Stand Today - Advocacy efforts for the Persecuted
For those genuinely interested in becoming advocates for the Persecuted Church, there is an organization called STAND TODAY that is currently attempting to recruit one million people to engage in prayer and advocate for the persecuted through way of e-mail petitions and phone calls.
Quote and goal from their site...
".. Stand Today needs your help. Our goal is to recruit one million volunteers to stand with persecuted Christians around the world through prayer, advocacy and action. Join us in this effort to unite free Christians with their suffering brothers and sisters in other countries..."
http://www.standtoday.org/volunteer.asp
Monday, January 30, 2006
Hindu Militants stone Boy in Conversion Siege
Many Christians have kept their heads in the sand and held on to the false conception that innocent children are shown compassion and spared by persecuters of their faith, this story reported a few days ago by ANS is just one of many where children were included as targets (or were the sole target) of violence and martyred as result.
ASSIST News Service has reported the following terrible tragedy in India where angry Hindu fanatics stoned an orphanage of 100 abandoned children run by Hopegivers intl, a Christian organization, one child was killed, about thirty fled and took cover in neighboring homes while seventy children and their school caregivers were still under seige at the time it was first reported.
Quoted from ANS article...
"... TINDOLE, RAJASTHAN (ANS) -- An angry mob of anti-social fanatics stoned an orphanage in northern India, Thursday, January 26, killing one of the orphans in the rampage.Bishop M.A. Thomas, founder of Hopegivers International, received the horrifying news via a phone call earlier today. He said the child killed was a boy between 8 and 10 years of age. Bishop Thomas told ASSIST the attack began when the Hopegivers leaders in charge of the orphanage, the Reverends Mangilal and Gopal, were attacked by a mob wanting to force the Christian tribal Dalit residents (untouchables) to revert back to Hinduism..."
ASSIST News Service has reported the following terrible tragedy in India where angry Hindu fanatics stoned an orphanage of 100 abandoned children run by Hopegivers intl, a Christian organization, one child was killed, about thirty fled and took cover in neighboring homes while seventy children and their school caregivers were still under seige at the time it was first reported.
Quoted from ANS article...
"... TINDOLE, RAJASTHAN (ANS) -- An angry mob of anti-social fanatics stoned an orphanage in northern India, Thursday, January 26, killing one of the orphans in the rampage.Bishop M.A. Thomas, founder of Hopegivers International, received the horrifying news via a phone call earlier today. He said the child killed was a boy between 8 and 10 years of age. Bishop Thomas told ASSIST the attack began when the Hopegivers leaders in charge of the orphanage, the Reverends Mangilal and Gopal, were attacked by a mob wanting to force the Christian tribal Dalit residents (untouchables) to revert back to Hinduism..."
Friday, January 20, 2006
Untouchable Christians
Many persecuted Christians fall either into government or cultural caste-like systems and are on the rock bottom rung of the ladder, living just as the Indian Dalit's (Untouchables) caste. These Christians are often the last to receive crisis aid for earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters. In some cases the government gives no assistance to these people at all. This is why there is a critical need to support agencies and missions who help the persecuted. For Christians in free nations to assume that the peoples or government of these persecuted brothers and sisters will supply their needs in times of crisis or otherwise, is a misleading and false hope.
India's Caste System: A Divisive and Soul-destroying Ideology
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE DALIT PROBLEM
By Joseph D’souza
Special to ASSIST News Service
INDIA (ANS) -- The cruel caste system has been a huge, never-ending problem for us as Indians. Our inability to eradicate caste completely even after the rise of prophets like Mahatma Phule and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar reveals our own blindness to one of the most dehumanizing systems the world has ever known. There is no point in saying that the Indian Constitution has abolished untouchability because we all know that the law has not taken care of the root system that gave rise to the practice of untouchability.
There is no point in saying that we have reservations for the Dalits, because if there were no reservation system, we would have effectively consigned all Dalits to their inhuman existence. We would not then have the few Dalit-Bahujan leaders who have risen to speak out on behalf of their people. To our utter shame, no significant campaign or movement has risen up after India’s independence among the upper caste leadership in the nation, nor overseas, to end the caste system in Indian society.
If we are honest, we must admit that caste prejudice runs very deep in the Indian psyche.
So today, when Dalits agitate for some kind of quota system in the private sector, India’s upper-caste-dominated industrialists shut the door in their faces! Dalit-Bahujan leaders are forced to appeal to the overseas multinational companies to voluntarily provide for affirmative action just as they have provided such benefits for African-Americans and other minorities in their own nations. In order to make their case, the Dalit-Bahujan leaders have no option but to describe their lives as they know it in modern India. Let us be clear about this one thing: Caste is alive and well on planet India. Let us have the honesty and courage to deal with this problem and avoid the spin of the last several decades which says there is no caste system, nor the ensuing discrimination that has resulted in our cities, villages and towns.
Politics has not delivered on the issues of Dalit discrimination or the abolishment of caste, Dr. Ambedkar’s main dream and desire. What is required is the development of a national and global social conscience on the issue of caste discrimination and its atrocities. This new social conscience must be both national and global because the caste problem is not only limited to India. It is present in all South Asian nations and in other parts of the world where Indians congregate. The case of the foreign-based Indian woman who had her daughter and son-in-law murdered because of their inter-caste marriage is well known.
The rise of the extremist Hindutva movement also has meant the rise of the caste-based structure in society. How can we ignore the blatant distribution of the Manusmriti by the Sangh Parivar elements in Western India when their government was in power? The Sangh Parivar has not been shy of spreading this divisive and soul-destroying ideology even in the West and especially in America. When after the lynching of the five Dalits in Jhajjar, Haryana, the Vice President of the VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad – the world Hindu federation) can say that the life of the cow is more precious than the life of the Dalit we are brought face to face with colossal social blindness.
This social blindness can be cured only when there is the realization that all men and women are created equal and have equal intrinsic value and worth. True change can come only when everyone knows and agrees that Dalits and upper caste alike they are equally created in God’s likeness and there is no such thing as a God-given hierarchy of human beings.
There is now a growing national and global alliance of people – irrespective of caste, creed and religion – who believe that both the caste system and its consequences – the practice of untouchability and discrimination – must be abolished. It is this alliance which must educate, inform, campaign and be engaged in activism resulting in the growth and development of the social conscience which will revolt against any caste-based discrimination or prejudice. It is this conscience that will eventually abolish the caste system and that will realize India’s greatness and true potential – the potential of its huge and utterly deprived masses.
Nevertheless, this is going to be a long, difficult struggle and campaign. Those who have profited economically and politically from the caste system will not yield easily. As we have noticed recently in the Gohana episode where 50 Dalit houses were burned, these forces will attack any assertion of Dalit rights.
The vast majority of our own people do not know the meaning of “India Shining” – a slogan of the upper-caste-dominated Indian elite. India does not shine for the masses – not simply because they are poor, but because of the social system that denies them equal opportunities, empowerment, capital and freedom. Globalization has resulted in “India Shining” for the privileged minority, but now let globalization also result in “India Shining” for the majority Dalits and other oppressed castes/tribes.
* Published with Permission
An Assist News Service Publication
THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE DALIT PROBLEM
By Joseph D’souza
Special to ASSIST News Service
INDIA (ANS) -- The cruel caste system has been a huge, never-ending problem for us as Indians. Our inability to eradicate caste completely even after the rise of prophets like Mahatma Phule and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar reveals our own blindness to one of the most dehumanizing systems the world has ever known. There is no point in saying that the Indian Constitution has abolished untouchability because we all know that the law has not taken care of the root system that gave rise to the practice of untouchability.
There is no point in saying that we have reservations for the Dalits, because if there were no reservation system, we would have effectively consigned all Dalits to their inhuman existence. We would not then have the few Dalit-Bahujan leaders who have risen to speak out on behalf of their people. To our utter shame, no significant campaign or movement has risen up after India’s independence among the upper caste leadership in the nation, nor overseas, to end the caste system in Indian society.
If we are honest, we must admit that caste prejudice runs very deep in the Indian psyche.
So today, when Dalits agitate for some kind of quota system in the private sector, India’s upper-caste-dominated industrialists shut the door in their faces! Dalit-Bahujan leaders are forced to appeal to the overseas multinational companies to voluntarily provide for affirmative action just as they have provided such benefits for African-Americans and other minorities in their own nations. In order to make their case, the Dalit-Bahujan leaders have no option but to describe their lives as they know it in modern India. Let us be clear about this one thing: Caste is alive and well on planet India. Let us have the honesty and courage to deal with this problem and avoid the spin of the last several decades which says there is no caste system, nor the ensuing discrimination that has resulted in our cities, villages and towns.
Politics has not delivered on the issues of Dalit discrimination or the abolishment of caste, Dr. Ambedkar’s main dream and desire. What is required is the development of a national and global social conscience on the issue of caste discrimination and its atrocities. This new social conscience must be both national and global because the caste problem is not only limited to India. It is present in all South Asian nations and in other parts of the world where Indians congregate. The case of the foreign-based Indian woman who had her daughter and son-in-law murdered because of their inter-caste marriage is well known.
The rise of the extremist Hindutva movement also has meant the rise of the caste-based structure in society. How can we ignore the blatant distribution of the Manusmriti by the Sangh Parivar elements in Western India when their government was in power? The Sangh Parivar has not been shy of spreading this divisive and soul-destroying ideology even in the West and especially in America. When after the lynching of the five Dalits in Jhajjar, Haryana, the Vice President of the VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad – the world Hindu federation) can say that the life of the cow is more precious than the life of the Dalit we are brought face to face with colossal social blindness.
This social blindness can be cured only when there is the realization that all men and women are created equal and have equal intrinsic value and worth. True change can come only when everyone knows and agrees that Dalits and upper caste alike they are equally created in God’s likeness and there is no such thing as a God-given hierarchy of human beings.
There is now a growing national and global alliance of people – irrespective of caste, creed and religion – who believe that both the caste system and its consequences – the practice of untouchability and discrimination – must be abolished. It is this alliance which must educate, inform, campaign and be engaged in activism resulting in the growth and development of the social conscience which will revolt against any caste-based discrimination or prejudice. It is this conscience that will eventually abolish the caste system and that will realize India’s greatness and true potential – the potential of its huge and utterly deprived masses.
Nevertheless, this is going to be a long, difficult struggle and campaign. Those who have profited economically and politically from the caste system will not yield easily. As we have noticed recently in the Gohana episode where 50 Dalit houses were burned, these forces will attack any assertion of Dalit rights.
The vast majority of our own people do not know the meaning of “India Shining” – a slogan of the upper-caste-dominated Indian elite. India does not shine for the masses – not simply because they are poor, but because of the social system that denies them equal opportunities, empowerment, capital and freedom. Globalization has resulted in “India Shining” for the privileged minority, but now let globalization also result in “India Shining” for the majority Dalits and other oppressed castes/tribes.
* Published with Permission
An Assist News Service Publication
Hindu Festival Threatens Indian Christians
Keep these Christians in prayer, asking for safety and hedge of protection and a spirit of peace to prevail over the people attending an upcoming festival intent on stirring area Indians against Christians and Muslims in a small tribal community (Dangs) in Gujaret, Western India.
Hindu extremists plan to hold a festival drawing up to 500,000 attendees this Februal 11-13 called "Hindu Jago, Christi Bhagao" (translated: "Arise Hindus, throw out the Christians").
It is a mythological passion play of sorts in which the demon figure [representing in this case, Christians and Muslims] is triumphantly killed at the end. The organizers are calling for a similar action against religious minorities.
The Dangs are a tribal people who mainly practive mainly Animism, with a small Christian and Muslim population. This festival's intent is to encourage their [Animists] conversion to Hinduism and a call to violence against the area minorities (Christians and Muslims).
In 1998 a similar event caused the destruction of 36 churches in that rural area.
The AICC (All Indian Christian Council) believes there are polictical motives behind this effort, a conversion to Hinduism by these tribal people would increase the numbers supporting the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Converting to Hinduism would entrench the Dangs who currently pay little attention to the caste system firmly within the category of "Untouchables."
Hindu extremists plan to hold a festival drawing up to 500,000 attendees this Februal 11-13 called "Hindu Jago, Christi Bhagao" (translated: "Arise Hindus, throw out the Christians").
It is a mythological passion play of sorts in which the demon figure [representing in this case, Christians and Muslims] is triumphantly killed at the end. The organizers are calling for a similar action against religious minorities.
The Dangs are a tribal people who mainly practive mainly Animism, with a small Christian and Muslim population. This festival's intent is to encourage their [Animists] conversion to Hinduism and a call to violence against the area minorities (Christians and Muslims).
In 1998 a similar event caused the destruction of 36 churches in that rural area.
The AICC (All Indian Christian Council) believes there are polictical motives behind this effort, a conversion to Hinduism by these tribal people would increase the numbers supporting the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Converting to Hinduism would entrench the Dangs who currently pay little attention to the caste system firmly within the category of "Untouchables."
Forced Church closings are on the increase
Several nations are seeing an increase of forced church closing of unregistered and house churches.
The local government either supports or is behind some of these, or else is looking the other way and allowing radical groups to threaten church leaders and members into completely closing down their place of worship.
Some church leaders and members are complying out of fear of their life and property, others are standing their ground and facing potential imprisonment, loss of life and property as a result.
A few of the nations facing a fresh onslaught of church closings
* Cuba* Indonesia* India
The local government either supports or is behind some of these, or else is looking the other way and allowing radical groups to threaten church leaders and members into completely closing down their place of worship.
Some church leaders and members are complying out of fear of their life and property, others are standing their ground and facing potential imprisonment, loss of life and property as a result.
A few of the nations facing a fresh onslaught of church closings
* Cuba* Indonesia* India
Atrocities of North Korea's death [ labor] camps
The world has basically turned a blind eye on the horrors faced by people living in North Korea for the past several decades and it is time for the church to take a strong advocacy role in support of the worlds most restricted nation in the area of Christian persecution and quality of life for ALL North Koreans. The human rights violations are hard to comprehend, but we need to be start getting educated. North Korean's need our prayer and our voice to be heard through advocacy efforts. The more I read about this nation, the more I am reminded of the Nazi Holocaust, the same "spirit" is prevailing now in North Korea.
Death camps still exist even in this present age.
Quote from New York Sun...
"... These and other "horrifying" violations of human rights and religious freedom in North Korea are reported in a new study by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, titled "'Thank You, Father Kim Il Sung': Eyewitness Accounts of Severe Violations of Freedom of Thought, Conscience, and Religion in North Korea."** Warning: The first paragraph of the article in the link below is very graphic http://www.nysun.com/article/23082
Quote from VOM fact sheet on North Korea...
"... Very few people have ever lived to speak about the atrocities committed in the dozens of labor camps spread across North Korea. And those who have escaped tell a story beyond belief..."http://www.prisoneralert.com/pprofiles/vp_prisoner_150_profile.h tml?_nc=f3d5c44f3da6e3b1100b1805366c5a33
Death camps still exist even in this present age.
Quote from New York Sun...
"... These and other "horrifying" violations of human rights and religious freedom in North Korea are reported in a new study by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, titled "'Thank You, Father Kim Il Sung': Eyewitness Accounts of Severe Violations of Freedom of Thought, Conscience, and Religion in North Korea."** Warning: The first paragraph of the article in the link below is very graphic http://www.nysun.com/article/23082
Quote from VOM fact sheet on North Korea...
"... Very few people have ever lived to speak about the atrocities committed in the dozens of labor camps spread across North Korea. And those who have escaped tell a story beyond belief..."http://www.prisoneralert.com/pprofiles/vp_prisoner_150_profile.h tml?_nc=f3d5c44f3da6e3b1100b1805366c5a33
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