These articles were first published in our July edition of the newspaper, click here for more.
The Australian state of Tasmania rejected a Bill to legalise euthanasia in May.
The legislation was defeated by 16 votes to eight in the lower house of the Tasmanian Parliament. It marks the third time in ten years that a euthanasia Bill has been defeated in the state.
A pro-euthanasia campaigner nicknamed ‘Dr Death’ is selling suicide kits disguised as home brewing equipment, it was revealed in May.
Australian Dr Philip Nitschke sells the kit for around £250 on his website. While the equipment can also be used for brewing beer, Nitschke has provided specific instructions on how a person can use it to commit suicide.
At the start of Ramadan in late May, 29 Egyptian Christians were murdered and a further 22 injured as they travelled to a monastery.
Men were taken off the buses, their identity cards checked to see that they were Christians and then told to recite the Islamic shahada indicating that they were converting to Islam. All refused to renounce their Christian faith. Ramadan is a time when jihadists believe they will be granted military victories and receive extra rewards in paradise if they are killed.
The FM church in La Brie is organising a residential camp for 11–14 year olds called CampFun’Ados in July and are looking for support.
A small team is required to run enjoyable English-language learning activities (1½ hours per day) and spend the rest of the time building relationships with the young people alongside the French leaders. Volunteers would need to contribute 400 euros each to cover food, lodging and return transport from Paris to the residential centre.
Persian Christian TV-channel SAT-7 PARS began broadcasting in the Spring on Yahsat, one of the most viewed satellite platforms in Iran, potentially doubling its current audience.
Yahsat has attracted an estimated 10 million viewing households in the country. ‘This has been our dream for several years, as Yahsat is an increasingly popular satellite with Iranians and it will enable us to interact with a whole new audience in Iran and other parts of Central Asia,’ said SAT-7 PARS Senior Manager Panayiotis Keenan.
Two Baghdad civil servants who forged documents to sell the houses of refugee Christians were arrested, it was reported in late May.
The men created false property documentation to market homes vacated by Christians who had fled the country as a result of the wave of anti-Christian violence since 2003. The police investigation uncovered 160 pre-prepared false documents, which were planned to be used in further fraudulent sales.
The Binyamin Medical Centre (BMC) was opened in May, the first of its kind as it will treat both Israelis and Palestinians.
The BMC will address an unmet need for medical care for over 75,000 Israelis living in 45 communities in the Binyamin region, and for tens of thousands of Arab residents in the area. It will provide life-saving emergency medical services along with primary care and a range of medical speciality services.
Al Shabaab militants are suspected of the killing of two people, in a gun attack in north-eastern Kenya on 12 May.
Five suspected rebels targeted non-Muslim quarry workers in El Wak, near the Somali border in Kenya’s North Eastern Province, in the early morning at the workers’ company-owned quarter. Dalama Otieno, a member of an area East African Pentecostal Church congregation, died from gunshot wounds to the head. A witness heard them shout ‘Allah Akbar [God is Greater]’ before they shot the men.
On 17 May a humanitarian fund stepped up a call for more money, stating that ‘the number of people close to sliding from emergency to disaster is perilously high’ in north-eastern Nigeria.
3.8 million people have no access to safe water. 75% of water and sanitation infrastructure in conflict-affected areas has been damaged or destroyed. One third of the 700 health facilities in the hardest-hit state of Borno have been completely destroyed and a similar number are non-functional.
A Christian worker in a Lahore hospital reported that non-Muslim staff have been forced to recite from the Qur’an, or be marked absent from work, it was reported in May.
The Christian paramedic was physically assaulted by the hospital’s Superintendent when he refused to attend the morning gathering, where staff have been compelled to quote verses from the Qur’an. Police have conducted an inquiry into the incident and evidence has been referred to the Punjab Health Department. An anonymous source in the hospital said extremism like this was ‘nothing new’.
A 69-year-old man accused of blasphemy successfully gained bail in mid-May.
Masih was arrested after a letter containing blasphemous messages was pinned to the door of a mosque in his home village. Masih insists he is innocent of the crime and believes that any language expert could recognise that the writing was not his. Police have chosen to ignore mitigating evidence, preferring to heed Muslim witnesses who attested to the crime. In shari’a law a Christian witness cannot testify against a Muslim.
On 11 May, a bishop and his wife were arrested without a warrant.
The allegations surround possession of firearms and ammunition, which is disputed. Lawyers were not present at the police station. Local church-goers are bringing food and clean clothes to the bishop and his party.
Islamist militants burned a church and took Christians hostage in Marawi, a city on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines, on 23 May.
100 or so armed men launched the assault causing thousands of residents to flee. A local Christian leader said that the Islamists seized a pastor, ten worshippers and three church workers, and threatened to kill them unless the government withdraws its security forces. There are also reports that a policemen was beheaded by Islamists.
A day after being denied refugee status in Thailand by the UNHCR, Pakistani Christian Ijaz Tariq died in Bangkok’s Immigration Detention Centre (IDC) from a heart attack, it was reported in May.
It is claimed Ijaz was denied refugee status due to Sunni Muslim Pakistani translators hired by UNHCR who wrongly interpret Pakistani Christian asylum-seekers during interviews.
On 12 May, a Christian printer who declined to make shirts for a US gay pride event won a court case against his refusal to print them.
Blaine Adamson said he’d be happy to serve LGBT individuals as long as the shirts they ordered didn’t directly promote their sexuality, saying the message conflicted with his ‘sincerely held religious beliefs’. The lesbian owners of another T-shirt company said: ‘No one really should be forced to do something against what they believe in’.
A Bill protecting the rights of Christian adoption agencies in Alabama was signed into law in late May.
The Bill states that adoption agencies that do not receive federal funding cannot lose their license for adhering to faith-based policies. It was criticised by homosexual rights campaigners who said it discriminates against and stigmatises gay couples, but it was noted that secular agencies, who handle the majority of adoptions, still allow gay adoptions to take place.
Remarkable techniques have been reported in May – using adult stem cells to treat burn victims and stem cells made into a ‘plaster’ to help victims of heart failure.
Taking a sample of skin stem cells and spraying them onto a victim’s burn caused new layers of skin to form over the burn, potentially healing even severe burns within weeks. Scientists released findings showing that synthetic cardiac stem cells could be used to treat patients who had suffered a heart attack, by repairing the heart muscle damage.
A video exposing the atrocities committed by US abortion giant Planned Parenthood has been removed from YouTube after a judge, in May, granted an injunction to prevent the release of the footage. [see p.26]
In the video, abortionists can be heard laughing about ‘the heads that get stuck’ during abortions and harvesting the brains of children. The filmmakers have been ordered to appear in court.
A farmer who wrote on his company’s Facebook page in May that marriage ‘is the union of one man and one woman’ as he advertised his company reception services, was banned by officials from the city’s farmers’ market.
His Facebook post was a violation of a city ordinance against discrimination and he is no longer welcome at the market. He has now filed a lawsuit against the city for religious discrimination.