Maldives: Teacher Arrested and Deported For Preaching Christianity After Police Find a Bible in His House During a Raid

“NEW DELHI, October 21 (CDN) — Police in the island nation of Maldives held a teacher from India for about 15 days before deporting him on Oct. 14 for having a Bible in his house, a source said.

Shijo Kokkattu, a 30-year-old Catholic and teacher at the Raafainu School in Raa Atoll, had been arrested in late September after police found a Bible and a rosary in his house during a raid, a foreign source in the capital city of Male told Compass by phone.

Charging that Kokkattu was preaching his Christian faith in the Muslim nation, which recently tightened restrictions on preaching and practice of non-Islamic faiths, police took him to another island for interrogation and kept him in custody for more than two weeks, said the source, who requested anonymity.

Police raided his home after Kokkattu’s colleagues found Christian materials on a school computer he had used and reported it to authorities. While downloading material from his pen drive, Kokkattu had mistakenly downloaded some Catholic songs in the Malayalam language (used in a south Indian state) and a picture of the Virgin Mary.

‘The videos were in Indian, so I don’t know what they were saying, but the images were Christian,’ school principal Mohamed Shiraj told Minivan News, an independent news portal based in the Maldives.” Read more.

Flashback: Maldives: New Law Will Imprison or Banish Anyone Who Preaches Any Religion Other Than Islam – “Maldives Criminalizes Preaching Any Religion But Islam President’s Office has gazetted the controversial Religious Unity Regulation, declaring it an offence to preach a religion except Islam in the Maldives… The regulation, which instructs scholars to consider the social harmony, states practices that should be avoided in preaching Islam in the Maldives, including the practice of making comments in contradiction with prophetic traditions and majority view of the scholars… A person who violates the regulation will be sentenced to 2-5 years in prison, banishment or house arrest.” Read more.