August 22, 2007

Villagers and foreigners haul newly baptized Christians to mosque and threaten them.

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Local Muslims in Nilphamari district and Islamist missionaries from abroad are hauling recently converted Christians to mosques and forcing them to return to Islam, area sources said.

Evangelist and pastor Sanjoy Roy said the Muslims have forced 27 recently baptized Christians to return to Islam. Another 14 recently converts are still facing incessant pressure to return to Islam from villagers and from Muslim missionaries called Tabligh Jamat.

“The Muslims are still threatening us and saying that they will change our faith," Roy told Compass. "We wanted secrutiy and police protection, but the district commissioner did not accept our application."

Police provided eight officers to protect area Christians on July 28 but left on August 5. Muslims in Durbachari village then began capturing and hauling all male converts to a mosque to return to Islam, forcing them to sign or provide fingerprint signatures on written or blank papers. As nearly all the converts cannot read, area sources said, they did not understand they were signing or giving fingerprint signatures to return to Islam.

Earlier, on July 26, a local source said, local Muslims and Tabligh Jamat missionaries gathered in a schoolyard near the homes of some of the Christians who had been baptized in a river on June 12. Using a microphone, the Muslims threatened violence if the converts did not come out.

Fearing for their lives, the Christians emerged and gathered. The source said the Muslims asked them why they had become Christians and, furious, told them that Bangladesh was a Muslim country “where you cannot change your faith by your own will.”

“They said, ‘How dare you become Christian in a Muslim country?’” the area source said. “After that incident, some believers went to the local police station seeking protection, but police did not respond.”

Most of the Christians are laborers who rely on new opportunities each day to feed their families, and the Muslim villagers are withholding work from them, Christian sources said. Local Muslims are also vandalizing their homes and taking their daily essentials.

“Some of them in fear of life left the village,” said one Christian source. “They cannot catch fish in the river and buy or sell anything in the markets under the pressure of neighbors.”

Threat of Laceration

Abul Hossen, 38, a fruit seller, told Compass that Muslims in the mosque threatened to hang him in a tree upside down and lacerate his body with a blade.

“Then he will understand what are the consequences of being a Christian,” the Muslims told him, Hossen said, adding that they always use “filthy language whenever they see the Christians.”

Hossen said the Muslims “do not allow us to net fish in the river” and offered him 5,000 taka (US$75) and a mobile phone handset if he returned to Islam.

“But I did not give up my faith, because I found Christ in my heart,” Hossen told Compass. “They threatened me with severe consequences if I do not go back to Islam. I said I am ready to offer up my life to Christ, but I won’t renounce my faith in Him.”

Hossen said that, at night, he and his wife take turns keeping vigil while the other sleeps. “We are always worried that something dangerous may happen anytime,” he said.

Day laborer Mohammad Ali, 55, told Compass that around 20 people came to his house and took him to the mosque.

“After [taking] me inside the mosque, they pressured me to recant my faith,” Ali said. “But I did not give up my faith.”

Ali said the local Muslims and Jamat missionaries continue to come to his house four or five times a day to pressure him to give up his faith. “They always tell me to meet their emir [chief cleric] whenever they see me,” he said.