5 – Sunday School Teachers Jailed in Indonesia

In a disturbing development for a country with a relative degree of religious freedom, Indonesian judges on September 1 sentenced three women to three years in prison for allowing Muslim children to attend a Christian Sunday school program. Rebekka Zakaria, Eti Pangesti and Ratna Bangun received the sentence after judges found them guilty of violating the Child Protection Act of 2002, which forbids “deception, lies or enticement” causing a child to convert to another religion. The Indramayu district, West Java Sunday school teachers had instructed the children to get permission from their parents before attending the program, and those who did not were asked to go home. None of the children had converted to Christianity. Muslim parents had been photographed with their children during the Sunday school activities, but when Islamic leaders lodged a complaint, the parents refused to testify in support of the women. No witnesses testified or provided evidence of the charges that the women had lied, deceived, or forced the children into changing their religion. The three defendants, described as “ordinary housewives,” were relieved that they had not been given the maximum five-year prison sentence but were devastated to be separated from their children, who range in age from 6 to one daughter in her 20s. As they have done throughout the trial, Islamic extremists made murderous threats both inside and outside the courtroom. Several truckloads of extremists arrived; one brought a coffin to bury the accused if they were found innocent. The defendants, witnesses and judges were continually threatened with death by hundreds of Islamic radicals if the women were acquitted.

6 – Sham Trial in Egypt

A Christian with dual U.S./Egyptian citizenship who retired and went to Egypt to begin a shelter for troubled young women – especially Coptic girls who are lured into marrying Muslim men with promises of escape from economic deprivation – was sentenced to one year in jail on October 20 after a teenager at the shelter lodged unsubstantiated accusations against him. Coptic Christian Shafik Saleh Shafik went into hiding in Egypt while his lawyers pursued an appeal over the controversial conviction of illicitly holding a minor at his shelter. Magda Refaat Gayed, then 17, had accused Shafik of beating and raping her as well, though a physician’s report refuted these charges. Her Christian parents had signed over custody of their daughter to Shafik in September 2004, after police recovered her from an Islamist group. She had fled her family two weeks earlier and was reportedly living with the Muslim religious leader of an Islamist group, learning Muslim rituals in hopes of converting and marrying a Muslim young man. Though Shafik was convicted on October 20, the verdict detailing charges against him were not revealed until November 13. Many of the Christian young women at Shafik’s shelter were brought there after their families recovered them from Muslim groups determined to spread Islam by abducting and converting them. The court initially ordered police to illegally transport the underage Gayed to an Islamic center to officially convert to Islam. Moreover, several witnesses threatened to kill Shafik if the court found him innocent.