Baptist Missionaries Face Prison On Kidnapping Charges

Well, this is one way to gain Christian converts...

Ten Baptist evangelicals from Idaho have been arrested and charged with kidnapping for trying to smuggle thirty-three youngsters out of Haiti following last month's earthquake.   (They promised the children's distraught parents they'd have "a better life.")  A judge in Port-Au-Prince ruled today that there was sufficient evidence to file criminal charges against the Americans, who were detained Friday at that country's border with the Dominican Republic.  The missionaries face penalties that could land them in prison on the disaster-stricken Caribbean island.

From Huffington Post:  The Idaho-based church group says it was trying to rescue orphaned and abandoned child victims of the Jan. 12 earthquake, taking them to a better life at an orphanage in the neighboring Dominican Republic.  And parents in the badly damaged village of Callebas said they willingly had handed over children because they were unable to feed or clothe the youngsters...  The stories the parents told The Associated Press on Wednesday contradict claims by the Baptist group's leader that the children came from orphanages or were handed over by distant relatives.  (Churchgoers kidnapping kids and then lying about it?  Nooo.) ... Jorge Puello, the group's lawyer, said Wednesday by phone from the Dominican Republic that the missionaries "willingly accepted kids they knew were not orphans because the parents said they would starve otherwise."  Prime Minister Max Bellerive has suggested the Americans could be prosecuted in the United States because Haiti's shattered court system may not be able to cope with a trial.  In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the attempt to bring undocumented children out of Haiti was "unfortunate whatever the motivation" and the Americans should have followed proper procedures...  A Haitian-born pastor who said he worked as an unpaid consultant for the group insisted the Baptists had done nothing wrong.  The Rev. Jean Sainvil said some of the children were orphans and might have been put up for adoption.

From the Austin-American Statesman:  (U)nder Haiti's legal system, there will not be an open trial, but a judge will consider the evidence and could render a verdict in about three months...  Each kidnapping count carries a possible sentence of five to 15 years in prison.  Each criminal association count has a potential sentence of three to nine years.

I'm curious who funded these evangelicals.  Who payed for their airfare?  (One of the missionaries, Laura Silsby, left a trail of debt in Idaho.)  Do you suppose God told them to break the law?  Although at this point there's no indication that the group's intentions were dishonorable, the incident highlights the gross arrogance of the fundamentalist mindset:  "The laws of man don't apply to us. We answer only to a Higher Power." 

The right-wing blogosphere is going to have a field day with this. You can expect the Christian persecution choir to start singing in three... two... one...