He slammed the Pope's call last week for the global community to study whether Israel's military campaign in Gaza constituted genocide of the Palestinian people.

The G word

The Pope's views are included in his new book "Hope Never Disappoints. Pilgrims Towards a Better World".

It it, he says "according to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of genocide". This statement and other extracts were published on Sunday in Italy's La Stampa daily newspaper.

The book is scheduled to be published today.

As Francis has often expressed disquiet over the Israel-Palestine war and the impact of its victims, it's perhaps to be expected that his book would include comments such as these.

He has often given his views about the Israel-Palestine war, so his forthright comments in the book are not surprising.

In September for example, he said "Israel's attacks in Gaza and Lebanon are immoral and disproportionate", adding that the Israeli army had gone beyond the rules of war.

Some sorry facts

The Israeli occupation army aggression against the besieged Gaza Strip has wrought immense destruction:

• Some 148,000 Palestinian people are dead or wounded
• Most victims are children and women
• There are over 10,000 missing people
• Famine has killed dozens of children and elderly people

The Middle East Monitor says the situation in Gaza is being described as one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.

Netanyahu charged with war crimes

The Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin supported the Pope's comments about Gaza.

While he was at the Pope's book launch, Parolin told media "The Pope has expressed the position of the Holy See, which is that these matters must be thoroughly studied because there are technical criteria for defining the concept of genocide".

He did not comment about the International Criminal Court's decision to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on charges of war crimes in Gaza.

Source

• Middle East Monitor
• Vatican News

The Pope can't call Gaza a genocide. It isn't, insists Bruck - a 93-year old Holocaust survivor.

"Genocide is something else. When a million children are burned to death, then you can talk about genocide" Bruck told Italian media.

What the Pope said about Gaza

The Pope's comments about Gaza came in recently published extracts from a new book devoted to the Jubilee Year of 2025, titled Hope Never Disappoints: Pilgrims Towards a Better World.

"According to some experts, what's happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide" Francis wrote. "Attentive investigation is needed to determine if it fits the technical definition formulated by jurists and international organisms."

Bruck says Francis uses the term genocide "too easily".

Doing so, she said "diminishes the gravity of true genocide… genocide is what happened to the Armenians. Genocide is the million children burned in the ovens of Auschwitz, along with five million other Jews also burned in the concentration camps".

For genocide to be happening, Israel would have to have the extermination of the Palestinian population on its agenda. But while the bloodshed in Gaza is a "tragedy that concerns everyone", extermination is not Israel's intention.

In fact, Hamas is the only party to the conflict that has spoken of genocide and has vowed to destroy the Jewish people throughout the world, she said.

What the Pope should say

In Bruck's view, Francis should be more outspoken against what she called a "tsunami" of anti-Semitism washing across Europe.

"I'd like the Pope to raise his voice on the subject, but I don't hear it the way I would like" she said.

Bruck, who once received Pope Francis in her Rome apartment and later wrote a book about the experience - to which Francis contributed the foreword, said she'd tell him what she thinks when he phones her for her birthday, as he has done since they met.

"I'll tell him that I'd like him to intervene decisively against this hatred that's broken out again against the Jews" she said.

In her recent interview, Bruck said she thinks Francis is afraid of the current rise in anti-Semitism.

She says she's saddened, demoralised, disgusted, scandalised and indignant. "I'm truly living a very ugly moment. Anti-Semitism, like fascism, is never dead. It's millennia old and I believe it will never end".

Holocaust survivor

Bruck is a Hungarian-born Jew. She survived the Auschwitz, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps which swallowed both her parents and an older brother .

Bruck, together with a surviving brother and a sister, was liberated by the Allies at Bergen-Belsen in 1945.

Source

• Crux

The pope's remarks are prominently featured in his new book "Hope Never Disappoints. Pilgrims Towards a Better World", which is set for release ahead of the 2025 Jubilee Year.

"According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of genocide" he wrote in extracts published on Sunday in Italy's La Stampa daily.

"This should be studied carefully to determine whether (the situation) corresponds to the technical definition formulated by jurists and international organisations."

The pontiff highlights the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where Palestinians face starvation and a blockade on essential aid. Writing about the broader Middle East, he emphasises the plight of those fleeing conflict, particularly from Gaza, which he describes as suffering "famine" and systematic deprivation.

Pope Francis is usually careful not to take sides in international conflicts and prefers to talk of de-escalation. But he has stepped up his criticism of Israel's conduct in its war against Hamas recently.

Humanitarian ruin

The publication of the pope's remarks came soon after the UN said Israel's actions were "consistent with characteristics of genocide".

The UN report states that Israel has systematically deprived Gaza's population of life-sustaining resources like food, water and fuel, using starvation as a weapon of war. It also cites the dropping of over 25,000 tonnes of explosives, leaving the region in environmental and humanitarian ruin.

"By destroying vital water, sanitation and food systems, and contaminating the environment, Israel has created a lethal mix of crises that will inflict severe harm on generations to come" the Committee warned.

Israel says accusations of genocide in its Gaza campaign are baseless. It says it is solely hunting down Hamas and other armed groups.

"There was a genocidal massacre on 7 October 2023 of Israeli citizens and, since then, Israel has exercised its right of self-defence against attempts from seven different fronts to kill its citizens" said Yaron Sideman, ambassador to the Holy See.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis met 16 Israelis including former hostages and family members at the Vatican on 14 November. A few members held posters with the faces and names of men still in captivity. It is estimated that 97 of the 251 abducted on October 7 are still in Gaza. According to the Israeli Defence Forces, 34 of the 97 are confirmed dead.

Sources

Palestine Chronicle

Reuters

Our Sunday Visitor

CathNews New Zealand

And what has been the overall response to all of this genocidal carnage? For the most part: Silence. Ongoing deadly silence!

The deadly terrorist attacks of Hamas killing 1,200 Jews - including 33 Israeli children - was indeed a very sad tragedy, but the ongoing six-month Israeli military offensive against all Palestinians in Gaza - including Palestinian Christians - amounts to collective punishment which is forbidden by international law. And is nothing short of genocide!

Pope Francis prophetically said: "I will never tire of reiterating my call, addressed in particular to those who have political responsibility: ‘stop the bombs and missiles now, end hostile stances [everywhere]!'"

• So then why all of the silence from our US Catholic Church pulpits?
• Why is the Catholic press so timid here?
• Why are corporate board members not deciding to end the support of arms to Israel?
• Why are company stockholders not demanding an end to corporate support of the Israeli genocide? And why has the U.S. Congress recently voted to hand over to Israel $26 billion in military weaponry to keep fueling the flames of genocide in Gaza?

Why is there so little moral outrage?

It's like so many of the other atrocities being suffered by the poor and vulnerable - that is, a lack of interest among well-off and safe corporations, governments, and individuals who lack genuine compassionate care, and the moral courage to stand up and declare: Enough! Enough of all this evil!

Well, not so with many college students, and in some cases, faculties together with them, on dozens of U.S. university campuses standing up and declaring enough of all this evil!

They are doing what every person of good will - especially followers of the nonviolent Jesus - should be doing, namely: protesting against violence, injustice, complicity with evil, and genocide.

Protests that started at Columbia University in New York City have spread to many colleges and universities across the U.S. and in other countries.

Contrary to critics who claim the students are violent, the truth is that student demonstrators are overwhelmingly nonviolent in the face of unwarranted police arrests and hostile university administrations.

Yet, a favorite tactic of those pushing for more U.S. bombs for Israel to drop on Palestinian women and children is to brand the nonviolent students and as "anti-Semitic."

That charge is a smokescreen designed to coverup the genocide, and project a false guilt upon the morally courageous protesting students - some of whom are now facing suspension and even expulsion.

In fact, Jewish Voice for Peace has stated its full support for the college protestors.

All of this is reminiscent of the 1960's and early 1970's student protests against the U.S. war in Vietnam. Back then the protesting students were called "communist sympathizers."

I stand with the student and faculty protestors mainly because their demands are consistent with the nonviolent Gospel of Jesus Christ and Catholic social teaching which insists upon peacemaking and social justice for all.

Student protestors are justly calling for an end to arms shipments to Israel, a permanent cease-fire, and university divestment of funds from companies that support the Israeli government's merciless war against the Palestinians.

Encouragingly, in the 1980's Columbia University students successfully pressured the university to divest from the apartheid regime that was in control of South Africa.

Most appropriately, let us remember and live the words of the late Jewish Nazi concentration camp survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel:

"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag6@comcast.net.

When we consider that our Lord Jesus, our Blessed Mother Mary, St. Joseph, the twelve apostles, and the very first disciples were practicing religious Jews.

We also need to consider that the Christian New Testament is firmly rooted in the Jewish Scriptures of the Old Testament.

Having considered, how can we not have but the highest respect for Judaism.

But having the necessary deep respect for Judaism does not therefore mean that Christians must also have respect for the unjust policies of the state of Israel toward Palestinians.

Opposing Israeli government injustice is not antisemitic. On the contrary, it calls Israel to a high moral standard in the spirit of the great Jewish prophets.

Human rights

Sadly, decades of human rights violations have occurred.

Violations like denying adequate supplies of water, blocking access to family farms and olive groves, as well as building Israeli settlements on stolen Palestinian land.

These are among the injustices Palestinians have long suffered in the Occupied Territories, especially in Gaza which is known as the world's largest outdoor prison.

The Oct. 7, 2023, brutal terrorist attacks by Hamas upon Israel, resulting in the deaths of approximately 1,200 Israeli children, women and men, was not right either.

Combined with the abduction of more than 200 Israeli hostages it is unconscionable and deserving of our condemnation.

But Israel's brutal response, resulting in over 30,000 deaths of mostly innocent unarmed civilian Palestinians in Gaza is also an act of terrorism.

It is an even worse terrorism than that suffered by Israel.

More 11,500 Palestinian children have been killed from Israeli bombs and missiles.

These were mostly supplied by the U.S. and several other nations resulting in large profits for numerous arms manufacturers.

Israel's determination to kill every single member of Hamas has resulted in the collective punishment of all Gazan Palestinians.

Hospitals, schools, neighbourhoods, and churches have not been spared from Israel's wholesale non-stop bombing.

Most Palestinians in Gaza have little or no access to clean water and sanitation, food, medicine and fuel due to Israel's blockade. United Nations experts have accused Israel of "intentionally starving" Palestinians in Gaza.

Genocide

Collective punishment is both gravely immoral, and an act against international law.

The International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to ensure that all vital supplies are to immediately be made available to every needy Gazan. And that all efforts to end hostilities are to be made.

However, Israel is ignoring international law and moral law.

Having suffered so terribly from the Holocaust, one would think that committing large scale murder of innocent children, women and men would be unthinkable for Israel.

Yet, almost unbelievably, Israel is committing genocide - yes, genocide - upon the innocents.

Furthermore, Israel is not even following the Mosaic principle of reciprocal justice, that is, measure for measure which states "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" (Exodus 21:23-27).

Instead, Israel has inflicted far more death and destruction upon mostly innocent Palestinians in Gaza, than it suffered from the deadly attacks of Hamas.

And of course, for Christians we must take to heart, and put into action, the most relevant words of the Jewish Jesus, the Christ, the Lord:

"You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, offer no [violent] resistance to one who is evil.

When someone strikes you on [your] right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. …

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you".

Pray for Peace

Therefore, let us tirelessly pray for peace in Gaza, and everywhere.

And let us unite with Pope Francis in his urgent call: "Stop the bombs and missiles now!"

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist.

The opposing versions emerged at an afternoon press conference with 10 Palestinians who met the pope on Wednesday morning at his Vatican residence. That meeting followed a separate one with Israeli relatives of hostages in Gaza.

"When we shared the stories of the families that have been killed (in Gaza) he mentioned 'I see the genocide'," said Shireen Awwad Hilal, who teaches at the Bethlehem Bible College.

"It was very clear, the word genocide did not come from us. It came from His Holiness, Pope Francis," she said.

Read More

The accusation against the Council followed its decision to grant police the power to arrest Anzac Day protesters.

The issue came to light on Anzac Day last year.

Richard Noble arrived at a service at Wellington's Pukeahu War Memorial Park holding a "recognise Armenian Genocide" banner. The war memorial is owned by the central government and no action was taken against him.

It was a different matter later that day when he took his banner to the Ataturk Turkish memorial. The memorial is situated on Council land above Wellington's south coast.

A police officer warned Noble he would be arrested if he displayed his banner there.

Between 664,000 and 1.2 million Armenian people were killed by the Ottoman - now Turkish - government between 1915 and 1916.

Their killing is recognised as genocide by 32 countries including the United States, Canada, France, Germany and Russia. New Zealand does not officially recognise it as genocide.

Police authority

Police had been granted the authority arrest by Council chief executive Barbara McKerrow.

She wrote to the police just before Anzac Day 2021, giving them long-term permission to trespass people from council land at the Cenotaph and Ataturk Memorial Park on Anzac days.

She stressed police must not breach the Human Rights Act and act reasonably.

Genocide

Genocide is defined by the United Nations as defined acts, including killing, "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

Last Thursday, Noble told the Council's Social, Cultural and Economic Committee that the permission to arrest protesters made the council "complicit in genocide denial.

"It is your authorisation, it is on your watch," he said.

Just hours later, an emailed statement from the council said it was liaising with the police about whether "any trespass delegation is appropriate and required".

The council says it supports people's rights to public protest as defined under the Bill of Rights.

All councillors were asked if the police authorisation should be altered.

"I strongly oppose this delegation given by council to police," Cr Iona Pannett says. "The right to peaceful protest against gross human rights is sacrosanct in our society and so should be rescinded."

Cr Ray Chung agrees: "I'm a very strong believer in the freedom of speech and as long as no damage is done and they're not inciting violence ... I'm fine with him being allowed to continue his protest without impediment."

Tim Brown, a paid member of the Free Speech Union, quoted: "I [may] disapprove of what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it."

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade says it's important "historical injustices" like the Ottoman treatment of Armenian people were "acknowledged appropriately".

It supported "reconciliation" between Turkey and Armenia.

"For determining whether a particular situation constitutes genocide, Aotearoa New Zealand places great emphasis on the findings of international courts and tribunals."

Source

• Stuff

The Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, a foreign policy think tank based in Washington, D.C., prepared the 55-page report. It is one of the think tank's first independent reports into the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) actions in Xinjiang province.

The Uyghurs are an ethnic minority. The mostly Muslim group lives alongside other ethnic and religious minorities in the region.

"The Uyghur Genocide: An Examination of China's Breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention," report confirms Chinese authorities have created a massive network of internment camps in Xinjiang.

The camps are purportedly for "re-education" and "terrorism prevention."

The report's claims are unequivocal. It concludes "the People's Republic of China (China) bears State responsibility for committing genocide against the Uyghurs in breach of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) ..."

The authors say they came to this conclusion after an "extensive" review of the available evidence and after applying "international law to the evidence of the facts on the ground."

In 1948, the UN Genocide Convention designated five acts that would constitute "genocide." The report says China has infringed in all five areas, quoting these as being:

killing members of the group

causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Committing just one act "with the requisite intent can sustain a finding of genocide," the UN convention says.

Cam survivors report stories of Uyghur women being systematically raped, tortured and sterilised.

Forced birth control through use of intrauterine devices (IUD) has increased dramatically in Xinjiang while being on the decline throughout the rest of China.

Uyghur women's formerly high fertility rates have seen precipitous drops in fertility in recent years.

Leaked manuals from the camps say wearing traditional clothing is among the "crimes" inmates can be detained for.

Chinese government officials have denied accusations of genocide. They insist the camps have helped prevent terrorism in the region.

China's foreign minister, Wang Yi is calling the accusation of genocide "preposterous." He says the report is "rumour fabricated with ulterior motives and a total lie."

On Jan. 19, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared Chinese authorities had committed genocide against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang.

He cited forced labor, torture, forced abortion, sterilisations and birth control as some of the abuses behind his statement.

During his confirmation hearings, current US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that he agreed with Pompeo's genocide assessment.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Asia News

The cross-party parliamentary revolt is causing deep concern in government, where there are fears that judges and human rights campaigners could be empowered to throw UK-China trade relations into turmoil.

The moves are being led by the former cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith but have broad cross-party support.

Under the proposals, human rights campaigners would for the first time be able to seek redress in the UK courts for cases of alleged genocide, instead of the issue being determined at the UN, where deep political divisions mean those committing war crimes can in effect act with impunity. Read more

Hospitals regularly force late-term abortions on Uyghur women and kill newborn Uyghur babies, says Hasiyet Abdulla, who presently lives in Turkey.

Abdulla is one of many Uyghurs who have fled to Turkey.

She says hospital maternity wards in Xinjiang strictly enforce family planning laws, including limiting Uyghurs (an ethnic minority group in China), to three children in rural areas or two in urban regions.

Uyghur women must also wait a certain number of years between births.

"The regulations were so strict: there had to be three or four years between children. There were babies born at nine months who we killed after inducing labour. They did that in the maternity wards, because those were the orders," Abdulla says.

She says in many cases, babies born alive were removed from their parents, killed and then disposed of.

This practice stems from "an order that's been given from above," says Abdulla.

Hospitals found to have been in violation of these policies are subjected to fines or other punishments.

The claims of Uyghurs' late-term abortions and infanticide follow recent revelations that Chinese authorities have been forcibly sterilising ethnic minorities.

A report on 29 June from Associated Press says women are imprisoned for the crime of having too many children and women held in internment camps are frequently checked for pregnancy.

In some cases, women are forcibly implanted with an intrauterine device to prevent future pregnancies.

"It's not an immediate, shocking, mass-killing-on-the-spot-type genocide, but it's a slow, painful, creeping genocide," Dr. Joanne Smith Finley, a senior lecturer in Chinese studies at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, says.

She says the programme is a "direct means of genetically reducing the Uyghur population."

The birth rate in the province has dropped considerably since the implementation of forced abortion and infanticide and other family-planning practices.

Between one- and 1.8-million Uyghurs are estimated to be in detention camps set up by Chinese authorities, for "re-education" purposes.

Survivors report indoctrination, beatings, forced labour and torture in the camps.

Wives of Uyghur men detained in the "re-education" camps have reported being forced to marry Han Chinese men. Hans are the majority ethnic group in China.

The U.S. government has sanctioned Chinese officials who are involved with the oppression of the Uyghur population.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Association for the Defense of Human Rights and Religious Freedom

The Associated Press reports that a member of Sudan's sovereign council announced Tuesday that transitional authorities and rebel groups from Darfur have agreed that those charged by the ICC for atrocities in Darfur should be prosecuted.

The ICC opened an investigation into the abuses committed by the Sudanese government in 2005. Bashir's government was accused of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur beginning in 2002. It's been estimated that over as 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur. Read more

His bigoted rampage left little doubt who he meant by "we" and "our way of life."

The eco-fascism of the far-right couches its racist intent as concern for the environment, demonises women of color for "overpopulation" and stokes fears of an end to white racial "purity" and power.

It uses the current specter of looming ecological collapse to reawaken a genocidal impulse as old as the United States, wiping out those deemed unfit to survive.

Only a few people defend the most horrific expression of these beliefs.

Women's fertility - environmental sustainability

But today, arguments for population control are reemerging in mainstream and even liberal discussions around limiting women's fertility in the name of environmental sustainability.

This isn't the first time women's bodies have been treated as a means to a demographic end.

Recall such ugly initiatives, all mainstream in their day, to forcibly sterilize Black, Latina, and Indigenous women, to treat Puerto Rican women like lab rats in contraceptive trials to keep the island's population down and to fund sterilization camps in India.

Reproductive justice

Invariably, even the most nefarious population control projects claim to serve some unassailable social good, like poverty reduction or peace.

After Hurricane Katrina, a Louisiana representative proposed paying people who receive state assistance $1,000 in exchange for being sterilized.

He explained the benefits of reducing the number of poor people, citing the likelihood of more frequent hurricanes and the need to conserve resources.

The reproductive justice movement then emerged to redefine these policies as human rights abuses.

But today, the monster of population control has been reanimated, and these gains are again under threat.

Fewer poor people

Most people now know better than to use the discredited term "population control."

Neither will you hear mainstream voices talking about "black overpopulation."

Listen, instead, for rights-based and social justice language that positions contraception and family planning as core strategies to reduce carbon emissions.

For instance, a USAID blog entry for World Population Day links family planning to protecting "people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership," before going on to say that "by slowing rapid population growth, family planning can help to decrease the sheer number of poor people."

Today's mainstream population control advocates offer full-throated support for reproductive rights.

They point to a happy coincidence that women's freedom to limit childbearing is also a key solution to climate change.

Win-win propositions are inherently appealing, but we should be skeptical of solutions that ask little of those who have caused the problem. Women around the world will tell you that access to healthcare, family planning, contraception and abortion remain critical unmet needs.

Fewer emissions, fewer children

True reproductive justice, as conceived by women who have long been targeted for population control, includes the option to choose how many children to have and raise them in a safe, healthy environment.

But those seeking to instrumentalize these basic rights as climate solutions segue too seamlessly and singularly to the emissions-cutting benefits of women bearing fewer children—not just any women, but the same poor Black and brown women who have always been blamed for "having too many babies."

Whatever their political underpinnings, population-based approaches to climate change are steeped in three falsehoods. Continue reading

• Yifat Susskind is the Executive Director of MADRE, an international women's human rights organization that partners with community-based women's groups worldwide facing war and disaster.
• Image: Institute for Policy Studies

The comments were made to Newshub by Former Massey University Professor and religious history expert Peter Lineham.

"Western countries, with the exception of the USA, are sensitive about their Muslim minorities feeling as though things are loaded against them.

"Any sign that the country bends a little bit too much towards Christians would produce a howl of protest from both the secular side of government and Muslim minorities and so they back away."
Governments and media have little regard for truth, he says.

They want to be seen to promote harmony over division.

"It's a classic example of a determination to produce a certain sort of result by ignoring rather serious facts," says Lineham.

On Tuesday, CathNews reported the persecution of Christians is at near genocide levels in some parts of the world.

The report drew on an interim report ordered by British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

The review estimates that one in three people suffer from religious persecution. Of these, Christians are the most persecuted, indeed "genocidal acts against Christians" are causing Christianity to be "wiped out" from parts of the Middle East.

Lineham suggested a study that includes more comparative data may have been more effective.

"I think it would be quite interesting if it [the report] had done more comparative stats of Muslim versus Christians, and then it would be very stark."

"It is largely in Muslim majority countries; you've got states that are determined to suppress the expression of Christianity because that's what sharia law requires", he said.

This week's report is expected to be analysed further with the full results released by the end of June.

Sources

• NewsHub
• CathNews
• Image: Voice of the Martyrs New Zealand

The review estimates that one in three people suffer from religious persecution. Of these, Christians are the most persecuted.

Hunt says he thinks "political correctness" has played a part in the issue not being confronted.

The report says the main impact of "genocidal acts against Christians is exodus" and that Christianity faced being "wiped out" from parts of the Middle East.

It points to figures claiming Christians in Palestine represent less than 1.5% of the population, while in Iraq, the Christian population has fallen from 1.5 million before 2003 to less than 120,000.

Millions of Christians in the region have been uprooted from their homes and many have been killed, kidnapped, imprisoned and discriminated against.

The report also highlights discrimination across south-east Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and in east Asia - often driven by state authoritarianism.

"In some regions, the level and nature of persecution is arguably coming close to meeting the international definition of genocide, according to that adopted by the UN."

Religion "is at risk of disappearing" in some parts of the world.

Hunt, who commissioned the review on Boxing Day 2018 amid an outcry over the treatment of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who faced death threats after being acquitted of blasphemy in Pakistan, says he thinks governments have been "asleep" over the persecution of Christians.

In his opinion, the report and the deadly Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka had "woken everyone up with an enormous shock".

"I think there is a misplaced worry that it is somehow colonialist to talk about a religion that was associated with colonial powers rather than the countries that we marched into as colonisers.

"That has perhaps created an awkwardness in talking about this issue - the role of missionaries was always a controversial one and that has, I think, also led some people to shy away from this topic.

"What we have forgotten in that atmosphere of political correctness is actually the Christians that are being persecuted are some of the poorest people on the planet."

The review is due to publish its final findings within the next few months.

Source

• BBC
• The Guardian
• Image: The Japan Times

Hard on the heels of the murder of 238 Christians in Plateau State the weekend before last, a church, hospital and some 17 houses were torched in a central Nigerian village during an hour-long raid.

Armed Fulani herdsmen are being held responsible for the killings.

"What is happening in Plateau State and other select states in Nigeria is pure genocide and must be stopped immediately," the Christian Association of Nigeria and church denominational heads in Plateau State said.

The Association is appealing to the Nigerian government "to stop this senseless and blood shedding in the land and avoid a state of complete anarchy where the people are forced to defend themselves."

Major Umar Adams, spokesman of the military Special Task Force, said four people had been arrested in connection with the latest attack and the force had been ordered to relocate its headquarters to the troubled area.

The Nigerian House of Representatives has now passed a number of resolutions in relation to the attacks, including one declaring the killings in Plateau State as genocide.

The House directed the federal government to immediately set up orphanages in areas affected by recent killings which have left many children orphans.

Condemning the killings and massacres in the strongest terms, the lower chamber urged government to take decisive steps to stop the killings and secure communities that had been under persistent attacks.

Chief Femi Fani-Kayode of the Angry People Democratic Party has been tweeting about his concerns for peace, while genocide and an islamisation agenda exist:

"We want peace but can there be peace without justice?

"Can there be peace when one seeks to ethnically cleanse and exterminate the other?

"Can there be peace where there is genocide and an islamisation agenda?

"Can there be peace when one race seeks to dominate and subjugate another?" he asks.

Source

• Christian Post
• The Express
• The Vanguard
• This Day
• Image: TVC News

But the military's campaign against the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, actually began years earlier — and since 2012, a small network of citizen activists have been risking their lives to secretly film its impact.

Their harrowing footage, and the first-ever on-camera interview with a member of the network, are featured in the new FRONTLINE documentary, Myanmar's Killing Fields.

"Even though it was risky to film, I did it to help my people," says "Sabo," who agreed to speak on the condition that FRONTLINE protect his identity.

Airing Tuesday on PBS, Myanmar's Killing Fields is U.S. television's most comprehensive investigation of the Myanmar military's violent crackdown on the Rohingyas — an effort that the United Nations has described as having the "hallmarks of genocide."

Secret footage

The Myanmar military denies abuses and says it has been fighting a militant Islamist Rohingya group, ARSA, that has attacked and killed security forces at police and army bases.

But with secret footage filmed by the network, and firsthand accounts from victims and their families, the documentary depicts an orchestrated campaign to target civilians, state-sanctioned violence and mass murder.

Including in Chut Pyin, one of dozens of Rohingya villages that were attacked and burned to the ground last August.

Sabo was filming in a nearby village as survivors from Chut Pyin streamed in — men, women, and children, many of whom had been shot in the back as they fled.

"They were all in a terrible state," Sabo says in the above excerpt from Myanmar's Killing Fields.

"They were traumatized after seeing brothers and sisters killed … Only God knows how much they suffered."

Shot, raped mutilated

FRONTLINE tracked down survivors seen in Sabo's footage, who independently recounted how the military attacked civilians and raped women and children.

"I was shot and fell in the rice field. I could not get up, I was in so much pain.

"Then four soldiers raped me," 16-year-old Jamila Khatun, now living in a refugee camp across the border in Bangladesh, tells FRONTLINE.

Another survivor, Nur Begum, describes being rounded up and taken into the bushes, where she says a soldier shot dead a woman who tried to fight back.

"A soldier cut off her breast," Begum says, sobbing.

"He held it up like this and showed us and it was shaking. He said if we screamed, they would do the same to us."

Then, she says, several soldiers raped her.

Village leader and medic Rashan Ali says he did what he could to treat the victims: "I treated 92 people there … They were lacerated, they cut their breasts, then they shot them. I treated them with whatever I had."

Many of the rape victims, Ali says, were children.

"Some of them could not bear it and they died," he says.

• Frontline documentary, first published on PBS. Used with permission.
• Image: YouTube

"Here at the United Nations (UN) there is much sincere talk and normally passionate action to fight against unjust discrimination," said Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Vatican nuncio to the United Nations.

He pointed to a double standard when he appeared before a UN panel last week.

"But as firm as these commitments are in principle, many delegations, UN agencies and active members of civil society tolerate gross violations of these commitments in practice."

He noted groups that claim to advance the rights and equality of vulnerable women and girls are "notably silent when pre-genetic screening followed by sex-selection abortion ends the lives of those they claim to defend,"

After pointing out the inconsistency of this approach, he went on to highlight the violation of those prenatally diagnosed with Down's syndrome.

Although the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities agrees to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights, including that of the right to life by all persons with disabilities, the Convention is often is not implemented in practice.

"… many members of the international community stand on the sidelines as the vast majority of those diagnosed with Trisomy 21 (Down's syndrome) have their lives ended before they're even born," Auza said.

He cited a 2011 study published in the American Journal of Medical Genetics by Harvard University researchers.

The researchers found most people with Down's syndrome are happy with their lives and most parents love and are happy with their offspring who have Down's syndrome. Only four percent "regret having their child," he said.

Source

• The Catholic Register
• LifeSite
• The Tablet
• Image: Mundodastribos.com

Father Patrick Desbois was awarded the Lantos Foundation's Human Rights Prize last week for being a "vital voice standing up for the values of decency, dignity, freedom, and justice."

The prize is named after a Holocaust survivor who later became a California congressman.

United States-based Desbois, who teaches at Georgetown University's Programme for Jewish Civilization, is the founder of Yahad-In Unum. This is a Paris-based organisation dedicated to identifying and commemorating Nazi mass-execution sites in Eastern Europe during World War II.

Desbois's research focuses on Jews who were killed in mass shootings by Nazi units in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Moldova and Romania between 1941 and 1944. He found more that one-and-a-half million Jews were murdered like this.

The award also recognises his work in collecting evidence of the Islamic State's genocide of Yezidis, a Kurdish religious minority in Iraq.

Debois has published two books about his work.

The first, "Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest's Journey to Uncover the Truth behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews," was published in 2008.

His second book, a memoir on his life as an anti-genocide activist and Holocaust scholar, is due for publication in 2018.

Source

• Crux
• Times of Israel
• Image: Zakhor Online

Francis said the Vatican acknowledges the church was in part to blame for the genocide, as were some Catholic priests and nuns.

He said these priests and nuns had "succumbed to hatred and violence, betraying their own evangelical mission" by participating in the genocide.

Francis is hoping to open a new phase in Vatican-Rwanda relations.

The 1994 genocide lasted about 100 days.

In that time, members of Hutu extremist groups, murdered more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Many victims died at the hands of priests, clergymen and nuns, according to some accounts by survivors.

The Rwandan government says many died in the churches where they had sought refuge.

Francis expressed his solidarity with the victims and with those who continue to suffer the consequences of those tragic events.

He "expressed the desire that this humble recognition of the failings of that period, which unfortunately disfigured the face of the church, may contribute to a ‘purification of memory' and may promote, in hope and renewed trust, a future of peace."

Source:

• Vatican Radio
• The Japan News
• Image: World Vision

On 17 March last year, former Secretary of State John F. Kerry, said ISIS (IS, Islamic State, Daesh) "is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims."

After a 393-0 vote, Kerry designated the Islamic State's crimes as genocide.

The Genocide Coalition is urging the Trump administration to turn those words into action.

The Coalition is asking Trump's administration and the international community to:

"Take swift action to secure, stabilize and economically revitalize these communities, as part of a larger effort to stabilize Iraq;

"Identify and punish those who aided and abetted ISIS in its campaign of genocide and terror;

"Appoint to key positions qualified persons who will pursue these and related humanitarian and national security priorities."

Source:

• Crux
• The Washington Times
• Image: CNS