Palestinian Christians win U.S. political asylum

Jerusalem Report, April 2, 1998

By Yossi Klein Halevi

American courts have for the first time granted political asylum to
two West Bank evangelical Christians on the grounds of religious
persecution. And more West Bank Christians are about to file
asylum requests in American courts.

The courts - one in Chicago, and the other in North Carolina -
accepted the asylum-seekers' claims that the Palestinian Authority
was persecuting Christian evangelicals, after the U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service reversed its earlier skepticism and
endorsed their claim. The two asylum-seekers - who won't allow
their names to be published, for fear of PA retaliation against
relatives still in the territories - are both converts from Islam
to Christianity, who had practiced their new faith in secret.


Meanwhile, Muhammad Bak'r, a West Bank convert to Christianity who
had been in a PA prison since June, was released on bail in late
February. The PA accused Bak'r of selling land to Jews, though
sources close to Bak'r insist the real reason for his imprisonment
was his activity as a Christian missionary.


Bak'r says he was tortured in prison, at one point hung by his
hands from the ceiling for two consecutive days. His release
followed intervention by the Norwegian government.