— “Father of Tulay Goren says he defied ‘honour killing’ order from brother”
— Uncle ‘ordered teenager’s murder’
Category: Childrens Rights Matter
Save Children Now
Egypt: “The Disappearance, Forced Conversions, and Forced Marriages of Coptic Christian Women in Egypt”
A new report entitled “The Disappearance, Forced Conversions, and Forced Marriages of Coptic Christian Women in Egypt” has been released by the Christian Solidarity International and the Coptic Foundation for Human Rights on the ongoing struggle for freedom and dignity of Coptic Christian women in Egypt.
Preface of the report reads:
“Reports of Muslim men abducting and forcibly marrying and converting Coptic Christian women and girls have filtered out of Egypt with increasing frequency over the past decade. The emerging patterns of force, fraud and coercion correspond to definitions of human trafficking used by the United Nations and the U.S. Department of State., with the UN identifying it as a ‘crime against humanity’.1 These violations of fundamental human rights appear to be encouraged by the prevalence of cultural norms in Egypt – often rooted in Islamic traditions – that legitimize violence against women and non-Muslims. They appear to be further abetted by the tacit complicity of the government as evidenced by its lack of willingness to thoroughly investigate allegations of rape, abduction and abuse or to reinstate policies designed to protect Egyptians from coerced conversion by educating potential converts of the full implications of conversion.”
“Details of trafficking cases involving Copts often reach the West through desperately worried relatives of victims. When the Egyptian police fail to find and return (or often even search for) victims of abduction, forced marriage and conversion, some relatives summon the courage to release information and photos to Coptic human rights organizations in the diaspora.”
“The violent abuse of Coptic women and girls in connection with forced marriage and conversion is not altogether new. The Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Shenouda III, protested against this phenomenon in 1976, declaring: ‘There is pressure being practiced to convert Coptic girls to Islam and marry them under terror to Muslim husbands.’2 But the issue has now reached boiling point within Egypt’s Coptic community.”
“As the prestigious Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram Weekly recently noted:
‘It is the question of the alleged conversion and forced marriage of Coptic girls to Muslim men that elicits the greatest passions. In July [2009] alone three separate incidents received much publicity in the press. Pharmaceuticals student Rania Tawfik Asaad was ostensibly abducted in Giza and forced to marry a Muslim. Two other cases, those of Marian Bishai, Amira Morgan and Injy Basta, also hit the headlines.’3 ”
“Despite the accumulation of substantial evidence and the expressions of concern by the most senior leader of the Coptic community, this aspect of human trafficking has scarcely been acknowledged by the world’s most powerful human rights institutions, including those dedicated to the issue of trafficking in persons. The Coptic Foundation for Human Rights and Christian Solidarity International (CSI) therefore commissioned an anti-trafficking specialist, Michele Clark, and a Coptic women’s rights advocate, Nadia Ghaly, to undertake an investigation of allegations surrounding the abductions and forced marriages and conversions to Islam in Egypt. They performed outstanding pioneering work, interviewing victims, their relatives, lawyers, priests and other Coptic community leaders.”
“This report documents dozens of specific cases and demonstrates consistent patterns used by the perpetrators, their victims, government and law enforcement, and members of Egypt’s faith communities. The report concludes with a valuable set of practical and critical recommendations for the Coptic community, the Government of Egypt and the international community. The findings of Ms. Ghaly and Ms. Clark are deeply disturbing, and should challenge human rights activists and institutions, especially those whose mandate includes women’s rights and trafficking in persons, to undertake, as a matter of urgency, further research into this form of gender and religious based violence against Coptic women and girls in Egypt.”
1 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. “Human Trafficking.”
U.S. Department of State. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.
2 Mary Abdelmassih. AINA, “Family of abducted Christian Coptic Teenager Assaulted by Muslim Mob”, Cairo, June 9, 2009.
3 Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 3-9 September 2009; no.963
——————–
Media Reports:
— “Report Exposes Forced Conversions of Christian Women in Egypt”
— “Human trafficking caused by religion: Christian teenagers victimized in Muslim countries”
— “Controversy surrounds new Egypt report on forced conversion of Christian women”
— “Christian org to Obama: Egypt gov’t complicit in ‘raping’ Coptic girls”
Additional R.E.A.L. Reports on Freedom for Copts
Egypt: “Coptic Family Forced to Surrender Woman Rescued in Egypt”
“Egyptian Police Arrest Christian Father for Attempting to Free Kidnapped Daughter”
“Egyptian Security Refuses to Return Abducted Christian Coptic Girl”
Egypt: Two Christians Coptic Girls Abducted for “forced Islamization”
Egypt – Convert Woman Arrested for Marrying Christian
Egypt: “Family of Abducted Christian Coptic Teenager Assaulted By Muslim Mob”
Egypt: Report on Increasing Extremist Intolerance to Women, Christians
DC: Egyptian Coptic Christians Protest for Human Rights, Equality, as President Obama Meets Mubarak
Iraq: Christian teenager killed in Iraq drive-by shooting
Iraq: Christian teenager killed in Iraq drive-by shooting
AFP reports
— “A neighbour said 16-year-old Rami Katchik, a member of the minority Armenian community, had been hosing down the entrance to his family home when the shooting occurred.”
— “a local priest, Hazem Girgis, described the killing as part of ‘crimes aimed at uprooting Christians and forcing them to flee.’ “
Arkansas: “Child Rapist and Anti-Catholic Cult Boss Gets 175 Years” — “Christian Evangelist” Tony Alamo
— Tony Alamo Gets 175-Year Sentence
— TV 40/29 reports: “Evangelist Tony Alamo has been sentenced to 175 years in federal prison for taking underage girls across state lines for sex.”
— “Alamo was sentenced Friday in Texarkana.”
— “U.S. District Judge Harry F. Barnes listened to testimony from three of Alamo’s victims before giving Alamo the maximum time allowed by federal guidelines. He told Alamo that he will one day face ‘a greater judge,’ and said ‘may (God) have mercy on your soul.’ ”
Arkansas Report: “Child Rapist and Anti-Catholic Cult Boss Gets 175 Years” — Tony Alamo
DC: Experts on China’s One Child Policy to Testify in Congressional Hearing
See also reports at Women’s Rights Without Frontiers
China Aid (www.ChinaAid.org) reports:
Experts on China’s One Child Policy to Testify in Congressional Hearing
November 8, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C.–As President Obama prepares to visit China this week, concerned organizations will raise their voices against China’s One Child per Couple Policy this Tuesday, November 10, 2009:
What: An Evaluation of 30-Years of the One-Child Policy in China
Host: Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission
When: 1:00 PM-4:00 PM–Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Where: Room 2318, Rayburn HOB
Why:
“The Chinese Communist Party states that it has “prevented 400 million births” through its One Child Policy–greater than the entire population of the United States. The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing this Tuesday will present new evidence that many of these births have been “prevented” through forced abortion, involuntary sterilization, and infanticide.
Because of the traditional preference for boys, sex selective abortion is practiced. Indeed, in some areas of China, 130 boys are born for every 100 girls. Because of this “gendercide, ” there are now an estimated 37 million Chinese men who will never marry, because there aren’t enough women. This gender imbalance is a powerful, driving force behind human trafficking and sexual slavery in China and the surrounding countries.
On April 22, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that coercive family planning in China is “absolutely unacceptable.” Whether pro-life or pro-choice, no one supports forced abortion–because it is negates the power of choice. Rather, the One Child Policy causes more violence toward women and girls than any other official policy on earth.”
–Reggie Littlejohn, Womens Rights Without Frontiers.
Join Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, ChinaAid, and the following concerned expert panelists for this pivotal hearing hosted by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. See the Official Hearing Announcement issued November 6, 2009.
* Toy Reid, Congressional-Executive Commission on China
* Reggie Littlejohn, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers
* Annie Jing Zhang, Women’s Rights in China
* Nicholas Eberstadt, American Enterprise Institute
* Rebiya Kadeer, Uyghur-American Association
* Harry Wu, Laogai Research Foundation
* Jiang Tianyong, Beijing Global Law Firm
If you have any questions, please contact Elizabeth Hoffman at (202) 225-3599.
MEDIA OPPORTUNITY: PRESS CONFERENCE AT 12:15 PM
Meet the speakers and take advantage of photo opportunities at the Press Conference, to be held at 12:15 PM, in Room 2318, Rayburn House office building. Both events are open to the public.
Indonesia: 1500 Sharia Police Harrass Men, Women in Aceh
— Jakarta Post: “Aceh Shariah Police Chase the ‘Immoral'”
— Jakarta Post reports: “The young couple is totally busted. They sit at a beach-side park, near signs forbidding teens from sitting too close. He has his arm around her shoulder. She isn’t wearing her jilbab , the traditional Islamic head scarf.”
— “Just like that, the morality cops are in their face.”
— ” ‘You two aren’t married, right?’ asks Syafruddin, the rail-thin leader of the six-man patrol, standing stiffly, one hand behind his back. ‘So you shouldn’t sit next to one another.’ ”
— “He separates the two and confiscates their IDs. Later, he says the team will open an investigation of the couple, especially given that the young man lied, at first insisting the girl was his sister.”
— ” ‘We want to see how far this relationship has progressed,’ Syafruddin says. ‘What they were doing could have led to something sexual.’ ”
— “The team is known as ‘the vice and virtue patrol,’ on the beat in Aceh, the only province in Indonesia to employ Islamic law for its criminal code. The laws were introduced in 2002 after the Indonesian region was granted autonomy as part of efforts to end a decades-long guerrilla war.”
— “The Shariah police consider themselves the community’s public conscience. And on their weekly patrol, they take seriously their role of enforcing the religious strictures.”
— “Now their mission may become more deadly serious.”
— “In September, Aceh’s provincial legislature passed a law saying married people who commit adultery can be sentenced to death by stoning. It also toughened public caning laws, adding more lashes for gays, pedophiles and gamblers.”
— “The new law, which still requires the approval of the provincial governor, has outraged human rights groups, who say the code unfairly targets women and violates international treaties. Under the guidelines, the Shariah police can even raid hotel rooms in search of violators. They develop informants and work undercover.”
— “Norma Manalu wistfully runs her colorful purple silk jilbab through her fingers. She has a love-hate relationship with the elegant garment.”
— ” ‘It’s hot. It’s not appropriate for the climate,’ the 35-year-old director of Aceh’s Human Rights Coalition says. ‘It’s something I choose because it’s beautiful, not because a man tells me to do so.’ ”
— “Manalu is a rebel. Often, to make a point about women’s rights she walks in public wearing jeans, her head uncovered, ignoring the taunts and ridicule. She is sickened at the sight of men and women being publicly caned by a tormentor in a mask.”
— “Manalu contends that women get the worst of the bargain. Many are treated as outcasts after their punishment, while men are welcomed back into society.”
— ” ‘It amazes me that in a modern world with sophisticated law and order, we even consider doing this,’ she says. ‘It’s barbaric.’ ”
— “She dismisses the Shariah police, who she believes enjoy harassing young women.
— ” ‘“Men make these rules based on some misguided image of how women should look,’ she says. ‘Here in Aceh, women must accept it or suffer harassment.’ ”
— “A mile away, at religious police headquarters, Abdullah dismisses the uproar over the stoning law. And he says the harsher caning laws also have been overblown. Since 2003, he says, only nine people have been caned in Aceh.”
— ” ‘Men take their lashes like the women,’ he says. ‘They’re equal.’ ”
— “Abdullah is angered each time he sees couples holding hands or a woman without her veil. He favors a proposed ordinance in one Aceh area that would ban women from wearing pants, including jeans.”
— “The morality cops are on the move. They crouch in military formation, closing in on their prey.”
— “Beneath a row of gracefully bending palms, they’ve spotted several shady characters at a lonely beachside youth hangout. They could be unmarried young men cavorting with girls not wearing a proper jilbab. They could be holding hands, kissing or, well, who knows what.”
— “Waves breaking at their feet, the officers round a rocky promontory. They confront six baffled men casting nets into the water.”
— ” ‘They were just fishing,’ says a disappointed Syafruddin.”
— “And so it goes. All afternoon, they chase down suspects, like the college girls caught without their jilbabs.”
— “As Syafruddin launches into his lecture, a woman wearing a black T-shirt reading ‘Lucky Girl’ examines her shoes.”
— ” ‘For women,’ the officer says, ‘wearing a veil is like a motorcycle rider wearing a helmet. It’s for your own protection.’ ”
— “When the police move on, the woman shrugs. ‘I wear a veil at work,’ she says. ‘I didn’t think it mattered here. It’s the beach.’ ”
— “Within moments, the team stops three girls on a motorcycle, all wearing veils. This time, Syafruddin has another problem. Their leggings are too tight, too revealing, he says. They should go home and change them at once.”
— LA Times: Aceh’s morality police on the prowl for violators
—- “The only Indonesian province with Sharia, or Islamic law, has a 1,500-member force whose job is to go after women not properly covered and couples engaging in public displays of affection.”
— Los Angeles Times Photographs: “PHOTOS: Morality police – Keeping Aceh on the straight and narrow”
Related Reports:
Indonesia: Women Banned from Wearing Jeans and Pants – Sharia Police Plan Raids and Patrols
Indonesia: Sharia Bill Calling for Stoning, Now Officially Law in Aceh
Indonesia: Students demand harsher sharia law implementation
Kansas City: Arranged “Marriage Contract” of 14-year old Girl Reportedly Based on “Islamic” Views
— Kansas City Star: Man charged with statutory rape in ‘marriage’ to 14-year-old girl
— Kansas City Star reports:
— “The stepfather, Mosby and the teen had several ‘sit downs’ before the stepfather arranged for a religious ceremony on Aug. 4 at her home, not far from the stepfather’s mosque.”
— “Two members of the mosque attended, but the bride ‘was not allowed to be present,’ court records said. She waited in her room upstairs. Her stepfather allegedly came upstairs after the ceremony, which consisted of prayers and a contract signing, to announce that she was married.”
— “Police say they have the ‘marriage contract’ with the signatures of Mosby, the girl and the stepfather.”
— “In Islam, boys and girls are considered adults based on when they hit puberty, and people in some parts of the world do marry young, said Mahnaz Shabbir of Stilwell, a past president of the Heartland Muslim Council.”
Christian Supremacism – Texas: Polygamist convicted of sexual assault on child — “Renegade Mormon Group”
Texas: Polygamist convicted of sexual assault on child
— AP reports: “The first polygamist sect member to face criminal trial following last year’s raid at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in West Texas was convicted Thursday of sexually assaulting an underage girl with whom he had a so-called ‘spiritual marriage.'”
— “Raymond Jessop, 38, didn’t visibly react when the verdict was read after just more than two hours of jury deliberations. Free on bond during trial, he was immediately handcuffed and led to jail. Jurors were expected to return to court Monday to begin deciding his sentence on the child sexual assault conviction. He faces up to 20 years in prison.”
Texas: Child Sexual Assault Charges in Case Challenging Members of “Renegade Mormon Group”
Bangladesh – CDN Report: “Court Impedes Effort to Rescue Kidnapped Girl in Bangladesh”
Court Impedes Effort to Rescue Kidnapped Girl in Bangladesh
Muslim men abduct Christian eighth-grader, force her to convert and marry.
DHAKA, Bangladesh, November 3 (CDN) — A bail order in Bangladesh has impeded police from rescuing a young Christian girl who was abducted and forced to convert to Islam and marry one of her kidnappers, according to police.
Four Muslim men abducted eighth-grade student Silvia Merry Sarker on July 30 as she made her way home from school in west Sujankathi village, under Agoiljhara police jurisdiction, in Barisal district in southern Bangladesh, according to her father, Julian Sarker.
Sarker filed a case under the Women and Children Repression Act against Al-Amin Faria, 24, Shamim Faria, 22, Sahadat Faria, 20, and Sattar Faria, 50.
“My daughter was abducted by Faria with the help of his cousins and other relatives,” said Sarker.
Sarker filed a First Information Report (FIR) charging that the men abducted his daughter initially to “indulge Al-Amin Faria’s evil desire.” Later she was forced to convert to Islam and marry Al-Amin Faria, which Sarker said was part of an attempt to take over his land and property.
Local police inspector Ashok Kumar Nandi told Compass that police were continuing efforts to arrest the kidnappers but had yet to find them, as the unusually early bail order had blocked their efforts.
“There are four names as prime suspects in the case,” Nandi said. “We arrested three of them, but the court released them on bail. If the court had given them to us on remand, we might have found the girl, or at least we would get much information to rescue the girl.”
Generally suspects in cases under the Women and Children Repression Act are not granted bail so early for the sake of investigations, Nandi said.
“We do not know why they were released on bail,” he said. “Those released persons are moving freely in the village. We cannot arrest them again without an order.”
Attorney Rabindra Ghosh, president of Bangladesh Minority Watch and an activist for Dutch human rights organization Global Human Rights Defense, told Compass that the granting of bail to the suspects also poses threats to the victim’s family.
“They are threatening the victim’s family to withdraw the case,” said Ghosh. “Release of the abductors on bail so early is a travesty – the abductors got impunity due to the early bail order. For the sake of the girl’s rescue, the court could have sent the arrestees to police on remand to find more information about their hideout.”
Gnosh concurred that an accused person under the Women and Children Repression Act case does not get bail so early without first getting necessary information from them.
False Document
A few days after the kidnapping, Sarker said, the abductors provided Nimchandra Bepari, a Hindu neighbor, an affidavit claiming that Sarker’s daughter was 19 years old. Bepari gave the affidavit to the local police inspector. The kidnappers also contacted sub-district chairman Mortuza Khan.
“My daughter is 13 years old, but the abductors made an affidavit of her age showing 19 years old,” Sarker said.
The headmaster of Agoiljhara Shrimoti Matrimangal Girls High School, where the girl is a student, issued a certificate denoting that Silvia Merry Sarker is even younger than 13 – born on Dec. 24, 1997, which would mean she is not yet 12 years old.
The fabricated affidavit provided by the kidnappers states that she accepted Islam and has married, said Sarker.
“I am shocked how a minor girl is shown as an adult in the affidavit,” Ghosh said. “It is illegal, and there should be proper action against this kind of illegal activity.”
Al-Amin Faria had tried to get the girl’s two older sisters to marry him, but their early marriages saved them from falling prey to him, Sarker said.
“I married off my two elder daughters at an early age immediately after finishing their schooling,” said Sarker.
Before they married, Sarker said he felt helpless to keep Faria and his family from accosting and harassing his other daughters.
“I could not take any legal action against them since we are the only Christian family here,” he said. “I tolerated everything. I did not inform it to police or they would get infuriated.”
When Faria “targeted” his second daughter for marriage, Sarker informed the headmaster of the school and its managing committee, and they warned the Muslim not to disturb the family, Sarker said. Nevertheless, he said, he felt he couldn’t send his older daughters to school because he feared Faria would harm them.
“The relation of us with those Muslim neighbors is ‘predator-and-prey,’” he said. “I saved my other family members from his lechery, but I could not save my youngest daughter.”
Sarker said he felt alone and helpless as a Christian minority but that he doesn’t understand how the entire justice system also can be so helpless.
“Why and how can the court, law enforcement agencies, police, administration, society and the country be helpless against him? Why can’t they rescue my daughter?” he said.
Dilip Gabriel Bepari, an activist for Bangladesh Minority Watch, told Compass that the group had informed national and international officials in seeking help to find the girl.
“We informed it to various ministers, political leaders and police high officials,” Bepari said. “We also informed it to the Vatican ambassador in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, the girl is still missing.”
Archbishop Paulinus Costa of Bangladesh said the Catholic Church’s impassioned plea to the government is to rescue her as soon as possible and bring the kidnappers to justice.
“It is unfortunate that the girl is not rescued yet in three months,” Costa said. “There must be negligence and indifference to the Christians from the government, otherwise the girl would be rescued.”
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) this year removed Bangladesh from its “Watch List” of countries requiring close monitoring of religious freedom violations, but it urged the new Awami League administration to strengthen protections for all Bangladeshis.
USCIRF also indicates that it hopes the government of Bangladesh will investigate and prosecute perpetrators of violent acts against members of minority religious communities.
UK – Tulay Goren “Honor Killing” Trial: Sister Testifies Father Threatened to Kill Tulay — Screams at Father “I Have No Fear”
Metro UK reports two stories on Tulay Goren sister’s testimony on her “honor killing” by her father:
Metro UK reports: Metro UK: “‘Honour killing’ Dad threatened to kill daughter”
— “Mehmet Goren threatened to kill daughter Tulay days before she disappeared”
— “The London father of a schoolgirl allegedly murdered for falling in love threatened to kill her the day before she disappeared, a court heard.”
— “Mehmet Goren, of Woodford Green, flew into a ‘rage’ after he caught 15-year-old Tulay trying to escape from the family home, her older sister, Nuray Guler, told the Old Bailey.”
— “She said later that evening she heard Goren on the phone saying: ‘Don’t worry, I won’t allow her to shout.'”
— “Mrs Guler, 28, wiped tears away as she described her younger sister as a ‘child looking for happiness.'”
— “She told the court that her father previously made her own life ‘hell’ and tried to kill himself when he heard she had been holding hands with her fiance.”
— “Tulay Goren, who disappeared in January 1999, is alleged to have been the victim of an ‘honour killing.'”
— “Her father Mehmet is said to have killed her after consulting with his brothers Ali and Cuma. Tulay’s body has never been found.”
Metro UK: “Daughter screamed at ‘honour killing’ Dad in court”
— “The sister of an alleged ‘honour killing’ victim screamed with anguish at her father as she faced him across a courtroom today.”
— “Nuray Guler shouted in Turkish and gesticulated wildly at Mehmet Goren during an outburst as she gave evidence at his murder trial.”
— “Mrs Guler, 28, let out a prolonged and piercing wail before walking out of the court in tears.”
— “Mrs Guler today told the court that her father had threatened to kill Tulay the day before she disappeared.
— “Cross-examining her later, Michael Turner QC, for Mehmet, asked her why she had not said this to police.”
— “Mrs Guler, speaking through a Turkish interpreter, became emotional and turned to face her father as she replied: ‘I did not think that this would be possible.'”
— “‘I still can’t think that it is possible, because a father could not do such a thing. I never believed, not even…'”
— “Mrs Guler stretched her arms out in front of her and shook her fists as she shouted at her father in the dock, without leaving the interpreter time to translate the rest of what she said.”
— “She ended the outburst with a prolonged scream before Mr Justice Bean ordered her to be taken out.”
— “He told the interpreter not to translate what she said.”
— “After a brief adjournment, she again turned to face Mehmet from the witness box and addressed him in Turkish.”
— “But the judge stopped her, saying while he appreciated giving evidence was a “stressful experience” for her, she must not ‘make speeches’ and only ‘answer counsels’ questions.'”
— “During further cross-examination, Mr Turner asked whether her mother Hanim – who has also given evidence against Mehmet in the trial – had told her what to say.”
— “‘Never,’ replied Mrs Guler. ‘My mother wants me to be kept away from everything. She wants me not to get involved in anything but I am not my mother. I am not scared as she is. I have no fear.'”