<i>Global Protest Increasing Against Jailing Of Christians In Rajasthan</i>
RAJASTHAN, INDIA (ANS) -- India's Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, has launched an investigation into the arrest of Hopegivers International President Dr. Sam Thomas.
"Our letter writing campaign is working," says Hopegivers Executive Director Michael Glenn, "we must continue to write and fax letters of protest this week."
Glenn said that because of the campaign, "The Prime Minister of India has today appointed a four-member commission to investigate the persecution in Kota where our president and top administrative staff have been falsely accused and jailed. This is simply a naked effort to force Emmanuel to shut its doors."
Hopegivers is asking Christians in the USA to write to their Senators and Congressmen this week to stop the persecution of Christian humanitarian work in Rajasthan. They are also asking for letters and faxes to the White House, the State Department, the United Nations, and the Indian ambassadors to the US and the UN.
Hopegivers has organized a Legal Defense Fund to help free Dr. Thomas and the staff. Hopegivers lawyers are seeking to post bond at bail hearings this week and make legal appeals in Kota District Court, the High Court in the capitol city of Jaipur and in New Delhi.
Lawyers and supporters of the Hopegivers outreach to needy children are asking the central government in India to reverse a series of politically motivated attacks on the orphanages, churches, schools and the hospital operated by Emmanuel Ministries International.
The Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations in the USA (FIOCONA) has joined with thousands of Christians all over India and around the world to protest the growing persecution of religious minorities in Rajasthan.
Officials from the FIOCONA group escorted Shelley Thomas, wife of the jailed president of Hopegivers, along with Glenn on an introductory tour of the U.S. government offices last week in an emergency effort to win the freedom of Rev. Dr. Samuel Thomas, president of Hopegivers and a Bishop in the Emmanuel Fellowship churches.
Mrs. Thomas said that radical hate groups have politicized local officials and continue a state of siege against the 2,500 orphans and abandoned children protected at the Emmanuel Hope Home in Kota, which is funded by Hopegivers International based in Columbus, Georgia. The siege is now in its 29th day.
In his arraignment hearing last Friday, police accused Rev. Thomas of breaking Sections 153(a) and 295(a) of the Indian Penal Code, which deal with deliberately outraging religious feelings or insulting the religious beliefs of another community.
This charge is based on his allegedly offering a book for sale called "Haqueeat" by Kerala-attorney M.G. Matthew in the mission's bookstore. The book is a rebuttal of another book by M.S. Golwalker, one of the founding members of the RSS, a Hindu radical group that has helped to organize the persecution. The book has since been banned by the state of Rajasthan.
"Nothing that my husband has done was intended to outrage or insult any other religion," said Mrs. Thomas.
"This is a totally false charge and unrelated to the organized violence, threats, and attacks that have been conducted against us for the last six weeks. This is all nothing less than an organized assault on the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion that is part of India’s great democracy."
The local government has revoked without due process or hearing, all the operating licenses of the Hopegivers-supported bookstores, churches, the hospital and leprosy or HIV-AIDS outreaches, orphanages, printing presses, schools and other institutions.
Dr. Samuel Thomas said before he was jailed, "Of course, none of these actions are legal. The terrorists and hate groups have taken the law into their own hands and sadly, we have lost confidence in the local government to control them."
Emmanuel Ministries has been based in Kota since 1960 and has operated social services to the poor there without regard to caste or creed since 1973 -- especially to Dalits and other lower caste groups -- the so-called untouchable castes of Hinduism.
Hopegivers International is a humanitarian organization known worldwide for its tireless efforts to end the distress of orphaned and abandoned children, lepers and Dalits and to provide emergency relief for disaster areas such as the regions affected by last year's tsunami, the Bombay floods, the Gujarat earthquakes, Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake on the Indo-Pakistan border areas of Kashmir.
© 2006 ASSIST News Service, used with permission
