Bangalore, India, 26 July (ENI)--Christian women activists have expressed anger at what they say is an alarming crisis due to female feticide in India, after two dumps of illegally aborted female foetuses were found in the world's second most populous nation this week.

"This is a dangerous situation and, if it continues, there will be the extinction of female children," lamented T. Sabitha Swaraj, president of the All India Council of Christian Women, which is part of the National Council of Churches in India.

Swaraj made her statement on 26 July after the discovery of 40 skulls from female foetuses in Nayagarh near Bhubaneshwar, the capital of eastern Orissa state. In another development, the Times of India reported on the same day that villagers had spotted 24 female foetuses on the Krishnavati riverbed in northern Haryana state.

"This is not a new development. Feticide has been going on for years and those engaging in it seem to have become bolder now," Swaraj told Ecumenical News International from her base in Hyderabad. Jyotsna Patro, a Church of North India woman leader and Indian delegate to the Asian Church Women's Conference, told ENI from Beramapur in Orissa, "The callousness in allowing female feticide is worsening. Parents have no qualms about aborting female foetuses."

Patro, who is a former president of the CNI Women's Fellowship, said, "No amount of legislation is going to improve the situation unless the deep-rooted prejudice against the girl child is changed." She added, "Unless the parents want this to stop, it cannot happen." In December, the Indian government acknowledged the gravity of female feticide when Renuka Chowdhury, the minister for women and child development, admitted that more than 10 million girls had been killed over the last 20 years due to female feticide and infanticide.

"Who has killed these girl children? Their own parents," Chowdhury told a seminar in Delhi. Due to the widespread preference for sons that is rooted in both social prejudices as well as the dowry burden incurred in marrying off daughters, many parents abort a foetus once it is identified as female. Though Indian law bans sex determination tests, many doctors not only find out the sex of a foetus but even abort female foetuses who are several months old, and often charge exorbitant fees for doing so. This unscrupulous business practice is said to contribute to the skewed statistic in many places of north India, where less than 800 girls are born for every 1000 boys.

According to Hindu tradition, a father cannot attain "moksha" (salvation) unless he has a son to perform the father's last rites. This religious sanction renders the girl child unwanted, and is said to have encouraged the dowry system that reduces a daughter to an economic liability for the family. As far as Christianity in India is concerned, women church leaders have said that some Christians are also guilty of female feticide. [497 words]

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Bangalore, India, 24 July (ENI)--Churches in Pakistan have welcomed the reinstatement of the chief justice, Iftikhar M. Chaudhry, by his fellow judges in the country's federal Supreme Court.

"This is a victory for democracy and a landmark in the history of Pakistan," said Victor Azariah, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Pakistan, which groups four major Protestant churches. "The whole nation is celebrating it," Azariah told Ecumenical News International on 24 July from his office in Lahore. After hearing the petition of Pakistan's chief justice, 10 of the 13 judges of the Pakistan Supreme Court declared his suspension in March illegal. The suspension followed allegations of corruption against Chaudhry by the president, Pervez Musharraf.

Many in the legal fraternity in Pakistan, as well as opposition parties and civil rights groups, including churches, had joined in protests against what they saw as an attempt to silence the chief justice. The suspension was widely interpreted as an attempt by Musharraf - a military officer who captured power in a bloodless coup in 1999 - to ensure his smooth re-election as president and to hold on to the post of army chief.

"We are glad that the judiciary has shown the guts to uphold the aspiration of the people," said Azariah. Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Roman Catholic Church, commented, "This is the finest hour of the judiciary in Pakistan." Jacob told ENI that, "An injustice had been done to Chaudhry and we [the churches] had also joined in the protests."

During his suspension, Chaudhry held rallies across Pakistan. At the same time, the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission organised seminars with delegates from major political parties, social action groups and other Christian organizations to discuss civil and political rights. Jacob said the reinstatement of Choudhry as chief justice has "rejuvenated the hope among the people that they can stand up to military rule". Jacob also noted, "We have better chances of a fairer election now." Pakistan has scheduled national elections for later in 2007. [353 words]

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Bangalore, India, 16 July (ENI)--The Centre for Dalit Studies, a Christian ecumenical venture, has launched a correspondence course to spread awareness about the rights of Dalits, who are the untouchable community in cast-ridden Indian society. The launch of the course on 12 July at the United Theological College in Bangalore came at the end of a national meeting of Christian Dalit scholars and theologians.

Launching the course, Roman Catholic Archbishop Malayappan Chinnappa from Chennai, himself a Dalit and a former chairperson of the study centre, said, "The caste mentality has gone deep into the religious and social fabric of India. We need to make every effort to change this mindset." The course is being distributed through 12 booklets containing study material prepared by the New Delhi-based study centre.

Dalit [meaning "trampled upon" in Sanskrit] refers to low castes treated as untouchables under India's caste system that enjoins Dalits to carry on doing degrading and dehumanising and menial jobs, including scavenging. Dalits in India, the world's second most populous nation, are believed to number nearly 200 million. They often live segregated from those who deem themselves to be in higher castes. Dalits can be denied access to many public places, such as village wells and temples.

"Due to age-old social customs, most Dalits have been conditioned to accept the [caste] discrimination as their divine-ordained fate," Rev James Massey, a Dalit theologian and director of the Centre for Dalit Studies, told Ecumenical News International. Massey, a pastor belonging to the Church of North India, said, "Certainly, this course will help spread awareness about [Dalits'] rights and assert their dignity."

More than 200 people have registered for the course. "The focus of the study material is to awaken Dalit consciousness by showing Dalits how they have been misled to accept the hegemony of the upper castes," T.K. John, a Catholic Jesuit theologian and a chairperson of the study centre, told ENI. [331 words]

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Bangalore, India, 11 July (ENI)--The government of Sri Lanka has dropped a controversial plan to reintroduce a law that treats defamation as a criminal offence, following widespread protests from churches and other groups.

"The government has responded this time positively to the protests. We are very relieved," the Rev. Kingsley Perera, chairperson of the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka, told Ecumenical News International on 11 July. In June, the Sri Lankan government under President Mahinda Rajapakse announced that it would reintroduce the defamation legislation. Critics said this was intended to silence media criticism and growing protests about the government's military action against Tamil rebels in the north and east of the country.

The National Christian Council, which groups eight Protestant churches, had joined the Roman Catholic Church in sending a letter to the government objecting to the plans to bring back the law. In a 6 July statement, Anglican Bishop Duleep de Chickera of Colombo described the proposal as "a cause for serious concern".

Chickera said, "The re-imposition of criminal defamation as a criminal offence in the prevailing climate of violence, intimidation and a breakdown of law and order will even further restrict the right of the people to reliable information and voices of democratic dissent and critique." In recent months, Sri Lanka has been sliding back into civil war between security forces and Tamil rebels, who are seeking autonomy from the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese majority.

A 2002 cease-fire, engineered by Norwegian mediators, ended two decades of conflict but fighting flared up again after the election of President Rajapakse in November 2005. Rohan Edrisinha, an Anglican and director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Sri Lanka, told ENI that the defamation law, had it been reintroduced, would have "fettered media freedom and curbed voices of dissent". [313 words]

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Bangalore, India, 6 July (ENI)--A Christian health organization in India has warned that new official statistics showing a drastic fall in the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the south Asian country should not lead to people lowering their guard.

"Just because the estimates have been reduced, we cannot relax," Vijay Aruldas, general secretary of the Christian Medical Association of India, told Ecumenical News International on 6 July. Aruldas was speaking after UNAIDS and the World Health Organization issued a statement saying that the number of people living with HIV/Aids in India, now estimated at between 2.0 to 3.1 million people, is about half that of previous official figures.

"The ground reality has not changed with this revision of the numbers downwards. It should not lead to complacency," said Aruldas. UNAIDS had previously estimated 5.7 million cases in India, compared to 5.6 million in South Africa. This meant that India had overtaken South Africa as the country with the most cases of HIV. The Indian National Aids Control Organisation had previously contested the former UN figures for the country, and said there were fewer than 5.2 million cases.

Aruldas warned that it would be an "enormous calamity" if international donors scaled down their support to HIV/AIDS projects in India because of the revised estimates. "The efforts to combat the challenge was nowhere near the requirement in the past," Aruldas said. His organization is the health arm of the National Council of Churches in India, which represents 29 Orthodox and Protestant churches. The Christian Medical Association of India runs 330 hospitals and has more than 6000 health professionals among its members.

The UNAIDS/WHO statement announcing the new HIV/AIDS figures noted, "These estimates are more accurate than those of previous years, as they are based on an expanded surveillance system and a revised and enhanced methodology." Denis Brown, UNAIDS country director for India, said, "Though the proportion of people living with HIV is lower than previously estimated, India's epidemic continues to be substantial in numbers." [348 words]

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Bangalore, India, 5 July (ENI)--Christian groups in Pakistan say they are shocked that thousands of names of Christians are missing from a new voter list released by the election commission ahead of a national election later this year.

"Thousands of Christian names are missing on the list. Even my name is not there," said Joseph Francis, who is a Pentecostal and director of the Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement, which is a Christian anti-persecution group. Francis told Ecumenical News International on 4 July that more than 30 lawyers from his group are scrutinising the voter lists posted in 40 000 centres across Pakistan to see whether the names of local Christians have been included.

"There seems to be a deliberate attempt to deny many Christians of their voting right," said Francis, who is also the chairperson of the Pakistan Christian National Party. He added, "If I want to contest the next election I cannot because my name is not on the list." Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the National Commission for Justice and Peace of the Roman Catholic Church, told ENI that the omissions are due to "deliberate negligence" by election commission officials.

He said Christian publications and other media are being used to advise Christians to check the voter lists, and register complaints if their names are missing. Jacob said he believes several Muslims involved in gathering voter data deliberately avoided visiting exclusively Christian neighbourhoods, and that other officials did not know how to enter the names of Christians, which led to discrepancies even in cases where the names had been included.

Nearly 20 million names from the minority Ahmadi Muslim religious group were placed on a separate voter list, Jacob added. About 97 percent of Pakistan's 164 million people are Muslims. Christians number more than 3 million, and Hindus, adherents of other religions, and non-believers account for the rest of the population. [332 words]

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Hong Kong, 2 July (ENI)--The outgoing leader of Orthodox Christians in Hong Kong and South East Asia has said Christians in the region have suffered "a series of persecutions". He also suggested that more religions should be allowed to practise in China.

"Christians in many Asian countries are facing serious persecution," Metropolitan Nikitas (Lulias) told Ecumenical News International in an interview on 27 June. Citing two countries as examples, the metropolitan said, "The situations [of Christians] in Indonesia and India are complicated." He added, "Christians were beaten, churches were burnt. What we do is to pray."

US-born Nikitas is leaving his leadership post in Hong Kong to become director of the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, in the US state of California. Metropolitan Nikitas became leader of the Orthodox church in South East Asia in 1997. His jurisdiction as archbishop included the areas of Hong Kong, India, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines.

During his decade as the region's Orthodox leader, Nikitas helped to increase the number of Orthodox Christians in Taiwan, Pakistan and Malaysia. He told ENI that about 30 Orthodox priests are now serving 25 000 members in the countries he oversees. The metropolitan has travelled to mainland China occasionally to worship with Orthodox foreigners stationed at the Greek embassy in Beijing. He said he shared the concern of other Orthodox churches that the Chinese government recognises only Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism and Taoism as the country's official religions.

Nikitas believes that all established religions should enjoy freedom in China. "China changes every day. The economy is booming. We believe that social changes should also come one day," he said. The metropolitan's comments come as Hong Kong marks the 10th anniversary of its handover to China. During the anniversary commemorations, democracy activists called for China to allow more freedom of expression. [317 words]

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Bangalore, India, 29 June (ENI)--Two months after being brutally assaulted by Hindu fundamentalists in the presence of television crews, Pastor Walter Masih says he is determined to continue his ministry. Although he still needs a walking stick to move around, this did not deter the pastor from travelling more than 300 kilometres from Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan state, to New Delhi, where he took part in a rally on 29 May to protest about a spate of attacks on Christians in recent months. Masih also attended a national convention in Bangalore in late June of Christians who say they have been persecuted.

"I am not scared. I will continue the work I have been doing for the last 17 years," 47-year-old Pentecostal pastor Masih told Ecumenical News International. Indian television news channels broadcast the 29 April assault on the pastor after the assailants took film crews to the scene before the attack began. The assailants were shown putting on masks before they assaulted the pastor. Afterwards, images of his profusely bleeding face were screened.

"Two young men came to me after the Sunday service and asked me to speak about Jesus. As I was speaking the 'Good News', one of then said, 'Shall we start?'" recalled Masih. The two men then began punching the pastor in the face. Four others joined in using wooden sticks to beat the pastor from head to foot. Meanwhile television cameras captured the attack, which took place in front of the pastor's wife and 7-year-old daughter, and the images were shown across India.

About ten families, most of them of Hindu background, are regular members at the church run by Pastor Masih from his rented house in the Geejghar Vihar suburb of Jaipur. Following the attack, some of the newer families have stopped attending, saying they are too scared to take part in the services. "But I will never quit this Good News ministry," said Masih. He added that he hoped his determination to carry on his work of evangelism would bring more Hindus to his church.

There are fewer than 100 000 Christians among the 57 million people of Rajasthan. The pastor told ENI that he also had moments of joy after the attack, when several Hindus visited him. He said they told him, "This is very bad and it is not Hinduism."

Critics say the police seldom take action against those accused of attacks on Christians, especially in states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, whose opponents accuse it of following a Hindu nationalist agenda. However, after the attack on Masih, and following angry protests by Christians and civil rights groups, Rajasthan police arrested five people. [455 words]

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