Eritrea frames mischief by law.

 Persecution of Eritrean Jehovah’s Witnesses condemned by human rights experts

RNS

Kathryn Post

November 7, 2024

(RNS) — Thirty years after Eritrea revoked the citizenship of Jehovah’s Witnesses, international human rights experts are condemning the nation’s persecution of the religious group and advocating for the release of wrongfully detained prisoners.

“As of the latest information available, 64 Jehovah’s Witness worshippers remain in detention for exercising their faith,” Mohamed Babiker, a United Nations expert on Eritrea’s observance of human rights, reported to the body’s committee on social, humanitarian and cultural issues on Oct. 30. “Just last month, 25 Jehovah’s Witnesses, including two children, were arrested. While the two minors were later released, the 23 adults were reportedly transported to Mai Serwa prison.” 

The September raid, the first major action against Jehovah’s Witnesses in Eritrea since 2014, broke up a worship service at the home of Letebrhan Tesfay, 85, one of the first Eritreans to become a Jehovah’s Witness, according to Jarrod Lopes, a U.S. spokesperson for the group.

Tesfay, who was among those arrested, “outlasted the oppression under Emperor Haile Selassie and is poised to do the same again,” Lopes said in an email. “Witnesses currently facing ruthless persecution for their faith share the same determination, hope, and inner peace as the Witnesses who proved faithful before them.”

Those imprisoned in the raid have not been formally charged, tried or sentenced, a Jehovah’s Witnesses report alleged. In a 2023 report, the U.S. State Department said Eritrean prisoners commonly face “harsh” and “life threatening” prison conditions. n light of the arrests, human rights experts have chosen to speak up as the anniversary of the denial of citizenship approached. On Oct. 25, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom shared statements from two of its commissioners on X.

“We are concerned for Jehovah’s Witnesses in #Eritrea, particularly those who are imprisoned, many of whom have been held unjustly for decades under horrific conditions,” said a statement attributed to Commissioner Vicky Hartzler. “@StateDept should continue to work for their release, freedom, and citizenship.”Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose beliefs don’t allow them to participate in the military, refused to be recruits in the Eritrean War of Independence between the Ethiopian government and separatists from 1961 to 1991. While Jehovah’s Witnesses characterized their lack of participation as political neutrality, not opposition to Eritrean independence, the Eritrean government responded by stripping Jehovah’s Witnesses of their citizenship. Since then, 270 Jehovah’s Witnesses have been imprisoned in Eritrea, according to the faith group.Many Jehovah’s Witnesses in Eritrea are effectively barred from holding government jobs, receiving government benefits and accessing bank accounts. The lack of official documents also prevents many Jehovah’s Witnesses from owning property, finding employment or leaving the country. Worship must also be conducted in secret.

They aren’t the only faith group facing opposition in Eritrea. In addition to the more than 60 Jehovah’s Witnesses being held, hundreds of other Christians are being arbitrarily imprisoned, according to Babiker.

“I urge the Eritrean government to take bold and comprehensive action to address the human rights situation in the country,” said Babiker at the U.N. committee meeting. “Meaningful and genuine reforms can only set Eritrea on a path toward a society where human rights are upheld and fulfilled.”

As cloak and dagger as it gets II

 

Norway backs away from the brink(for now)

 Court of Appeal Unanimously Overturns Unconstitutional Ruling in Norway

JW.org

On March 14, 2025, the Borgarting Court of Appeal unanimously overturned the Oslo District Court’s decision to revoke the legal registration of JEHOVAH’S Witnesses in Norway. The Borgarting Court of Appeal also awarded our brothers 8,500,000 kroner ($806,833 U.S.) in compensation for legal costs incurred during both trials.

In 2022, the County Governor of Oslo and Viken revoked our registration, thereby blocking us from receiving State subsidies that more than 700 registered religious communities in Norway benefit from. The State based its decision on the assertion that we should change our Scriptural practice of removing unrepentant wrongdoers from the congregation. After the Oslo District Court upheld the government’s decision in March 2024, JEHOVAH’S Witnesses in Norway appealed. This latest decision overturns the lower court’s unconstitutional rulings. The State may still appeal this decision to the country’s Supreme Court.

                      During the appeal process, a panel of three judges thoroughly examined our religious practices and Bible-based teachings. In direct contradiction to the State’s claims, the Court of Appeal determined that limiting contact with an unrepentant wrongdoer who has been removed from the congregation is not a violation of his rights. In situations where an unrepentant baptized minor is removed from the congregation, the court ruled that it “does not constitute psychological violence.”

The court concluded that “JEHOVAH’S ’s Witnesses have been fully vindicated in that the decisions to deny grants and registration are invalid.”

                      We are pleased by the Court of Appeal’s decision in Norway, for which we give all thanks and praise to JEHOVAH.

The great floating plastic Island demystified?

 

Why asymetric warfare is not favoring palestinian nationalists.

 

Agreeing to redraw the map?

 

The Russian church has gone off the rails II

 

The Russian church has gone off the rails?

 

Sanction proofed? II

 

Yet another house divided?

 

Catholicism's civil war rages on?

 How Catholics Celebrate Pride: Jesuit Pastor Defends Pride Mass Against Protests

New Ways Ministries

So much negative news regarding Pride seems to have arisen this year. For this final week of Pride Month, we are instead highlighting, in a series of posts titled “How Catholics Celebrate Pride,” all the good ways that the people of God are celebrating queerness and advocating for equality. Some of the content will be highly visible news events. Other bits will be the more local, somewhat quieter, but no less significant actions of pro-LGBTQ+ Catholics in their parishes, schools, and communities.

At Holy Trinity Church in Washington, D.C., the pastor, Fr. Kevin Gillespie, SJ, affirmed the parish’s commitment to its LGBTQ+ ministry after right-wing activists tried to have its 3rd annual LGBTQIA+ Pride Mass cancelled. Gillespie issued a brief statement:

“This celebration is an expression of our parish’s mission statement TO ACCOMPANY ONE ANOTHER IN CHRIST, CELEBRATE GOD’S LOVE, AND TRANSFORM LIVES. Our LGBTQIA+ ministry is a response to the Holy Father’s call to go out to the margins. Our celebration of Pride is not celebrating personal vanity, but the human dignity of a group of people who have been for too long the objects of violence, bullying and harassment. Our parish reaches out to LGBTQIA+ people as it reaches out to all Catholics in our area.”

The Pride Mass was celebrated as scheduled on June 14 with more than 250 people joining in person, uninterrupted by the small group of protestors gathered outside the church. Petula Dvorak, a columnist for The Washington Post, wrote about attending the Mass and conversing with some of the queer faithful there. Dvorak told the story of Joseph Chee

             “Chee, who went to Catholic school, who studied Carmelite theology, who belonged to conservative political groups and who knew for a good part of his 30 years that he was gay, had spent years searching for his place in the world and in a church that didn’t seem to want him.

“‘I felt very alienated from all the communities that I had,’ he said. ‘I felt deeply convinced that I wasn’t supposed to leave the church, you know? But I was like, “Where is my place?”‘

“But under the leadership of Pope Francis, who last year publicly rejected judgment of gay people, Chee sensed an opening.”

Dvorak spoke to longtime parishioners and newer ones at Holy Trinity. Cerissa Cafasso, a bisexual Catholic, explained: “[At this parish] I can be myself, my full person, with no throat clearing.” Dvorak also reported:

“‘It’s ridiculous,’ said a gay man who traveled about five hours to walk up those steps of Holy Trinity, to sit in a pew and to — finally — exhale.

“He’s in his 30s, lives in a conservative town in Pennsylvania, works at very conservative organization and is only out to his family. He asked me several times to preserve his anonymity in our interview.

“Deeply Catholic, he kept trying to go to church, knowing what he knows about himself, about what those in the pews next to him think of him. ‘I wouldn’t feel welcome,’ he said.

“Ever since he accidentally found Holy Trinity’s online Mass during the pandemic (he said his mouse bumped a tab and opened the link, he called it a ‘God sighting’) he’s been attending their services, online, then in person, making that drive. Five hours each way, as often as he can.

“His mom came with him on Wednesday, and they knelt together.”

A growing number of parishes have held Pride Masses in recent years, like New York City’s Church of St. Paul the Apostle, run by the Paulist Fathers. Once again, its LGBTQ+ group, Out at St. Paul, planned to hold a Mass near The Stonewall Inn in New York City, where, in 1969, riots against police raids led to the launch of the modern gay rights movement. (Due to the park’s closure, the Pride Mass ended up being celebrated at the church.) Michael O’Loughlin reported about other parish celebrations in America:

              “A parish in Hoboken, N.J., Our Lady of Grace and St. Joseph, will host a Pride Mass on June 25. In Seattle, Wash., St. Joseph Parish was scheduled to host a pride picnic on June 11, following the Saturday afternoon Mass, an event which has previously drawn scrutiny from conservative media. An art installation celebrating Pride is present again at Historic St. Paul Catholic Church in Lexington, Ky., which is intended to serve as a signal that the parish is welcoming to L.G.B.T. Catholics and their families. . .

“Meredith Augustin has helped plan the ‘Pre-Pride Mass,’ held the afternoon before the New York City’s pride parade, at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Manhattan since its inception about a dozen years ago. The parish’s director of pastoral music and staff liaison to its L.G.B.T. ministry, Ms. Augustin said that in previous years, the Mass had attracted protesters, but the parish never considered canceling it. . .

“In Chicago, St. Teresa of Avila Parish has marked Pride for several years, the Rev. Frank Latzko told America.The pastor said that he tries to keep messages of solidarity and acceptance in his sermons all year, but the weekend of Chicago’s Pride parade, which attracts about a million spectators, counts as a special celebration.

“While there is not a special ‘Pride Mass,’ many parishioners attend Sunday Mass, at which Father Latzko delivers a topical homily, before making the walk over to the parade.”

—Robert Shine (he/him), New Ways Ministry, June 26, 2023

The tab has to be paid some at some point.

It's finally happened

 Utah district bans Bible in elementary and middle schools

Associated press

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Good Book is being treated like a bad book in Utah after a parent frustrated by efforts to ban materials from schools convinced a suburban district that some Bible verses were too vulgar or violent for younger children.

And the Book of Mormon could be next.

The 72,000-student Davis School District north of Salt Lake City removed the Bible from its elementary and middle schools while keeping it in high schools after a committee reviewed the scripture in response to a parental complaint. The district has removed other titles, including Sherman Alexie’s “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” and John Green’s “Looking for Alaska,” following a 2022 state law requiring districts to include parents in decisions over what constitutes “sensitive material.”

On Friday, a complaint was submitted about the signature scripture of the predominant faith in Utah, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church. District spokesperson Chris Williams confirmed that someone filed a review request for the Book of Mormon but would not say what reasons were listed. He also would not say whether it was from the same person who complained about the Bible, citing a school board privacy policy.

Representatives for the church declined to comment on the challenge. Members of the faith also read the Bible.

Williams said the district doesn’t differentiate between requests to review books and doesn’t consider whether complaints may be submitted as satire. The reviews are handled by a committee of made up of teachers, parents and administrators in the largely conservative community. The committee published its decision in an online database of review requests and did not elaborate on its reasoning or which passages of the Bible it found overly violent or vulgar.

The decision comes as conservative parent activists, including state-based chapters of the group Parents United, descend on school boards and statehouses throughout the United States, sowing alarm about how sex and violence are talked about in schools.

It’s unknown, however, who made the request for the Bible to be banned from Davis schools or if they are affiliated with any larger group because of the district’s privacy policy.

A copy of the complaint obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune through a public records request shows that the parent noted the Bible contains instances of incest, prostitution and rape. The complaint derided a “bad faith process” and said the district was “ceding our children’s education, First Amendment Rights, and library access” to Parents United.

“Utah Parents United left off one of the most sex-ridden books around: The Bible,” the parent’s complaint, dated Dec. 11, said. It later went on to add, “You’ll no doubt find that the Bible (under state law) has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition.”

The review committee determined the Bible didn’t qualify under Utah’s definition of what’s pornographic or indecent, which is why it remains in high schools, Williams said. The committee can make its own decisions under the new 2022 state law and has applied different standards based on students’ ages in response to multiple challenges, he said.

An unnamed party filed an appeal on Wednesday.

The Bible has long found itself on the American Library Association’s list of most challenged books and was temporarily pulled off shelves last year in school districts in Texas and Missouri.

Concerns about new policies potentially ensnaring the Bible have routinely arisen in statehouses during debates over efforts to expand book banning procedures. That includes Arkansas — one of the states that enacted a law this year that would subject librarians to criminal penalties for providing “harmful” materials to minors, and creates a new process for the public to request materials be relocated in libraries.

“I don’t want people to be able to say, ‘I don’t want the Bible in the library,” Arkansas Democratic state Sen. Linda Chesterfield said during a hearing.

Parents who have pushed for more say in their children’s education and the curriculum and materials available in schools have argued that they should control how their children are taught about matters like gender, sexuality and race.

EveryLibrary, a national political action committee, told The Associated Press last month it was tracking at least 121 different proposals introduced in legislatures this year targeting libraries, librarians, educators and access to materials. The number of attempts to ban or restrict books across the U.S. last year was the highest in the 20 years, according to the American Library Association.

“If folks are outraged about the Bible being banned, they should be outraged about all the books that are being censored in our public schools,” said Kasey Meehan, who directs the Freedom to Read program at the writers’ organization PEN America.

The kingdom of which God?

 New Chinese Catholic leaders say they'll follow Communist Party principles 

BEIJING (CNS) -- Two state-sponsored church bodies in China have elected new leaders, who promised to invigorate the Catholic faithful pastorally in line with the socialist principles of the Chinese Communist Party.

The three-day 10th National Congress of Catholicism in China ended in Wuhan, the capital of Hebei province in central China, Aug. 20. The national conference is held every five years, and senior Communist Party officials also attended the gathering and delivered speeches, reported ucanews.com.

The delegates unanimously accepted the work report of the Ninth Standing Committee on church efforts and activities in the promotion of patriotism, socialism, and sinicization in the Catholic Church as outlined by President Xi Jinping. 

Sinicization is a political ideology that aims to impose strict rules on societies and institutions based on the core values of socialism, autonomy, and supporting the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, reported ucanews.com.

More than 300 Catholic bishops, clergy, and religious from across China elected new leaders of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the Bishops' Conference of the Catholic Church in China, said a report on the bishops' website.

Archbishop Joseph Li Shan of Beijing was elected chairman of the patriotic association, and Bishop Joseph Shen Bin of Haimen was elected chairman of the government-approved bishops' conference. 

The new leaders issued a statement to commit themselves to engaging priests, religious, and laypeople across the country for pastoral evangelization and further promotion of sinicization for "truth, pragmatism and inspiration" to move ahead toward a "bright future."

The new leaders' statement also highlighted the need for the Catholic Church to implement the spirit of the National Conference on Religious Affairs held last December and fulfill the requirement of the Communist Party's Central Committee for the Catholic Church in China. During that conference Dec. 3-4, Xi stressed the strict implementation of Marxist policies, increased online surveillance and tightening control of religion to ensure national security.

The bishops said it was "necessary to unite and lead the priests, elders and faithful to follow Xi Jinping's thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a 'new era'; continue to hold high patriotism and love for religion; (and) adhere to the principles of independent and self-run churches," the bishops' statement said.

The church leaders said they find it is important to adhere to the direction of sinicization of Catholicism in China to "vigorously strengthen the building of patriotic forces" to realize "the dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation."

Following the communist takeover in 1949, China severed diplomatic ties with the Vatican.

The communist government formed the Catholic Patriotic Association in 1957 to assert control over the Catholic Church. It initially did not accept papal authority over the Chinese Catholic Church.

For years, the appointment of bishops remained a bone of contention between the Chinese government and the Vatican, with Beijing appointing and consecrating bishops without a Vatican mandate. Although it has ordained many bishops "elected" without papal approval, the Chinese church has kept alive the line of apostolic succession by having validly ordained bishops serve as consecrators.

China has about 12 million Catholics split between those who leaders have joined the patriotic association and those who refuse, say independent researchers. 

In 2018, the Vatican signed a provisional agreement with China for two years over the appointment of bishops; the agreement was renewed for another two years in 2020. The provisions of the agreement have not been made public.

The Vatican reportedly seeks to unite Catholics with the deal, which gives the Vatican a say to accept or veto bishops selected by Beijing.

On the propaganda industrial complex?

The beast stirs?

 Zelenskiy: Ukraine seeks 'spiritual independence', acts against church

Reuters

March 12 (Reuters) - Ukraine's punitive actions against a branch of the Orthodox church linked to Russia are part of a drive to achieve "spiritual independence," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday.

Zelenskiy and other Ukrainian leaders have accused the long-established Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of undermining Ukrainian unity and collaborating with Moscow.

Authorities ordered the church last Friday to leave its base in the 980-year-old Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, prompting Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill to ask Pope Francis and other religious leaders to help stop the crackdown.

                      "One more step towards strengthening our spiritual independence was taken this week," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address, without referring directly to the order.

Ukrainians, he said, had reacted positively.

"We will continue this movement," he said. "We will not allow the terrorist state any opportunity to manipulate the spiritual life of our people, to destroy Ukrainian shrines - our Lavras - or to steal values from them."

           Kirill has strongly supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In his appeal, he urged religious leaders and international organisations to "make every effort to prevent the forced closure of the monastery".

The Security Service of Ukraine has since October carried out searches at UOC churches, imposed sanctions on its bishops and financial backers, and opened criminal cases against dozens of clergymen.

                     Kirill has strongly supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In his appeal, he urged religious leaders and international organisations to "make every effort to prevent the forced closure of the monastery".

The Security Service of Ukraine has since October carried out searches at UOC churches, imposed sanctions on its bishops and financial backers, and opened criminal cases against dozens of clergymen.

                   Church officials say it and its millions of worshippers are victims of a witch-hunt.

Orthodoxy is the primary faith in Ukraine and the Moscow-linked church has been in competition for worshippers with an independent Orthodox Church, founded after the Soviet collapse in 1991 but only recognised by church hierarchy in 2018.

The independent church has been gaining in size and following since the invasion.

The Ukrainian culture ministry says the Moscow-linked church has until March 29 to leave the Pechersk Lavra monastery complex.

Ps. The Russian Church is complicit in the stripping of the rights of JEHOVAH'S servants in Russia so this could be viewed as a reaping of what they've sown.

 Welcome to our world.

     

Unthinkable no more?

Harvesting Clones to Live Forever Would Be Monstrous

Wesley J Smith  

Transhumanists believe that technology will allow them to live forever — or, at least, indefinitely — in the corporeal world. One scheme by which they think they might accomplish this goal is to create clones of themselves and then scavenge those clones’ bodies for parts to be transplanted. 

This idea was just featured in the Daily Mail 

Regardless of the huge strides scientists have made towards reaching the elusive goal, immortality remains a pipedream. But one researcher in the anti-ageing field believe we could get there — or at least extend human lives beyond the current biological boundaries — without any miracle pill or injection.

Dr Alex Zhavoronkov, head of biotech company Insilico Medicine, says human clones could offer the answer to eternal life. Theoretically, the sci-fi concept of growing bodies in labs would provide people with ‘spare’ vital organs when theirs begin to fail in order to extend their life.

Be Very Clear 

This proposal is not only immoral, it is monstrous. Why? Human cloning would create human beings asexually, meaning cloning for body parts would be to create slaves and treat them merely as harvestable crops.

The somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) technique being discussed in the story is the same process that made Dolly the sheep. This is how it is done: An egg cell’s nucleus is removed. Next, the nucleus of the person to be cloned is removed from a skin cell and placed where the egg’s nucleus used to be. The modified egg would then be stimulated and, if the cloning “took,” a new human embryo would come into being. (This has already been accomplished in humans, although the resulting embryos were destroyed after two weeks.)

From that point, it would develop in the same way as an embryo that comes into existence through fertilization does. In other words, the clone of the person seeking to live forever would be fully human. Adding to the immorality, these clones would presumably be gestated in artificial wombs — which would require repeated experimentation on living human embryos and fetuses to perfect.

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

This dystopian proposal has already been depicted in several science-fiction novels and films. Indeed, it almost perfectly mimics a plot point in the Dune novels, in which women are rendered permanently unconscious so that their uteruses can be used as “Axlotl tanks” for gestating. Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov, head of Insilico Medicine and the subject of the Daily Mail article, says:

Cloning, in my opinion, is the only way to make a dramatic leap in life extension and turn longevity into an engineering problem.” Scientists would need to develop a way of successfully cloning humans and disabling their cognitive functions so they could only be used for organs, he noted.

Of course, Zhavoronkov’s lab is in China — the land where medical and other ethics might go to die.

On the slowing of the earth's core.

Well past the slippery slope?

Suicide Tourism Comes to Oregon

Wesley Smith  

Assisted-suicide activists always promise that strict guidelines will protect against abuse. It’s a big con. The guidelines are not really strict. They rely primarily on self-reporting. And they are meant to be temporary: As soon as political conditions permit, the access to doctor-prescribed death expands.

Witness Oregon. When Measure 16 passed, assisted suicide was limited to state residents. That requirement was recently deemed inoperative by the state’s ever-flaccid suicide regulators after a Lawsuit was settled and is expected to soon be repealed.

Opening the Floodgate

That threatens to open a floodgate and transform Oregon into the U.S. equivalent of Switzerland, where suicide clinics flourish. Already, people from out of state who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness — something very loosely defined — are traveling to Oregon to find a death doctor willing to help make themselves dead in just over two weeks. From the daily mail story :

Oregon has become America’s first ‘death tourism’ destination, where terminally ill people from Texas and other states that have outlawed assisted suicide have started travelling to get their hands on a deadly cocktail of drugs to end their lives, DailyMail.com can reveal.

In the liberal bastion Portland, at least one clinic has started receiving out-of-staters who have less than six months to live and meet the other strict requirements of the state’s Death with Dignity (DWD) law.

Dr Nicholas Gideonse, the director of End of Life Choices Oregon, recently told a panel that he was advising terminally ill non-residents on travelling to Oregon to end their lives, despite a legal gray area.

Remember, suicidal people who qualify for assisted suicide are not usually offered prevention, meaning some suicidal people receive efforts to save their lives while others are abandoned to facilitation.

Activists also promised that assisted suicide would only occur in the context of a close doctor/patient relationship. But Oregon permits doctor-shopping. If one doctor says no, suicidal patients can merely ask an advocacy group to recommend an ideologically predisposed doctor willing to prescribe death. And suicide prescribers don’t even need to practice in the specialty that treats the patient’s underlying medical condition.

Meanwhile, in Other States

Other states are also loosening “strict guidelines.” For example, Vermont permits virtual assisted suicide, meaning the consultation can be over Zoom or Skype. California has attempted to compel doctors to participate in the assisted-suicide process — after promising MDs, in order to get the law passed, that they would not have to do any of that. The new anti-conscience law is on hold after a lawsuit. Other states where assisted suicide has been legalized have similarly loosened waiting times and procedures.

The ultimate goal — or, at least, the consequence — of allowing assisted suicide/euthanasia is death on demand. Some jurisdictions are getting there faster — Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Canada — and some slower, such as Oregon, Vermont, California, and Colorado. But that tide only flows in one direction.

What is a woman? Well don't ask the red cross.