An American Christian is facing trial in North Korea on charges that he was trying to undermine the country’s government.
His crime? He left a Bible in his hotel room after he and his tour group checked out to head back to America.
Jeffrey Fowle, 56, is being charged with leaving the Bible in his room, which is “inconsistent with the purpose of a tourist visit.” The North Korean government has not officially named charges against Fowle, just stating he will be tried for leaving behind the Bible.
“The significance of these arrests and trials cannot be overstated: North Korea is choosing to publicly blame Christian missionaries for its human rights problems and internal difficulties,” Seoul USA CEO Pastor Eric Foley told The Christian Post. “There are important lessons to be learned from the arrests by Christians seeking to reach North Korea in the future. Now is not the time to comment on the strategies of those being detained. But what we can conclude with certainty is that there is no ‘back door’ into North Korea – no strategy for sharing the gospel there that does not involve paying the highest of personal prices. This is what North Korean underground Christians have known and practiced for years.”
A spokesman for Fowle’s family said that he was not in North Korea on any kind of church mission. They denied there was anything that he could have done to “confirm suspicions” of undermining the government as claimed by North Korean prosecutors.
The U.S. State Department has repeatedly warned American citizens traveling to North Korea that they could be detained for any reason and imprisoned without trial or charge. The U.S. does not have diplomatic relations with North Korea.
Meriam Ibrahim, the Christian woman who had been facing the death penalty on charges that she converted from Islam because her father was a Muslim, is reportedly in hiding at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum while she and her family attempt to leave the country.
Ibrahim had been arrested attempting to leave the country a day after her death sentence was overturned because Sudanese officials say she was using her Christian name on travel documents rather than her Islamic name and had documents from South Sudan rather than Sudan.
Ibrahim was reportedly released on the charges related to her attempt to leave the country on the grounds that she not leave Sudan.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department says it’s entirely up to the Sudanese government to say when Ibrahim can leave the country. Marie Harf said that the State Department confirmed Ibrahim has all the correct documents to leave Sudan according to international law.
A BBC report says that Ibrahim’s arrest was made by members of the National Intelligence and Security Service that was unhappy with Ibrahim’s release from her death sentence. The arrest was reportedly a way to send a message to the rest of the Sudanese government.
A day after being released from prison because her death sentence for apostasy was thrown out by an appeals court, Meriam Ibrahim was arrested at the airport in Khartoum as she was preparing to leave the country with her family.
Elshareef Ali Mohammed, the lawyer representing Ibrahim, said he was at the airport with the family when 50 security force personnel hostilely confronted her and her family. He said the security forces would not give a reason for why they were arresting Ibrahim. He said they knew she had been cleared by the court but arrested her anyway.
She was taken to a detention center with her two children and her American husband Daniel Wani.
A Sudanese court initially convicted Ibrahim for apostasy because her father was a Muslim. The court said it did not matter that she was raised a Christian and had always been a Christian.
A Texas appellate court has found a Texas pastor and a member of his congregation that had been arrested for crossing a police line at an event where they were protesting not guilty.
Pastor Joey Fault and members of the Kingdom Baptist Church in Venus, Texas were protesting at an event in Fort Worth Texas in October 2012. When some of the event’s attendees were upset the Christians were passing out information and pamphlets that disagreed with the event’s mission, the police formed a human barricade to keep the Christians from being able to reach attendees.
Pastor Faust told the Christian News Network police told them that they could go no further and they were forbidden from even crossing the street.
The pastor and his group continued their protest but then noted police were allowing those who were not part of the church group to pass through their line and across the street. The pastor then attempted to cross the street and was immediately seized upon by the police and arrested for “interfering with public duties.” He was jailed for 20 hours and released on $1,500 bail.
Last May, a judge said the pastor and another member of his congregation who arrested on the same charge were guilty. The case was appealed to the Second District of Texas Court of Appeals that ruled the men were not guilty and that the police had infringed on the First Amendment rights of the church.
“The skirmish line prohibited all member of the church from exercising their right of free speech merely because of their association with the church,” the court rules. “This is too far a limitation.”
Police in Santa Ana, California have arrested a man who kidnapped a 15-year-old girl ten years ago and then forced her to marry him and have his children.
Isidro Gracia disappeared in 2004 with his live-in girlfriend’s daughter who he had been raping for three months. He then drugged her and kept her addicted to drugs while they moved to a house in Compton, California. He obtained fake IDs for both of them and then kept her locked in a garage until her mid-20s.
He brainwashed her into thinking because she didn’t speak English, she was illegal and would be deported if she contacted police. He then forced her to marry him so she would be “legal” and then have his child so she couldn’t be deported. He said the girl’s family told him they’d given up looking for her and no longer wanted her.
Police discovered the situation when the women found her sister on Facebook and contacted her.
The 41-year-old Garcia is facing charges of kidnapping, rape, false imprisonment and other charges. He is facing life without parole if convicted on all the charges against him.
The woman, who is not being named because she was a minor when taken, has been reunited with her family. She said that she plans to raise her daughter in a loving family environment and to obtain an education.
A pastor who was arrested for preaching the gospel at a train station has been found not guilty of defiant trespassing.
Pastor Robert Parker has been preaching at the Princeton Junction train station for five years. The station, part of the New Jersey Transit situation, is in the public transportation system and thus public space.
In June 2012, two officers confronted Parker and fellow evangelist Don Karns after the men had finished preaching for the day. The officers, Sergeant Kathleen Shanahan and Officer Sandy Crowe, also forced Karns and Parker to stop recording the incident on their cell phones in violation of New Jersey law.
The two police officers kept yelling at the preachers that they were potential terrorists. Parker was arrested when he refused to provide ID and asked the officer what law he had been breaking.
Sergeant Shanahan even told officers to place one of the preachers in a cell “with a pervert” when they brought them into the station. Shanahan then claimed in court that she had just taken a terrorist class and the men looked like a terrorist threat because they had backpacks and a bulge in their pants pocket.
Superior Court of New Jersey Judge Mark Flemming ruled Friday that the state failed to prove any crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
A New York teenager has been arrested after he posted a video online showing himself engaging in the knockout game.
Devin Alexander was taken into custody on a probation violation charge in Rochester, New York. A spokesman for the department did not say how Alexander violated his probation but said they were keeping him in custody.
The video posted on Facebook showed Alexander telling the camera he was going to hit an old lady with snowball when she came outside a store. Instead, Alexander delivered a roundhouse punch to the back of the woman’s head.
Police said it was likely the cameraman in the incident will also face charges connected to the assault.
The latest arrests for Knockout Game attacks have surprising results.
A 14-year-old girl and three other children aged 10 and 11 were arrested for a series of assaults in October and November.
The victims include a youth the gang hit in the head with a rock and another who had a plastic bag held over their face to suffocate them.
“Kids are kids — when you’re talking 10 and 11 year olds getting involved in these type of things, sometimes they don’t realize the magnitude of what they’re doing,” NYPD Deputy Inspector George Fitzgibbon told reporters.
The police say that the attacks, despite only striking Jewish children, were not motivated by hate.
The youths were charged with assault, endangerment and criminal mischief.
A 20-year-old Long Island man is behind bars after police say he committed at least seven “knockout game” attacks dating back to April 2013.
Darryl Mitchell is expected to be charged today with the assaults of residents from Babylon, New York to Amityville, New York.
One of the victims, Darryl Jones, said that Mitchell came at him out of nowhere and landed a single roundhouse punch to the face. The blow caused a gash above his eye that required seven stitches.
“If I wasn’t strong enough, I probably would’ve passed out,” told WABC. “He was walking on the sidewalk and I moved out of the way just to step into the street and he stood in front of me holding up his hands and hit me in the face.”
The victims ranged in age from 17 to 69.
Mohammed al-Beltagi, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Freedom and Justice Party”, has been arrested by state officials in Egypt and charged with inciting violence.
Former labor minister Khaled al-Azhari was also arrested on Thursday. Continue reading →
