PAKISTAN
Christian Killed Near Courtroom
Muslim extremists are accused of shooting and killing one of three Pakistani Christian defendants in a religious blasphemy case after an April 5 court hearing in Lahore, Pakistan. The other defendants and an escort were wounded.
Manzoor Masih, 20, died instantly from a head wound when four motorcycle gunmen fired on the defendants as they left the office of their lawyer, Naeem Shakir. One of the alleged attackers has been identified as Maulvi Mohammad Fazl-e-Haque, a plaintiff in the case. The Christians had been targeted with numerous death threats.
Codefendant Rehmat Masih, 58, identified all four assailants to the Lahore police. He later underwent surgery to remove five bullets and to stop critical internal bleeding. He remains in serious condition.
The third defendant, 13-year-old Salamat Masih, was wounded in the hand. John Joseph, a Lahore Christian who was escorting the three defendants to their undisclosed hiding place, was shot twice but was reported in stable condition. News Network International.
MARCH FOR JESUS
Praise March Going Global
Some 10 million participants are expected to join in the first truly worldwide March for Jesus on June 25, when Christians will gather to march, pray, and sing in more than 1,000 cities around the world. This year, marches are planned from Fiji to Finland, from Brazil to Belgium. “This march is reaching further than we ever imagined,” says U.S. coordinator Tom Pelton.
The event will start in New Zealand and move through every time zone, lasting for an unbroken 24 hours. Perhaps most unexpected will be the 2 million people who will participate in China, linked by a radio broadcast.
In the United States, more than 1 million participants in 500 cities are expected to take part in the march, Pelton says. The day’s events also will include participation by up to 20,000 prison inmates, who are being urged to pray and fast for three days before the march.
CAMBODIA
Relief Workers Taken Hostage
An American woman and three Cambodian colleagues working with Food for the Hungry are believed to have been abducted by the National Army of Democratic Kampuchea (NADK, formerly the Khmer Rouge) March 30 in southern Cambodia. Though the NADK has denied involvement, Food for the Hungry officials dispute that claim and say the NADK has requested “cash, commodities, and well-drilling equipment” for their release.
Melissa Himes, 24, of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and three Cambodians were abducted while attempting to discuss well-digging strategies with the NADK.
Food for the Hungry president Ted Yamamori says Himes has been in contact with the organization and appears “to be in good spirits and is being treated well.” The relief organization is working with the U.S. and Cambodian governments to try to secure the captives’ release.
PEOPLE AND EVENTS
In Brief
Thomas J. Lowell is the new president of Trans World Radio (TWR). Lowell, who had served as acting president since February 1993, succeeds Paul E. Freed, TWR’s founder and chair of its board of directors.
• Raymond Rising, 51, a radio expert and missionary with the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Colombia, was kidnapped March 31. Rising has worked in rural Colombia for two decades. Though rebel groups are suspected of the abduction, none has claimed responsibility or made ransom demands.
• Altar girls will be allowed to join altar boys assisting Roman Catholic priests celebrating Mass, the Vatican declared April 13. Though altar girls had been serving in some American dioceses for years, they were not officially approved until now.
• The 1998 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops will be held as planned, despite fears that its cost would force it to be delayed (CT, April 26, 1993, p. 52). The conference is now budgeted at $2 million, down from an estimated $10 million. The once-a-decade conference, which brings together Anglican bishops from around the world, will include female bishops for the first time.
