24 Jan 2006

Faith healers urged not to promise Fiji people the impossible

2:08 pm on 24 January 2006

A leading advocate for disabled people in Fiji says so-called faith healers should not lead disabled people to believe they will be cured.

Critics of a three-day so-called Miracle Crusade to Fiji by the American Christian preacher, Benny Hinn, say the seeming miraculous cures he performed there were a sham.

They say the show was stage-managed and Mr Hinn's minders brought only carefully-selected people to be cured by him.

The president of the Disabled People's Association, Angeline Chand says about 30 disabled people attended each of the crusade's sessions but no-one was healed.

"There shouldn't be false assurances from people that you have a disability it's going to be healed. Because we've seen from the crusade that people who have said they have been healed if they've had long pain and so on. But there's no-one like someone who had a spinal injury or someone who was blind and was able to see."

Angeline Chand says media reports that the group of disabled people were turned away from the crusade are incorrect.

But she says one man with impaired vision was prevented from getting on stage to make contact with Mr Hinn, by the preacher's minders.