In Brief

-- Religion News Service

Indonesia to Protect Churches Over Holidays

---

Indonesian officials said police will guard Christian churches across the world's most populous Muslim country during the Christmas holidays.

The announcement came as the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, warned that terrorists might target Americans during the holidays.

On Christmas Eve in 2000, coordinated blasts killed 19 people, and a strike on a Christian market last New Year's Eve left seven dead. An Indonesian police spokesman said more than 18,000 officers will be posted at thousands of churches and other religious sites in Jakarta.

-- Associated Press

U.S. Decries Ruling On Bahais in Egypt

---

The State Department has condemned an Egyptian court ruling that denies Bahais the right to have their faith recognized on official identification documents.

Rejecting a lower court decision favorable to Bahais, the Supreme Administrative Court ruled that the Egyptian constitution recognizes only Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

"It is certainly a ruling that flies in the face of stated Egyptian commitments to freedom of expression, freedom of religion," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Monday. "We would hope that the Egyptian government would take steps that would allow people of the Bahai faith to obtain these identification cards."

The cards of Bahais have a line through the section for the person's religion.

The dispute directly affects only the country's Bahais, 2,000 or so of the more than 72 million Egyptians. Civil rights advocates in Egypt, however, said it's evidence that the court ignores existing protections of religious freedom.

The Bahai faith is a monotheistic religion founded in the 1860s by Baha' Allah, a Persian nobleman who the Bahais consider a prophet. Baha' Allah taught that all religions represent progressive stages in the revelation of God's will, leading to the unity of all peoples and faiths.

-- Associated Press