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CAMPAIGN AGAINST
OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD


INTERVIEW WITH ASHEVILLE CITIZEN TIMES

4th February 2005

BACKGROUND

The Asheville Citizen Times of North Carolina has a reputation of favouring the controversial North Carolina based missionary organisation Samaritan's Purse. This hasn't gone down well with its readership. Recently they were slated by readers for running a front page - 10 page special on Samaritan's Purse titled "Deliverance from Disaster - Samaritan's Purse in South Asia" followed by a five day special series on it concluding on 23rd January 2005. One reader wrote in: "To more accurately reflect the reporting and editorial slant of your newspaper, perhaps the masthead should be, 'The Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse Daily Mirror'.

So a couple of weeks later when Citizen Times felt the urge to do another special feature on Samaritan's Purse (8th February 2005), the pressure was on for them to write a more balanced report this time, or at least give the impression of it. Their staff reporter, Tonya Maxwell, contacted us for an interview to be used in the article on Operation Christmas Child - the "critics perspective". In the spirit of openness and co-operation we could not refuse their request. We received their questions via email on 3rd February, and by the 4th they had our answers. The article was published four days later on the 8th of February.

Shockingly our whole interview was expunged - not a single word from the interview appeared in the published article, in fact there was no mention of the campaign at all! The articles tag line said it all: "Operation Christmas Child -Program helps children all over the world have a merry Christmas". The official reason given for excluding the interview was "the pressing deadline".

For the benefit of their readers who may wish to read the missing interview and make up their own minds as to why it did not appear in their newspaper, we have reproduced it below.

Ashville Citizen Times

 

INTERVIEW

[Q1] What do you see as the single most problematic issue with Samaritan's Purse? What worries you most about the shoebox program? Can you explain that.

Samaritan's Purse is headed by a bigot and an islamophobe who has total contempt for any belief system that does not agree with his own beliefs. The 'preacher of hate', Franklin Graham has refused to apologise for calling Islam "a very wicked and evil religion" and for his equally hateful pronouncements on other beliefs - Hindus as being "bound by Satan's power". This bigotry is then reflected in the actions of his organisation.

They seek out the most vulnerable people - those befallen disasters - and then callously target them for conversion. The New York Times caught Samaritan's Purse holding evangelising sessions before releasing US government paid temporary homes to homeless victims of the earthquake in El Salvador in 2001. And again their actions after Hurricane Mitch hit Nicaragua in 1999 were condemned, this time by the President of the relief organization Operation USA in a letter to the LA Times - apparently at a time when 20% of the population was severely affected by the hurricane Samaritan's Purse chose to round up 50,000 surviving Catholic children and bus them away to a evangelising session in a baseball stadium where they were given candy and bibles and had to listen to Graham preach, with "little material good being accomplished". After the Gulf War, in 1990 they sent 30,000 arabic bibles for US troops to hand out to Iraqi POWs - Christianity at gun point!

In their shoebox program (OCC) they have identify another vulnerable group in society to target - this time it's the children. The shoebox "gifts" are used to bribe desperate children away from their parent's religion. Their own statistics for India, given in their special report for 2003, show that four out of every five children that receives a "gift" shoebox, in return, ends up being enrolled in a follow up 10 lesson indoctrination bible study program. They boast that 265,000 children, just in India, were enrolled in 2003!

The same report gives the story of a 13 year old Indian boy, a street cleaner, who has been brought up to stay away from missionaries:

'Every day, Ramakrishna's work route took him in front of a Christian church. As he picked up trash from the gutter, a woman invited him into the church. He always refused. Then one day the woman asked him inside to receive a gift. He was still wary of Christians and their strange beliefs, but the offer of a gift was too tempting. He accepted.'

The young boy finally succumbs to the missionaries after they entice him with a "gift" shoe box of toys which he as a street cleaner could never afford to buy. He is told the shoebox is "a gift sent by Jesus". Is this really the way to spread Christianity in the world?

 

[Q2] Why start a Web campaign against it and what do you hope to accomplish? How long has it been going on? Have you had much response?

Our campaign was initiated last October after one of our activists reported that their children's school was supporting the project. We produced a sample letter and information pack for use in schools and the school in question immediately stopped its support for OCC.

Whilst our campaign has drawn support worldwide it was in fact launched for the UK. We drew up a shortlist list of around a 100 organisation in the UK that supported OCC. These were mainly publicly funded places like town halls, councils , schools, hospitals, fire & rescue services, leisure centres & community centres. We sent then a standard letter explaining the bigotry behind OCC and pointed out that an organisation such as theirs which is there to serve the whole community irrespective of race and religion it should not be supporting such bigotry.

The response we have been getting is great with so many organisations disassociating themselves from Samaritan's Purse & OCC. The type of bigotry and hatred that they preach doesn't seem to have an audience in this country. The organisations we contacted were shocked to learn about the 'preacher of hate' and what his organisation stands for - they felt they could no longer support such bigotry. Supermarkets - The Co-Op and Asda chains, the Youth Hostel Association, libraries, town/parish/borough and county councils around the country, hospitals, charities and colleges have all written to us to say that they have ceased their support for OCC.

We will soon be publishing the results of our campaign, but here are some typical responses we have received:

From a library:

Thank you for your letter drawing our attention to the organisation behind Operation Christmas Child. As you state in your letter the library aims to be socially inclusive and would not knowingly support any organisation which did not live up to those ideals.

The library service had entered into a verbal contract with Operation Christmas Child and as we only knew of your concerns near to the end of the current appeal, we felt unable to withdraw from the contract at that point.

However I wish you to understand that the library service regrets entering into that contract without sufficient research into the orgainstaion, and that we will not be supporting the appeal again.

From a County Council:

...has now ceased acting as a collection point for Operation Christmas Child. As far as we are aware, no other parts of the County Council are involved with this organisation and we shall issue guidance to ensure that this remains the case as we have no intention to support or be associated with the negative activities that you have outlined.

Christian leaders in this country, to their credit, have been the most fervent opponents of Samaritan's Purse. As the Rector of St. Anne-Shandon in Cork put it "Those behind this 'charity' have an agenda not shared by the Anglican Churches on these islands." The Vicar of Putney called the shoeboxes "gift wrapped islamophobia" and the Vicar of Old Chapel, in Dukinfield has called the shoebox program "racist" and "poisonous".

The only way Operation Christmas Child has functioned in this country is through deception - by concealing their objectives. Our task has simply been one of unmasking them. The Charity Commission has already launched an investigation against Samaritan's Purse for its misrepresentation in both its fundraising and recruitment of volunteers. In the past Samaritan's Purse has sent appeal leaflets to parents and teachers which say nothing about any missionary aim, or even religious affiliation.

 

[Q3] Samaritan's Purse says they hand out the shoeboxes and kids can take Christian literature if they so desire, but they aren't required. If the receiving child is Islamic - or any other number of religions - how can this pose a conflict?

The problem is more fundamental that just the booklets. When shoeboxes are given out they say to the children "its a gift from Jesus". This obliges the child to do something in return for "Jesus" - this is particularly true in many cultures where you are indebted to the giver of the "gift" until you can reciprocate it. Perhaps this explains how they manage to "persuade" four out of every five children who gets a shoebox to attend the ten lesson indoctrination bible study program.

When Samaritan's Purse asks school children to donate the shoeboxes of gifts the parents are never told that their children's shoeboxes will be presented as "gifts from Jesus" to desperate children in order to convert them. Unmasking this deception is what our campaign is about.

When the charity "Save The Children" were asked about OCC, one of the points they made is that it makes no economic sense as the transportation costs of sending the shoeboxes would make the items more expensive then they would be in the recipient country. So the motive behind the shoebox appeal is not to provide material aid (as its uneconomical). But rather, the shoeboxes are used as Trojan horses to delivery something else - OCC themselves admit the shoeboxes are just "a tool for evangelism". Most people in the UK supporting OCC are not aware of this.

 

[Q4] Say a Muslim child gets a shoebox and brings home a booklet about Jesus and Christianity. Shouldn't it be left to the child's parents to explain the tenets of their faith? How can a little book about Jesus have so much sway over a child?

Whilst the booklet, cleverly designed to entice children and made available in 54 languages, is clearly an important component of their missionary arsenal, but when assessing the fallout we must look at the combined firepower of their whole arsenal which they themselves admit is devastatingly potent. In their Zambia operation they coldly calculated that nearly 24 people are converted per shoebox. As previously mentioned, for India their score card reads - 325,000 shoe boxes distributed, 265,000 kids indoctrinated.

More importantly, as the example of the Hindu boy in India shows, Samaritan's Purse targets children directly - they do not give the shoeboxes and booklets to the parents to decide if and what they will pass on to their children. Their website mentions another similar case in Haiti where they used a shoebox gift party to entice an 11 year old girl away from her parent's religion which eventually lead to the break up of the family.

This clearly goes against the United Nations Declaration of the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief (res 36/55 25 Nov 1981) which clearly states that "Every child shall enjoy the right to have access to education in the matter of religion or belief in accordance with the wishes of his parents and shall not be compelled to receive teaching on religion or belief against the wishes of his parents."

 

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URL: http://www.inminds.com/occ-media3.html