Wednesday, August 9, 2006

INDIA: SUPREME COURT RULING WILL GREATLY ADVANCE PERSECUTION
- police no longer require warrants to arrest and detain Christians accused of proselytisation

By Elizabeth Kendal
World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (WEA RLC)
Special to ASSIST News Service

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA (ANS) -- On Friday 4 August, India's Supreme Court ruled that police do not require warrants in order to lodge First Issue Reports (FIRs), arrest and detain anyone accused of involvement in religious conversion activities.

HINDU TALIBAN
Clearly this ruling opens the door for police with Hindutva sympathies to act as Hindu Taliban. It also opens the door for Hindutva forces to employ corrupt and sympathetic police as their agents of persecution.

Nuns, pastors, bishops and evangelists, as well as Christian aid workers, teachers and social workers, are all immediately at risk of arrest and imprisonment because of their Christian witness. In fact every Christian, actively witnessing or not, is at risk from hostile elements that may exploit the opportunity to bring false charges against them, inspired by a variety of motives, in the same manner that the blasphemy law is exploited for personal gain in Pakistan.

FULL STORY at
http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s06080042.htm