled overnight. Early the next morning, a Muslim mob
surrounded their empty house, breaking down the doors and shattering windows until the
police arrived to stop the destruction.
His family could learn nothing of his fate for several weeks, until by chance a relative
who was at the local courthouse saw Ranjha in a queue of chained prisoners. "Our
whole family rushed there to see him," his wife said. "He was in a police van,
so we could hardly see him, but we could talk through the window."
Ranjha later told them he had been shifted from one place to another, always blindfolded
and in heavy chains, and beaten repeatedly. According to a fact-finding report by Lahore's
Center for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), he was taken to Thana Thekerewala,
in the suburbs of Faisalabad, where he was "chained and tortured for approximately 15
days."
Seven weeks after his arrest, Ranjha was brought before a judge and formally indicted for
violation of Section 295-C of the blasphemy law, despite the fact that in the police
registry he was charged only under Section 295-A. While the former statute requires
capital punishment for conviction, the latter calls for lighter sentences.
Incredibly, Ranjha's trial is still in process before the Faisalabad Sessions Court, where
he is being defended by Khalil Tahir, a Christian lawyer himself under threat for taking
the case.
"The prosecution has finally rested its case," a representative of the Catholic
Church's National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) handling the case told Compass
in mid May. "Now the defense can begin, so it will take at least two or three more
months."
But on May 15, the judge failed to appear for the hearing, and on May 28, the case was
postponed until June 8, when again the judge did not attend. The court session was
re-scheduled for June 19.
Ranjha's family are allowed to visit him once a month for 30 minutes, no more than four
persons at a time. Guards at the Faisalabad jail observe very strict security, his wife
said, and they are never allowed to speak with him privately.
"The guards tell us, 'We are doing you a favor, being kind to even allow you to visit
this blasphemer!'" she said. "Sometimes we have to listen to their abuse for
several hours, waiting to see him, because we are not allowed to visit him until all the
other prisoners' visitors have left."
His wife said her husband does not know how to read, and there is no one near him in the
prison who can read the Bible to him. "He can just pray on his own," she said.
In the meantime, one of his sons and several other relatives have lost their jobs over his
arrest on blasphemy charges. Rashidaan Bibi and her husband have five sons and one
daughter, three of them married, and several grandchildren.
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