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After more than four years in prison for allegedly blaspheming Islam, Aslam Masih, a Pakistani Christian, was acquitted Wednesday, June 4, in a 15-minute appeals hearing before the Lahore High Court. In his mid-50s and illiterate, Masih was arrested in November 1998 on charges that he had desecrated the Koran by hanging verses in a charm around a dog's neck. Although the prosecution only produced hearsay evidence against Masih, he was found guilty in May 2002 and sentenced to double life sentences. In overturning Masih's lower-court conviction, Justice Najam ur-Zaman took what one observer called a "very aggressive attitude against the prosecution," noting that the prosecution's chief witness had retracted the statement attributed to him by the police. Ur-Zaman also scolded prosecutors for their accusations against Masih for having some verses from the Koran in his pocket at the time of his arrest. "It's not an offense for Christians or anyone else to have verses from the Koran in their pocket," he declared. "How can you convict a person for that?" Seven other Christians remain jailed in Pakistan on drawn-out charges of blasphemy. (Compass)

REBEL ORTHODOX PRIEST IN GEORGIA TO CHALLENGE DETENTION ORDER

Defrocked Orthodox priest Basil Mkalavishvili in the Republic of Georgia says he will challenge a June 4 district court order that he be held in "preventive detention" for three months while police investigate his alleged crimes. His appeal will be heard at Tbilisi City Court on Monday, June 9. The Baptists have been told that the closed preliminary hearing was connected with the case against Mkalavishvili for raiding a Baptist warehouse and burning copies of the Bible in February 2002. Mkalavishvili, who has gone into hiding, expressed defiance in a television interview, cursing his enemies and warning that Georgia would be struck by earthquakes if he is detained. He has organized and led a series of violent attacks on religious minorities in recent years, targeting groups such as Baptists, Pentecostals and Jehovah's Witnesses. But so far he has avoided prosecution. In the most recent case against Mkalavishvili, he is accused of leading a violent mob that attacked the congregation at Tbilisi's Central Baptist Church as they were preparing to hold an ecumenical service during Christian Unity Week in January 2003. The mob also beat up Grigori Levinets, pastor of Tbilisi's Russian-speaking Baptist congregation, and stole his camera. (Forum 18 News Service)

* HCJB World Radio works with a local partner ministry to produce Christian programs in the Georgian language and broadcast them to the region each week. HCJB World Radio also worked with Hosanna and local partners to produce the dramatized New Testament in Georgian through a project called Faith Comes by Hearing.

ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS IN KASHMIR SUSPECTED OF KILLING NUN WITH GRENADE

Suspected Islamic extremists in the Indian state of Kashmir killed a nun in a grenade attack on a Catholic school Thursday, May 22. Sister Kamlesh, a missionary teacher from West Bengal, died when a grenade exploded near the main entrance of St. Lukas Convent School in Nai Basti, 30 miles from the state capital of Srinagar. A second teacher was also seriously injured in the blast. Police said the militants tossed the grenade at the school gates as the two nuns were returning from a market. The assault followed threats against Christians lodged by militant groups after they heard reports of Christian conversions. Organizations known as Laskar-e-Toiba and Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen threatened the Catholic Church after local media reported that 20,000 Kashmiris have converted to Christianity in the past eight years. Church leaders say the conversion statistics are "greatly exaggerated" and insist on continuing missionary work. "Every Christian is an evangelist," said Joseph Dhar, a Catholic Church spokesman. "Our Lord has asked us to go and teach the good news to all the nations." (Compass)

COURT IN INDIA ORDERS STATE TO CANCEL CONTROVERSIAL CENSUS

The High Court in western India's Gujarat state issued a desist notice Thursday, May 29, to the government and police officials who were conducting a census among Christians. The state government had restarted gathering information in villages, heightening concerns among Christians that census information would be used by militant Hindu organizations to cause trouble in an area that suffered 443 major clashes between religious groups in the recent past. Earlier, the state carried out a similar survey, and Christians saw it as a build-up to the anti-conversion bill, stirring controversy across India. Officers, often in civilian dress, asked about the background of some students living in a retreat center, the kind of food and facilities provided and whether any of the residents are converts from Hinduism. The All India Christian Council filed a petition challenging the census. The head of the Catholic Retreat Center said that the officials were "not interested in gathering genuine information. Rather, the officials plied domestic servants with peculiar questions about the functioning of Christian institutions in the region. Some were even asked if they have been converted to Christianity and if the institution forces villagers to convert." This is the fourth attempt, despite three High Court orders, by the Gujarat government to gather information that is not even available to census officials. (Religion Today)

DROUGHT, HEAT IN INDIA HAVING POSITIVE IMPACT ON EVANGELISM

Drought and incredible heat in India are having an impact on ministry there, says Mission India's David DeGroot in Grand Rapids, Mich. "One of our ministries was affected by a fire in the slums outside of Hyderabad," he said. "Everything is dry as tinder, of course, and a fire got going. It forced 300 families out of their homes, including a number of families that were directly involved in one of our projects." While temperatures have reached as high as 122 degrees F., DeGroot says the heat is having a positive effect on evangelism. "We feel the Lord may be using this. People are migrating into the cities from the countryside. They are showing up at our programs, and they are open. The children are open . . . and through God's grace we're effectively reaching many of these people who are fleeing the drought." (Mission Network News)

* In partnership with FEBA Radio, HCJB World Radio airs weekly Christian programs to eastern India via shortwave in three languages: Bhojpuri, Chattisgarhi and Mundari. A five-hour block of English programs also beams across India from HCJB World Radio-Australia's new shortwave site in Kununurra, Australia.

STUDY: TWO-THIRDS OF NEW IMMIGRANTS TO U.S. CLAIM TO BE CHRISTIAN

Nearly two-thirds of new immigrants to the U.S. are Christian, fueled mostly by Catholics coming from Latin America, indicates research sponsored by three federal government agencies. Forty-two percent of immigrants are Catholic, 19 percent are Protestant and 4 percent are Eastern Orthodox, according to a study of almost 1,000 adult immigrants in 1996. Eight percent are Muslim, 4 percent are Buddhist, 3 percent are Jewish, 3 percent are Hindu and 1 percent claim other religions. While the percentage of immigrants who are Christian is lower than in the general U.S. population (82 percent), the percentage of immigrants who are Catholic is nearly twice the national percentage of Catholics. The 16 percent of immigrants from non-Judeo-Christian faiths is four times higher than the national average of about 4 percent. Fifteen percent of immigrants claimed no religion. The National Institutes of Health, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the National Science Foundation funded the research. (Religion Today)

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