CASE COULD BAR COACHES FROM PRAYING WITH PLAYERS

To Coach Louis Thompson, praying with his Lincoln County High School football team is as important as leading them to winning seasons — maybe more important.
"Every day when we finish practice, we take a knee, bow our heads and say the Lord's Prayer — every day. We don't miss a day," Thompson said.
"Along with the Lord's Prayer at practice, we have a silent prayer before each game where I tell them to pray for themselves and their teammates.''
But a case making its way to the U.S. Supreme Court could prevent Thompson and other coaches of public schools from praying with their teams, even if the players initiate the prayer on their own.
School district policies and practices vary widely across Tennessee. In Metro Nashville, coaches and teachers are officially barred from taking part in student-led prayers, though some said they do so.
Knox County's policy states there is to be no prayer during school-sponsored activities, only a moment of silence.
"I don't know that we have a policy, but all of our coaches have been told that it's to be student-led,'' said David King, director of athletics for the Lincoln County Department of Education.
"I go to a lot of the games throughout the county and the majority of them do have student-led prayer before the game, and some of them do after the game, too."
High court to decide soon
The Supreme Court is deciding whether it wants to review a case that banned an East Brunswick, N.J., high school football coach from kneeling or bowing his head while his team prayed.
A ruling on whether the court will review the case is expected within the next two weeks.
While a U.S. Supreme Court ruling could clarify the issue once and for all, some legal experts say the law already is clear.
"There's a pretty bright line here — school officials may not pray with students during their contract day," said Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center.
"I don't think the coach has to leave the room. He can just stand silently and watch. But he can't participate."
While acknowledging a 1962 Supreme Court decision that severely restricted the role public school employees may play in organizing religious activities, supporters of team prayers say banning any participation by the coach goes too far.
"I understand that a coach cannot lead the prayer, but just to be there bowing his head? This violates a person's personal faith," said Steve Robinson, Middle Tennessee director of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
" … I really believe that some of our founding fathers who drafted the constitution would turn over in their grave if they knew that we were debating this. I don't believe this was their intent whatsoever."
'You just need to be careful'
Coach Marcus Borden went to court after East Brunswick school officials ordered him to stop praying or engaging in any religious activity with his high school football team.
A U.S. District Court ruled in 2006 that Borden could silently bow his head and kneel while his team prayed, but the case was appealed and the U.S. 3rd District Court of Appeals unanimously reversed the lower court ruling.
Borden filed a petition in October asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case.
"We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will grant (Borden's) petition … so that public school coaches throughout the nation will have a clear understanding as to how they may respond to player-initiated voluntary prayer," his attorney Ronald Riccio said.
Supporting the school district's side is Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a civil liberties watchdog group based in Washington, D.C.
"The main message we're trying to make to folks is that you just need to be careful about bringing any of these religions into school because the way you treat one is the way you must treat them all," said Rob Boston, senior policy analyst for the group.
"Coach Borden was leading his team in prayers that maybe many people in the community felt OK about.
"But what if he'd been saying other types of prayers from some tradition that folks were not so comfortable with? You have to be careful in opening that door."
Furthermore, Boston said, Borden's religious advocacy while coaching extended 23 years and went well beyond passively taking part in team prayers.
"Coach Borden said, 'All I really want to do is bow my head.' But from our perspective, he wants to do a good bit more," Boston said.
"He had a long history of organizing prayer, picking students to lead them, writing them and he even had a chaplain coming in and praying with students.
"He'd been involved with these religious activities for a long time and then all of a sudden he said, 'All I really want to do is take a knee and bow my head.' And the court just said, 'You cannot divorce yourself from your own history.' "
Effect could be profound
If the Supreme Court decides to hear the case, its ruling would have broad implications, offering strong precedent that would be used by attorneys in cases around the country.
The effect could be profound.
In the moments after his last game as Tennessee football coach, Phillip Fulmer knelt with his players for a post-game prayer. Depending on the high court decision, such a display by a football coach at a public university could become an issue, noted Robinson, of the Christian athletes group.
"In that last game, an ESPN commentator was trying to interview Coach Fulmer and he said, 'Wait a minute, I want to pray with my guys,' " Robinson said. "They want to take his right to do that away?"
The American Football Coaches Association, which held its annual convention in Nashville last month, also filed a petition in favor of allowing the coaches to participate, after its board voted unanimously to support Borden's case.
"Anybody that believes in freedom and believes in the opportunity to express yourself as a coach and … to engage in activities with your team when they choose to do something should be very concerned about this," said Grant Teaff, executive director of the coaches association.
Maplewood High School football Coach Ralph Thompson, who is not related to the Lincoln County coach, worries about seeming unsupportive if he doesn't acknowledge the team prayer.
"The way we've handled it in Metro is that none of the coaches can actually be the ones that lead the kids in prayer," he said. " … As coaches, we'll stand a couple of feet back from the huddle that they get in and quietly, to ourselves, we'll say the Lord's Prayer.
"The concern for me as a coach is that it may look like I don't want to have anything to do with religion if I am not allowed to bow while they pray. It makes it look like I don't condone it or I don't like it.
"It's like I'm saying, 'If that is something y'all want to do, then you go ahead. I'm not going to be a part of it and my coaching staff is not going to be a part of it.' "
Haynes, of the First Amendment Center, acknowledges that this part of the country, in particular, could have a tougher time adjusting to the reality of the law.
"In the South especially, this is seen like Mom and apple pie and the flag — it's natural to pray before games," he said. "It's painful for people to give that up."
Players' views vary
Sam Morris, a senior on the Hendersonville soccer team who described himself as atheist, said he would prefer that coaches didn't take part in the team prayers.
"I have no problem with other players praying because that is their own personal belief and I can respect that," he said. "But when I think that the government or a teacher is imposing their beliefs on me, then it makes me feel uncomfortable."
Morris' father, Tom, says he's fine with a coach taking part, as long as the prayer is clearly the idea of the players.
"I don't think coaches should be allowed to lead or organize prayers in an athletic event," he said. "If the coaches are just there to participate, I don't have any problems with that."
Waled Tayib, 17, a Muslim student who plays on the Overton High School football and soccer teams, is accustomed to being surrounded before each football game by teammates who say the Lord's Prayer.
"I just bow my head and say my own prayer inside,'' said Tayib, who is of Kurdish descent. "I think that type of prayer is OK even with the coaches there kneeling or with their heads bowed or whatever."
Many opponents of team prayers hope the high court decides not to hear Borden's case.
"Since 1962, the Supreme Court has been pretty clear that any employees at public schools cannot lead students in prayer and that includes principals, teachers and coaches," Boston said. "Now I know a lot of coaches bend that rule, but technically they're not supposed to.
"If the Supreme Court declines to hear the case, all they're saying is they consider the 1962 decision to be good law. … If they decide to hear the case, it could mean the justices are interested in taking another look at what role prayer should play in the public school system."
Any move in Tennessee to strengthen the ban on teams' or coaches' ability to pray would probably be met with hostility, said Louis Thompson, the Lincoln County coach.
"I'm going to continue to do it," he said, "and I couldn't care less what the Supreme Court says or does."

UN GENOCIDE COURT JAILS RWANDAN PRIEST FOR 25 YEARS

DAR ES SALAAM - A UN court trying the masterminds of Rwanda's 1994 genocide jailed a former military chaplain for 25 years Friday for sexual assault and killing ethnic Tutsis who sought sanctuary at a seminary.
Emmanuel Rukundo is one of two clergymen the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) indicted for their role in the 100-day slaughter in which troops and Hutu militia butchered 800,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.
"The Trial Chamber ... found Rukundo guilty of genocide, murder as a crime against humanity and extermination as a crime," the ICTR said in a statement.
The Arusha, Tanzania-based tribunal said Rukundo, who was often escorted by soldiers and militiamen during the violence, kept a list of local Tutsis whose movements he monitored.
As well as being involved in the abduction and murder of villagers seeking sanctuary at a seminary, it found the 50-year-old guilty of sexually assaulting a young Tutsi woman.
"The accused was found to have abused his moral authority and influence to promote the abduction and killing of Tutsi refugees," the court said.
Rukundo, a former captain in the Rwandan armed forces, was arrested in Geneva in 2001. He will receive credit for the time he has already been spent behind bars.
The tribunal began work in 1997 and has delivered 37 judgments, of which six were acquittals.
It had been meant to wind up its cases by the end of last year and then hear all appeals by the end of 2010. The U.N. General Assembly is considering whether to extend its mandate.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is visiting Tanzania and was due to tour the ICTR later Friday.

EGYPT: ISLAMIC LAWYERS URGE DEATH SENTENCE FOR CONVERTS; PRAY ANDMAKE A DIFFERENCE..

ISTANBUL, February 26 – In the latest hearing of a Muslim-born Egyptian’s effort to officially convert to Christianity, opposing lawyers advocated he be convicted of “apostasy,” or leaving Islam, and sentenced to death.
More than 20 Islamic lawyers attended the hearing on Sunday (Feb. 22) in Maher Ahmad El-Mo’otahssem Bellah El-Gohary’s case to obtain identification papers with Christianity designated as his religious affiliation. Two lawyers led the charge, Ahmed Dia El-Din and Abdel Al-Migid El-Anani.
“[El-Din] started to talk about the Quran being in a higher position than the Bible,” one of El-Gohary’s lawyers, Said Fayez, told Compass. “[El-Din said] people can move to a higher religion but not down, so people cannot move away from Islam because it is highest in rank.”
Memos submitted by opposing lawyers asserted that cases such as El-Gohary’s form part of a U.S. Zionist attack on Islam in Egypt, that Christianity is an inferior religion to Islam and that Copts protect and defend converts from Islam at their own peril.
“We received 150 pages from them that talked about religion,” said Fayez. “We are not in a position to talk about religion, we are only talking about the law.”
El-Gohary Beaten
El-Gohary was not present at the hearing, as attendance would put him at extreme personal risk. He had planned to obtain papers authorizing attorney Nabil Ghobreyal to act as his proxy representation in court, but staff members at the registry office swore at and beat him, lawyers said.
Judge Hamdy Yasin was forced to adjourn the case until March 28 because El-Gohary did not obtain the necessary proxy representation documents.
“I am now in a position where I can’t do anything else,” El-Gohary, who has been in hiding, told Compass. “I have to go [to court] despite the danger. I believe God will protect me. It’s a very hard decision, but I have to go.”
Copts and Christian converts have to face such systemic prejudice daily in the battle for their rights, he said.
“Our rights in Egypt, as Christians or converts, are less than the rights of animals,” El-Gohary said. “We are deprived of social and civil rights, deprived of our inheritance and left to the fundamentalists to be killed. Nobody bothers to investigate or care about us.”
El-Gohary, 56, has been attacked in the street, spat at and knocked down in his effort to win the right to officially convert. He said he and his 14-year-old daughter continue to receive death threats by text message and phone call.
But he also has received text messages, he said, of encouragement from other Muslim-born converts too fearful to take a similar stand.
“Everyday I get calls from people who have converted but are secret,” said El-Gohary. “They ask me every day about what is happening, because it affects their future.”
The danger to himself and his daughter has led El-Gohary to suggest that he will most likely leave Egypt, but not until the case is over.
“He wouldn’t go without doing this trial, he doesn’t want to leave before it is finished,” said attorney Ghobreyal. “Because it [conversion] is his right, then he will do whatever he likes.”
El-Gohary said he feels a responsibility to witness about God and Jesus. “I have to do what I am doing for the sake of God and the sake of the converts, to the glory of God,” he said.
He decided to legally change his religious affiliation out of concern over the effects that his “unofficial Christianity” has on his family, saying he was particularly concerned about his daughter, Dina Maher Ahmad Mo’otahssem. Though raised as a Christian, when she reaches age 16 she will be issued an identification card stating her religion as Muslim unless her father’s appeal is successful.
At school, she has been refused the right to attend Christian religious classes offered to Egypt’s Christian minorities and has been forced to attend Muslim classes. Religion is a mandatory part of the Egyptian curriculum.
Encouraging Horizon
Despite setbacks, delays and the vitriol on display in the courtroom, El-Gohary and his lawyers reserve optimism not only about the future of the case but the future of the country as well.
“There is evidence and signs on the horizon that are very encouraging, that there will be a time in the future that equal rights will be achieved,” said Fayez. “People have started to ask for their rights and demand to have the freedom of religion. This is a good sign.”
Mohammed Hegazy, the first Muslim-born Christian convert to attempt to have his new religion officially registered, is also in hiding after receiving death threats.
Despite a constitution that grants religious freedom, legal conversion from Islam to another faith remains unprecedented. Hegazy, who filed his case on Aug. 2, 2007, was denied the right to officially convert in a Jan. 29, 2008 court ruling that declared it was against Islamic law for a Muslim to leave Islam.
The judge based his decision on Article II of the Egyptian constitution, which enshrines Islamic law, or sharia, as the source of Egyptian law. The judge said that, according to sharia, Islam is the final and most complete religion and therefore Muslims already practice full freedom of religion and cannot return to an older belief (Christianity or Judaism).

CRACKDOWN ON CHURCHES AND CHRISTIANS IN MYANMAR; PRAY AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN MYANMAR....

MYANMAR -- In a recent crackdown on Christians in Myanmar (Burma), at least 100 churches were ordered to stop holding services. About 50 pastors were forced to sign at least five documents each to cease church services—and warned repeatedly they could face time in jail if they disobeyed.

The crackdown is of great concern to Christians in Myanmar and a serious violation of religious freedom. Most of the churches meet in homes, and Christians are now left wondering if they will be prohibited from worshipping in their own homes.
In a recent crackdown on Christians in Myanmar (Burma), at least 100 churches were ordered to stop holding services.Some think it could be the military regime’s response to churches helping with relief for victims of Cyclone Nargis, which hit Myanmar’s coast in May 2008.
“The regime does not like the fact that Buddhists have been receiving help from churches, and fears this may possibly result in conversion,” one pastor living in exile said. “It does not want Christianity to grow in Burma. Ultimately, the regime seeks the destruction of Christianity.
What I find interesting about this story is that unbelievers even see that when the love of Christ is manifest through the good works that God calls His people to do, conversion is a result.

MALAYASIA TO ALLOW CHRISTIANS USE THE WORD ' ALLAH '

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The Malaysian government has softened an earlier ban on the use of the word "Allah" by Christian publications to refer to God and is allowing them to use it as long as they specify the material is not for Muslims, a church official said Thursday.
The government had earlier argued that the use of Allah in Christian texts might confuse Muslims, who might think Allah refers to their God.
The revised order was issued Feb. 16 by Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar, said the Rev. Lawrence Andrew, the editor of the Herald, the Roman Catholic Church's main newspaper in Malaysia. He said the publication has already started printing "For Christianity" on its cover.
The Herald publishes weekly in English, Mandarin, Tamil and Malay with an estimated readership of 50,000. The ban on "Allah" concerns mainly the Malay edition, which is read mostly by indigenous Christian tribes in the eastern states of Sabah and Sarawak. The other three editions usually do not use the word "Allah."
The dispute has become symbolic of increasing religious tensions in Malaysia, where 60 percent of the 27 million people are Muslim Malays. A third of the population is ethnic Chinese and Indian, and many of them practice Christianity.
Malaysia's minorities have often complained that their constitutional right to practice their religions freely has come under threat from the Malay Muslim-dominated government. They cite destruction of Hindu temples and conversion disputes as examples. The government denies any discrimination.
Andrew, the Herald's editor, said although the order "makes things easier" for the Herald, the newspaper will not drop a legal challenge against the ban. A court is due to hear arguments in the case Friday.
The Herald is arguing that the Arabic word is a common reference for God that predates Islam and has been used for centuries as a translation in Malay.
Andrew said the new order is still a violation of religious freedom guaranteed by the constitution because Christians will not be able to use any literature that does not carry the warning on the cover, including much imported material.
He said most Malay-language Bibles in Malaysia are imported from Indonesia, which uses a variation of the same language.
"If this (order) is enforced, it will be difficult to possess materials ... from Indonesia, and thus practicing our religion will not be easy. This goes against ... the constitution," he told The Associated Press.
Andrew said the order also prohibits the use of three other Arabic words — "solat," or prayer, "Kaaba," a holy site in Saudi Arabia, and "baitullah," or house of God — without the warning.
Ministry officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Home Minister Syed Hamid's aide said he would not be available for comment until Monday.