CNA Staff, Apr 23, 2020 / 01:30 pm (CNA).- Iran has sentenced a 21 year-old Christian woman to prison and lashing for “disturbing public order,” after she protested the destruction of a passenger jet by the military.

Mary (Fatemeh) Mohammadi, a 21 year-old Iranian convert to Christianity, was arrested on Jan. 12 after taking part in anti-government protests that followed the shooting down of a passenger jet, Ukrainian Air Flight 752, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG).  Iran announced several days after the incident that the IRG mistakenly shot the plane down, resulting in the deaths of all 176 people on board the flight.

In an Instagram post on Wednesday, Mohammadi said her sentence of three months and one day in prison is suspended for one year. She was also sentenced to 10 lashes.

Mohammadi said she has been tortured in prison and suffered “terrible conditions” for “protesting against the slaughter of human beings.” She said she did not appeal her sentence “because the appeal courts have turned into affirmative tribunals.” 

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) tweeted a condemnation of Mohammadi’s sentencing on Wednesday, saying that “No peaceful activist should be targeted on the basis of their religious beliefs.”

President Trump highlighted her case in his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 6, saying that she “was seized and imprisoned in Iran because she converted to Christianity and shared the Gospel with others.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also discussed Mohammadi’s case in a Feb. 12 interview with Tony Perkins on Washington Watch. Perkins is also the chair of USCIRF.

Pompeo said the U.S. was “deeply concerned” of reports of Mohammadi’s arrest, and said she was “targeted by the regime because she made the choice to convert to Christianity.”

According to the All Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief, Mohammadi was “physically and emotionally abused during her arrest and transfer to Qarchak prison,” and was questioned about her faith at her hearing.

Correction: This article originally stated that Mohammadi was one of a group of survivors of religious persecution who met with President Trump last July at the White House, as reported in the Christian Post. It was a different Iranian Christian, Dabrina Bet Tamraz, who met with Trump, not Mohammadi.

Washington D.C., Apr 24, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) covered up the spread of the new coronavirus within the country, suppressing the real rate of infection and violating the rights of its citizens as it did so, a Chinese human rights activist told a forum at The Catholic University of America on Friday.

“It is time to recognize the threat the Chinese Communist Party poses to all humanity. The CCP represses and manipulates information to strengthen its hold on power, regardless of the toll on human lives,” human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng said April 24 during an online forum on the CCP and the new coronavirus.

The forum was hosted by Faith & Law in partnership with the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America. Guanchen is Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Catholic University’s Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies.

Guangcheng is a blind human rights lawyer from China, who received sanctuary in the U.S. in 2012 after he was targeted by the CCP for his advocacy work. Guangcheng has sharply criticized the party for its human rights abuses, including from its one-child family planning policy.

He was sent to prison and subject to house arrest, during which he claims he and his family were repeatedly beaten and denied medical treatment.

On Friday, the lawyer warned audience members against suggestions that other countries should emulate China’s authoritarian response to the new coronavirus (COVID-19).

There are currently more than 2.7 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the world.

The city of Wuhan is recognized as the epicenter of the global pandemic, and the government on Jan. 23 instituted a strict lockdown in the city of 11 million people. Guangchang cited reports of Chinese families being barricaded inside their own homes, and the group Human Rights Watch compiled stories of residents reportedly dying from lack of access to care during the lockdown.

“Whole families have been found dead in their apartments because they could not get out,” he said, noting that despite the CCP’s claim that it has the virus under control, lockdowns are currently in force in the city of Harbin.

“This is despite the authorities ordering everyone back to work and telling the outside world that they have the virus under control,” Guangcheng said. “The resurgence is directly related to the CCP hiding the truth, and cracking down on people who tried to share information on the virus.”

He also claimed that the CCP has been using the crisis caused by the pandemic to crack down on dissent, detaining human rights activists at separate “so-called quarantine sites.”

The wife of one human rights lawyer—who had just been released from prison told The Guardian that she feared the government was putting her husband under house arrest near where he was imprisoned, 400 kilometers away from her, under the guise of a quarantine.

According to World Health Organization (WHO) statistics, China’s number of COVID-19 cases rose considerably through January and February to 79,389 on Feb. 29 with 2,838 deaths, before its daily increase in case numbers slowed to a trickle in March including just one new reported case on March 22 in the country of more than 1.4 billion people.

Just 3,352 deaths were reported on April 16 before the reported number jumped to 4,642 the next day.

“There is nothing about the CCP’s numbers that are believable,” Guangcheng said. “What people are calculating is that roughly 700,000 may have died in China—in terms of people who have been infected, no one knows the numbers.”

For instance, he said, during the Wuhan lockdown citizen journalists claimed that the situation was far worse than the CCP was reporting; they recorded people collapsing in the streets and hearses and vans carrying body bags at all hours of the day.

“In summary, the CCP is the biggest and most serious virus of all, with over 193,000 people dead worldwide from the coronavirus,” the lawyer said. “There should be no question of the regime’s threat.”

Denver Newsroom, Apr 24, 2020 / 03:32 pm (CNA).- A Catholic lawyer says his arrest last Saturday is part of mainland China’s wide-ranging efforts to tighten control over Hong Kong.

His ordeal follows his participation in months of pro-democracy protests on the island, which have been slowed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Hong Kong police arrested 81-year-old Martin Lee, along with 14 other pro-democracy protestors, on April 18. Lee has been demonstrating for universal suffrage in Hong Kong for nearly 40 years, and this is his first arrest, the Washington Post reports.

CNA spoke with one of Lee’s close friends, who said Lee and those arrested with him are currently bailed out of prison, and are safe.

Lee, the founder of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, wrote in an April 21 column in the Washington Post that he was arrested for taking part in protests last year against an extradition bill— now withdrawn— which would have allowed the Chinese government to extradite alleged criminals from Hong Kong to the mainland to stand trial.

Hong Kong is currently facing two plagues from China, Lee wrote: the coronavirus (COVID-19) and “attacks on our most basic human rights.”

“We can all hope a vaccine is soon developed for the coronavirus. But once Hong Kong’s human rights and rule of law are rolled back, the fatal virus of authoritarian rule will be here to stay,” Lee wrote.

He said that the free press in Hong Kong was vital for alerting the world to the dangers of the coronavirus, even as Chinese state media sought to repress information about the outbreak.

Now, Chinese authorities are attempting to pass legislation to increase their influence over Hong Kong, Lee said.

Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. Hong Kongers enjoy freedom of worship and evangelization, while in mainland China, there is a long history of persecution for Christians who run afoul of the government.

In January, China appointed Luo Huining as the head of the powerful Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong. Luo last week intensified calls for Communist China to exercise more control in Hong Kong by passing “national security legislation.”

The legislation would outlaw “sedition, subversion and the theft of state secrets,” Lee wrote.

This is not the first time the legislation has been introduced— in 2003, widespread protests against the measure led China to withdraw it.

The passing of such a “subversion” law would give China even more power to quash Hong Kongers’ freedoms, Lee warned.

“These vague standards are designed to protect the Chinese Communist Party and undermine core freedoms of Hong Kong, such as freedoms of religion, assembly and the press — including the reporting of pandemics that embarrass Beijing,” he wrote.

The Justice and Peace Commission of the Diocese of Hong Kong released a statement condemning the arrests April 18, calling for an end to all arrests until an independent commission can be established, and for the police to return the mobile phones of all arrested persons in order to ensure their privacy.

The diocese also reiterated that the government must respond to the demands for which the pro-democracy demonstrators have been calling for months, which include an independent inquiry into police tactics.

A Hong Kong friend of Lee, who declined to be identified for safety, said they believe Sun Li Jun— the deputy public security minister for Hong Kong who oversees the Chinese secret police— wanted to send a message of power ahead of Chinese Workers’ Day celebration on May 1.

The friend believes Sun— who is reportedly under investigation by China for corruption— ordered the arrests to show that the authorities have control of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

“As the followers of God, we will keep praying for [Hong Kong] and let our Lord lead the way,” Lee’s friend told CNA.

“In HK we all love China and Chinese people but we are against CCP [Chinese Communist Party] for what they did to all of us now and before.”

An estimated 1 million protesters turned out at the first major pro-democracy demonstration in Hong Kong on June 6, 2019.

Catholics have played a major role in the protests, which continued after the extradition bill was revoked. Protestors largely called for the resignation of chief executive Carrie Lam— herself a Catholic— more open elections in the region, and an investigation into police brutality allegations.

In October, the legislature of Hong Kong completed the process of officially withdrawing the controversial extradition bill.

“Had the extradition bill been passed, we could have faced trial already in China instead of Hong Kong,” Lee noted in his column.

The impetus for the bill was a case involving a young Hong Kong man whom Taiwan requested be extradited for an alleged murder. Hong Kong previously has no formal extradition agreements with mainland China or Taiwan.

Christians and advocates widely opposed the bill, fearing that the Chinese government, which already seeks to control and suppress Christianity on the mainland, would use it to further tighten its grip on free exercise of religion in Hong Kong.

 

CNA Staff, Apr 30, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- As the Chinese government makes progress containing the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities have resumed action to remove crosses from buildings and crackdown on religious practice.

The latest round of enforcement actions have included the removal of crosses from buildings belonging to the state-run churches. According to a report from UCA News, priests say they are cooperating in the removal of exterior crosses in hopes that entire church buildings will not be demolished or converted into a building for secular use.  

According to a parishioner in the Chinese province of Anhui named John, Chinese officials cut down the cross from the top of Our Lady of the Rosary Church on April 18. Our Lady of the Rosary belongs to the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA, the Catholic Church officially sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party and operating both in communion with Rome and under state control. 

The bishops of the CPCA, who were in many cases illicitly consecrated and under official excommunication, were received into full communion with Rome as part of the Vatican’s 2018 provisional agreement with China. The full terms of the China deal were not released to the public but have been reported to include the right of state authorities to propose and veto candidates for the episcopacy in China. 

John, speaking to UCA News, explained that on April 13, the leaders of Our Lady of the Rosary--which does not have a member of the clergy assigned to it, and all religious activities are organized by the laity--asked the city authorities about making repairs to the church building. Three days later, the community director of the city requested keys and access to the church, in order to remove its cross. 

Concerned parishioners went to Bishop Joseph Liux Xinhong of the Diocese of Anhui, who told them to request more information from the local CPCA office. The local CPCA office said they did not know of any plan to remove the cross from the building. 

Xinhong was one of the bishops who had his excommunication lifted and his position recognized by the Vatican following the 2018 provisional deal. 

On April 17, the parish community leader said that he had been given “directions from superiors” regarding removing the cross. The following day, said John, the cross was removed by a “team of young people.”

Elsewhere in the province of Anhui, on April 19 a cross was removed from a church in Suzhou City during pre-dawn hours, presumably to avoid the chance of a crowd protesting its removal. A man from the diocese named Paul told UCA News that the removal had previously been scheduled for the afternoon. 

Paul said that police officers blocked people from entering the church or taking pictures of the removal, and that a cell phone had been confiscated after it captured a picture of the cross coming down. 

In Hefei City, which is also located in the Anhui province, authorities on April 27 took a cross off a building for a Protestant church. 

A priest from the Diocese of Anhui, identified only as “Father Chen,” told UCA News that these sorts of activities are “happening all over the mainland” and are not limited to one diocese or province. 

 “If the churches don’t unite to resist, many more crosses will be removed,” he said.

In September 2017, China enacted strict new regulations concerning religion. Since then, authorities have been vigilant in enforcing permitting requirements. Churches that are not found to be in compliance are destroyed. 

CNA Staff, May 7, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- Cardinal George Pell has expressed his “surprise” at newly released findings of an Australian investigation, which concluded that the cardinal was aware of sexual abuse by clerics in the 1970s and 80s, and failed to act.

In 2017, Australia’s Royal Commission released a report on sexual abuse of minors in the country, the result of a five-year enquiry into the behavior and responsibility of institutions including the Church. Sections of the report relating to Cardinal Pell were redacted until the conclusion of criminal legal proceedings against the cardinal. 

The redacted portions were released May 6.

In the newly available material, the commission found that Pell knew about the abusive activities of two priests during his own years as a priest, and that he failed to act to stop them. 

On Thursday, Pell said through a spokesperson that the commission’s conclusions about him were “not supported by evidence.”

Pell gave evidence to the commission in 2016 via video link from Rome. During his testimony, he denied failing to act against known sexual abusers in the clergy. Pell specifically denied that while he was a priest in Ballarat in the 1970s and 80s, he had any awareness of the actions of then-Father Gerald Ridsdale, a serial abuser from the same diocese.

The Royal Commission concluded that, as a member of Bishop Ronald Mulkearns’ college of priest consulters in the diocese, Pell would have been made aware of allegations of abuse against Ridsdale during discussions about the priest’s transfers between assignments in 1977 and 1982.

But Pell told the commission that he and the other consulters had been deceived by Mulkearns and were unaware of Ridsdale’s crimes until years later.

“The Consultors who gave evidence on the meetings in 1977 and 1982 either said they did not learn of Ridsdale’s offending against children until much later or they had no recollection of what was discussed. None said they were made aware of Ridsdale’s offending at these meetings,” Pell said in a statement released through a spokesperson late Wednesday evening.

In a 2017 statement, Pell said “I would never have condoned or participated in a decision to transfer Ridsdale in the knowledge that he had abused children, and I did not do so.” 

The commission rejected Pell’s testimony, and found that it “ought to have been obvious” why Ridsdale was being transferred from one assignment to another.

“We are satisfied Bishop Mulkearns gave reasons for it being necessary to move Ridsdale. We are satisfied that he referred to homosexuality at the meeting, in the context of giving reasons for Ridsdale’s move,” the report found. “However, we are not satisfied that Bishop Mulkearns left the explanation there, as Cardinal Pell said there would have been a discussion."

“We do not accept that Bishop Mulkearns lied to his consultors.”

The commission did not delineate specific proofs for its conclusion.

The commission also said that Pell would have known about allegations of abuse made against Fr. Peter Searson, who was active as a Melbourne priest during Pell’s time as an auxiliary bishop in the Melbourne archdiocese.

In 1989, Pell held a meeting with representatives from the parish and school in Doveton, where Searson was assigned. During that meeting a number of complaints were made against Searson but, according to Pell, sexual misconduct with children was not raised, and Searson’s removal was not requested.

Following Pell’s installation as Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996, Pell placed Searson on administrative leave and removed him from parish ministry in 1997. Searson died in 2009 and was never charged by police.

A spokesman for Victoria Police, which brought charges against Pell leading to his imprisonment for more than a year before the High Court freed him last month, told the Guardian that the newly released sections of the report would be studied and police would “undertake an assessment of those findings.”

“At this time it would not be appropriate to comment further about any possible action,” The spokesman said.

Current Archbishop of Melbourne Peter Comensoli released his own statement in response to the new material from the commission, in which he repeated his previous apologies “for the failure of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne to responsibly care for and protect our young people and vulnerable adults.”

“Child safety and care is not a project with an end date”, Comensoli said, but a project that “requires life-long vigilance.”

In December 2018, Pell was convicted of five counts of sexual abuse, but was acquitted by the Australian High Court last monthl. Following that decision, the redacted portions of the commission’s findings were released.

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German translation of the BIS press release about the BIS Quarterly Review, September 2017

German translation of the BIS Quarterly Review, September 2017

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German translation of Press Release about BIS General Manager Agustín Carstens giving a speech on "Money in the digital age: what role for central banks?" (6 February 2018)

German translation of the BIS press release about the BIS Quarterly Review, September 2018

German translation of the BIS Quarterly Review, September 2018

German translation of the BIS press release about the BIS Quarterly Review, March 2019

The impact of baseball as an outreach tool is growing far beyond the first teams that began nine years ago in Érd.

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On 11-12 September 2010, Zimbabwe auctioned diamonds from the controversial Marange mines. There was little international condemnation, especially compared to the controversy over the first sale of Marange diamonds in August. Since an export ban was imposed on diamonds from Marangein November 2009, the Kimberley Process has permitted Zimbabwe to hold two auctions, although the country has not been able to guarantee that widespread human rights violations in the mines and smuggling have stopped.

A l’approche de la décision de la SADC, il est important qu’elle porte toute son attention sur les mesures qui permettent de garantir l’équité de traitement entre les protagonistes. Sans modifier le texte de la feuille de route, les autorités ont la possibilité de prouver leur volonté de garantir la neutralité du processus, afin que l’opposition soit libre de faire le choix d’entrer ou non dans cette transition sur une base équilibrée. Le rejet des autorités de ces mesures exposerait leur absence de volonté de voir se dérouler une transition et des élections crédibles. Il démontrerait également leur choix de plonger le pays dans l’instabilité plutôt que d’accepter des mesures qui renforcent la transition. Le refus de l’opposition d’adhérer au processus ne pourrait plus être justifié par un déséquilibre de la solution proposée.

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Hope of Israel summer outreach team experiences opposition in Tiberius. However, it doesn't keep them from worshipping and sharing about Jesus.

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