Jewish and Christian leaders here have expressed outrage at a proposal by Papua New Guinea’s Council of Christian Churches to have the government ban all non-Christian religions.
A Council of Churches spokesman told Jewish sources in Australia that the proposal was directed mainly at Moslems and secondarily at Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons and Bahais. However, the spokesman said it would also apply to Jews.
Papua New Guinea, an island north of Australia that gained independence in 1975, has a population of 4 million, of which 97 percent are Christians.
Isi Leibler, chairman of the Asia Pacific Jewish Association and president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said there are only about 10 Jews known to live in Papua New Guinea.
But he stressed, “The number is not the issue, the principle is, and the action of the Council of Churches is outrageous.”
The move by the influential Council of Churches came at the group’s annual meeting last month in Port Moresby.
Papua New Guinea’s attorney general, Philoemon Embel, is against enacting such a law and has expressed his support for the right to religious freedom in his country.
In Australia, the Right Rev. Brian Kyme of the Anglican Church in Perth has urged the archbishop of Papua New Guinea to discourage “discrimination against non-Christians and particularly against Jews.”
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