Religious Violence In The News
OKLAHOMA
A "prophet" declared Jesus Christ would represent him on charges that he and three others plotted to blow up civil rights groups, welfare offices, abortion clinics, and gay bars. In November, FBI agents busted Willie Ray Lampley, head of Universal Church of God, Oklahoma. Among targets: the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama. At-large suspect Larry Wayne Crow told an August meeting of the Tri-States Militia in South Dakota: "God won't be mad at us if we drop four or five buildings. He will probably reward us."
CALIFORNIA
Jan Holstrom was declared not guilty by reason of insanity on Dec. 1 by a San Francisco judge for stabbing a man in November 1994 inside a Krishna temple "for God."
BOSNIA
Arab soldiers in Podbrezje, Bosnia-Herzegovina cursed the imminent arrival of American peacekeepers in early December. New York Times news service quoted one fighter:
"We came here to die in the service of Islam. This is our duty. No infidel force will tell us how to live or what to do. This is a Muslim country, which must be defended by Muslims. We are 400 men here, and we all pray we will one day be martyrs."
IRAN
The 70 year old brother-in-law of the Ayatollah Ali Khameini was sentenced by an Islamic court to 20 years in prison on Dec. 19, for "warring with God" by collaborating with the main Iranian opposition movement, based in Iraq. Sheik Ali Tehrani surrendered to Iranian border authorities last June after spending a decade in Iraq.
EGYPT
- Editor Mahmoud el-Tuhami was sentenced on Dec. 30 to 2 years in prison for slander, after his state-owned weekly, Rose el-Youssef, reported that Islamic fundamentalist lawyers intimidate secular writers by suing them. More than 870 people have been killed in Egypt since militants launched a battle to replace secular government with Islamic rule in 1992. "This is one more attempt by the forces of darkness to silence us. We will not let them pull us and our society backward," said Tuhami.
- A judge in December threw out a case filed by an Islamic lawyer accusing a Nobel laureate and two editors of ridiculing God and Islam. The same month, two fundamentalist lawyers demanded that one of Egypt's most famous actresses, Yousra, be imprisoned for appearing "almost naked" on magazine covers. Yousra recently appeared in "Birds of Darkness," a movie in which a comedian speaks out against Islamic extremism.
- A plan by Muslim radicals to assassinate President Hosni Mubarek was believed to be foiled in mid-December.
- After his newlywed sister held her husband's hand in public at a wedding party, an Egyptian man opened fire on guests on Dec. 24. The gunman and another man were killed and three people wounded in the village of Muabda. Local religious custom dictates that the bride and groom not display affection in public before consummating their marriage.
AFGHANISTAN
The Islamic Talbian militia, which is trying to topple the Kabul government and install strict Islamic rule, wounded six people and damaged houses in the capital city in a Dec. 28 attack. The violence followed an offer by President Burhanuddin Rabbani to negotiate a peaceful end to the 3-year civil war. More than 25,000 have been killed.
PHILIPPINES
Nine suspected Arab terrorists were arrested on Dec. 29, after police confiscated explosives and other evidence of terrorist plans. One suspect is believed to be the twin brother of the alleged mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing which killed six people and injured 1,000.
TURKEY
The militant Islamic Welfare Party finished first in Dec. 24 elections, making gains threatening the secular republic established 72 years ago by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
ALGERIA
Although Liamine Zeroual was elected president on Nov. 16--despite threats by Islamic extremists that anyone voting would be killed--religious extremists continue a campaign of throat-slashing, decapitations and car bombings. More than 40,000 people have died in the religious conflict since 1992. The war started when the military cancelled 1992 legislative elections that the now-outlawed Islamic Salvation Front was expected to win. Among recent fatalities: a social worker and a TV director shot to death in Algiers. Three men gunned down social worker Zahia Isli in the Casbah on Dec. 22 as two of her children watched.
SRI LANKA
The government (representing the 70% Buddhist population) had its biggest victory in 12 years of war against the Tamil Tiger rebels (Hindus or Christians) with its capture of Jaffna, a rebel stronghold, on Dec. 5. More than 40,000 people have died in the 13-year war between the two religious/ethnic groups. The female president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, believed to be on the Tigers' hit list, is almost a prisoner in her home.
FRANCE
Sixteen bodies discovered in the French Alps on Dec. 23, including three little girls, were the latest victims of the doomsday cult, Order of the Solar Temple. Autopsies reveal that, as sedated cult members lay sleeping on a forest floor near Grenoble, arranged in the shape of a star, two fellow cult members, including a police officer, shot them, then lit the bodies on fire. The two then set themselves ablaze and shot themselves in the head. The ritual echoed the group murder-suicides in December 1994 leaving 53 cult members in Switzerland and Quebec dead. Former cult members fear assassination. The cult is rooted in centuries-old secret Roman Catholic societies.
Sources: Associated Press, unless otherwise indicated. Special thanks to James Haught, editor of the Charleston Gazette.