Bangalore, India, 28 October (ENI)--Church leaders and activists have hailed as "courageous" the decision by a young Roman Catholic nun to publicly recount how she was raped by Hindu extremists in India's eastern Orissa state, and who has reiterated her demand for federal police to investigate the case. More than 20 television crews and many more photographers had flocked to the Jesuit-run Indian Social Institute in New Delhi on 25 October to cover the news conference by the 29-year old nun, Sister Meena Barwa. With most of her face covered with a shawl, she read out a two-page description of her ordeal on 25 August. Her address was punctuated by sobs and tears.

"They pulled off my sari and one of them stepped on my right hand and another on my left hand and then a third person raped me," said the nun who said she could identify her assailants. She said she was later marched semi-naked past a crowd and said she was slapped and beaten when she tried to resist having her remaining clothes torn off. The nun was paraded along with the Rev. Thomas Chellan, director of the pastoral centre, under whom she worked. They were taken to a market, the nun recounted, noting that 12 police officers were sitting there and watching, "but they did not move."

The nun said she had faced warnings from police officials about the "consequences" of filing a rape complaint and that police made her rewrite her complaint three times, asking her not to mention them in her account. "I was raped and now I don't want to be victimised by the Orissa police," she said, demanding a full inquiry by the federal police's Central Bureau of Investigation.

John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council, told Ecumenical News International on 28 October, "She had to come out because the top court refused to listen to her plea." The news conference by the nun came two days after the federal Supreme Court rejected the church's plea for a CBI inquiry into the alleged rape. The court stated it feared "bias" at the hands of Orissa police who had been accused of condoning the violence against Christians.

Dayal said the nun had "immense courage" to address the media conference and the church leaders decided to go ahead with the step "to present her case before the world's court through the media". However, the final choice to address media had been the nun's, he said, "as she could not expect justice" from the Orissa police. Dayal said the news conference was also a reaction to a demand by Hindu extremist groups for the arrest of the nun for "false claims of rape" and defaming the Orissa police.

"We salute the courage of this nun," Methodist Bishop Tharanath Sagar, president of the National Council of Churches in India, told ENI. "It is shameful that a nun raped in public would have to go to the media to demand an unbiased inquiry." [514 words]

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Amritsar, India, 24 October (ENI)--Sikh community leaders in India have urged the Rev. Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, to support a Sikh demand for a lifting of a ban on wearing turbans in schools in France. "Wearing a turban is an integral part of our faith and we feel hurt that the French government cannot respect our sacred custom," Gurbachan Singh, information officer of the Golden Temple at Amritsar, appealed to Kobia, who was visiting India and Sri Lanka from 19 to 23 October.

Singh made the appeal after the WCC general secretary spent an hour in the sprawling Golden Temple, a holy sanctuary for Sikhs at a complex in Amritsar in the northern Punjab state bordering Pakistan. Kobia assured Sikh leaders that the WCC, the world's biggest Christian grouping, would take up the issue of the ban in France on the wearing of turbans. France prohibits the wearing of "conspicuous" religious symbols by school students.

The five articles of faith for practising Sikhs, known as Khalsa, include the head turban, which identities Sikh males. Founded by Guru Nanak in the 15th century, Sikhism has more than 25 million followers worldwide. About 19 million of them are in India, the overwhelming majority being residents of the Punjab state, which is the birthplace of Sikhism.

Of the six million Sikhs living in Western countries, Britain is thought to have more than 330 000 living there, while France is thought to have more than 10 000 Sikhs. "Even people of other faiths who enter our gurudwaras [Sikh temples] have to cover their heads," Jasbir Singh Patti, a Sikh activist and journalist, told the WCC delegation, before scarves were tied on their heads as they entered the temple complex barefoot, and passing through a shallow water container to cleanse their feet.

Later Kobia told Ecumenical News International that the Sikhs have a "legitimate demand". The French government, Kobia stated, showed a "lack of understanding and sensitivity to other cultures" in imposing its ban on turbans despite vociferous protests by the Sikh community in India and abroad.

"We will certainly take up this issue with the French government and members of the European Union," Kobia said. He noted that a "so-called secular attitude" is permeating European governments, and which are "becoming insensitive to diverse cultural traditions". [401 words]

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Cape Town, 14 October (ENI)--A recent surge in the number of media companies in India has led to increased gender stereotyping, a national student Christian body that is seeking to increase awareness about the issue among its members, has told a meeting of global Christian communicators. "Young people who are part of the project in universities and colleges now critically understand the media," said Samuel Jayajumar, secretary general of the Student Christian Movement of India.

"The portrayal of women in Indian media reinforces the stereotyping of women, and we are training them [those involved in the project] to analyse it," Jayajumar said in an interview with Ecumenical News International in Cape Town, where he was attending the 6-10 October congress of the World Association for Christian Communication. "Technological advancement in India led to an influx of pluralistic media. More newspapers and television stations quickly sprouted," Jayajumar noted.

The Christian student organization embarked on its media gender awareness campaign in 2007. The project received funding from WACC, a Toronto, Canada-based organization that promotes communication for social change, and which also organized the Cape Town congress. The funding has enabled the Indian Christian students to produce a manual, called "Media and Justice Reader", which is being used for the project.

This has led to the training of 800 students in media monitoring skills, and the setting up of student media watch groups across India. "The students can now recognise and question regressive gender stereotypes in the Indian media. This is being achieved through monitoring, with the ultimate aim of advocating for fair portrayal of gender in media," said Jayajumar. "We have also cultivated a network of women journalists in the media, with whom we are constantly working on this project." [300 words]

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Bhubaneswar, India, 13 October (ENI)--Church leaders in India have said an inquiry ordered into the case of a young nun allegedly raped in Kandhamal province, amid anti-Christian violence in the state of Orissa, had been instituted only because of media criticism of government inaction in the case. Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Bhubaneswar, whose diocese covers Kandhamal, said that what he described as belated action by the government of Orissa demonstrated it had been "embarrassed by media reports".

The alleged rape of the nun in Konjamendi took place on 25 August, when a mob attacked the 30-year-old nun and a local priest, the Rev. Thomas Chellan. The mob, said by Christians to be Hindu extremists, then paraded the priest naked through the streets together with the nun in torn clothes. The government launched its inquiry on 3 October, after the case had been in newspaper headlines for several weeks. The government also suspended the chief of the local police station at Konjamendi pending an investigation into "dereliction of duty".

Chellan said that the police chief had led a team of fellow officers, who stood by as the priest and nun were taken through the streets. The Press Trust of India news agency reported that three youths from Kerala had been arrested on 11 October in connection with the alleged rape; this had brought the total number of arrests in the case to eight.

The news agency said the nun had made a written complaint the day after the incident, and had also undergone a medical examination. Church officials say the woman is now having trauma counselling in New Delhi. "I wonder why it took so long for the government to act in this case," Church of North India Bishop Samson Das of Cuttack told Ecumenical News International on 9 October.

"It looks like an attempt to cover up gross government failure," Das said. The recent violence in Orissa broke out following the killing of Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati in August. A Maoist leader is reported to have claimed responsibility for the killing but some Hindu groups say it was a Christian conspiracy, as the 85-year-old slain monk had been campaigning against conversion to Christianity in Kandhamal, where he was based. [384 words]

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Bhubaneswar, India, 3 October (ENI)--Christians and secular groups in India have commemorated the 2 October anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, but attacks against Christians continued on a day that marks the Indian independence campaigner's message of non-violence. More than 100 Christian houses were torched in the troubled city of Kandhamal and nearby district of Boudh in the Orissa district as the nation prepared to celebrate the 139th anniversary of Gandhi's birth.

Often described as a prophet of non-violence, Gandhi led the Indian independence movement against the British empire through peaceful protest. Still, this year the celebrations took place against a background of anti-Christian violence that began in August in the eastern state of Orissa, and has spread to other parts of the country.

In the Indian capital New Delhi, more than 10 000 Christians and others marked the final day of a week-long protest against the current violence by marching to the city's main memorial to Gandhi. Several dignitaries, including federal government ministers and other political leaders, marched alongside nuns and priests. At Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa, Sikh, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian and Hindu leaders took part in a prayer meeting for peace in front of a statute of Gandhi.

A number of groups also organized a goodwill meeting under the banner of "People for Peace" that ended with a candlelight vigil and a call to promote harmony. Christians came to the meeting from places as far away as Berampur, 140 kilometres (88 miles) from Bhubaneswar. Still, some said they were returning dejected after hearing shouts telling Christians to "leave the country" during the event.

"We were expecting a very strong declaration from this, condemning the violence against Christians in Kandhamal, but it has been very disappointing," said a Roman Catholic priest who requested anonymity. He said he was hurt by the "silence and indifference" he had encountered following attacks against Christians in Kandhamal. The All India Christian Council has said that 57 Christians have been killed in the violence in the Kandhamal district, and that 4300 Christian houses, as well as 142 churches and many Christian institutions have been looted and torched.

P.C. Thomas, a Catholic who is a member of the Indian parliament, told ENI after meeting Orissa's chief minister Naveen Patnaik, "It is shocking that police have refused to register murder cases after eyewitnesses gave written complaints." The violence in Orissa broke out following the killing of Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati in August. A Maoist leader is reported to have claimed responsibility for the killing but some Hindu groups say it was a Christian conspiracy, as the 85-year-old slain monk had been campaigning against conversion to Christianity in Kandhamal, where he was based.

More than two thirds of the 100 000 Christians in Kandhamal are reported to have taken refugee in nearby jungles and relief camps, or have fled to cities such as Bhubaneswar. "It is torture for us to hear the way our people are being hunted out in Kandhamal. We do not know when this will end," said a Catholic nun, who also wished to remain anonymous.

Activist Subarna Gosh, who coordinated the prayer meeting at the Gandhi statue, said, "The situation in Kandhamal is very bad and we want to go there to promote peace, but the administration is denying us permission to go there." [567 words]

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Bangalore, India, 3 September (ENI)--Christian groups have expressed dismay at attempts by the government of India's southern Karnataka state to take action against hundreds of church educational institutions after they closed for a day to protest at ongoing violence against Christians in eastern Orissa state. The Global Council of Indian Christians in an appeal to India's National Human Rights Commission on 2 September urged it "to take steps to see that the Christian institutions [in Karnataka] are not penalised for this action of solidarity and peaceful prayer for the victims of violence in Orissa [state]".

More than 30 000 Christian schools and colleges across the country had remained shut on 29 August to protest at what they said was orchestrated violence against Christians in Orissa that has claimed more than 20 lives and left more than 50 000 Christians refugees fleeing their homes to escape attacks by Hindu extremists. The same evening, Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri, the education minister of Karnataka government, which is led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, a party accused of having a Hindu nationalist agenda, convened a news conference declaring that the government would take disciplinary action against Christian educational institutions that closed for the protest.

Sajan K. George, president of GCIC, which is based in Bangalore, told Ecumenical News International that hundreds of schools under Hindu management often shut down when Hindu groups call on schools, as well as businesses, to close in protests relating to political issues. "But no such punitive action [by the government] is ever taken," said George, pointing that Karnataka is the only state among five BJP-ruled states to initiate such an action.

Hmar Tlomte Sangliana, a Presbyterian member of the Indian parliament who was recently expelled from the BJP, told a press conference the government action aimed at punishing Christian institutions "smacks of communal hatred" and shows the BJP government's "lack of awareness of social issues". "The whole world knows why we closed out institutions on the day," Bishop Vasant Kumar, who heads the Church of South India's Karnataka central diocese, told ENI. "We will defend our institutions."

More than one thousand Christian educational institutions in Karnataka had joined the national protest against anti-Christian violence in Orissa. "When our Christians are being hounded our in Orissa, we have every right to show our concern," said Roman Catholic Archbishop Bernard Moras of Bangalore and chairperson of the regional Catholic bishops' council of southern Karnataka. Moras said he had received two notices from the educational department "to show cause why action should not be taken against you for using religion as an excuse, and announcing a holiday". He asserted, "We have done nothing illegal." He noted that as private institutions the schools were legally allowed to declare a certain number of holiday to compensate people working extra days. [479 words]

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