One hundred paintings and drawings created by Jewish artists during the Holocaust are going on show in Berlin. The exhibition, Art from the Holocaust, includes work by inmates of various concentration camps, labour camps and ghettos. Of the 50 artists featured, 24 were murdered by the Nazis.

Read and view them all

A woman recruited from India to work in Britain and paid as little as 11p an hour has been awarded nearly £184,000 compensation in one of the UK’s first claims of caste discrimination.

Permila Tirkey, from Bihar ”“ one of India’s poorest states – was kept in domestic servitude by her employers in Milton Keynes and forced to work as their cleaner and nanny.

Tirkey’s family are Adivasi people who are dark skinned, poor and of low caste. They describe themselves as being from the “servant class” comprising of Hindus and Christians.

Her employers, Ajay and Pooja Chandhok, both originally Hindus, were found by an employment tribunal to have made her work for 18 hours a day, seven days a week.

Tirkey, a Christian, was required to sleep on a mattress on the floor, prevented from bringing her bible to the UK, not allowed to contact her family and given a bank account which was controlled by her employers. Her ordeal lasted four and a half years.

Read it all

Heading up the panel hearing the case will be Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal, who in that same position authored the Court’s unanimous 2009 opinion in the case of All Saints Waccamaw v. Episcopal Church, which I quoted and analyzed in this earlier post. Also serving on the panel will be Associate Justice Donald W. Beatty, who joined in the Waccamaw opinion. It is not known yet whether any of the other sitting Justices have recused themselves (two of them did so in the Waccamaw case); the fifth, Justice Kaye Hearn, assumed her seat on the Court after the arguments in the 2009 case.

Chief Justice Toal, whose religion is Roman Catholic, is no stranger to the concept of what makes a church “hierarchical.” In her opinion in the Waccamaw case, Justice Toal noted that South Carolina Courts are required to resolve church property disputes using “neutral principles of law” whenever possible. They may defer only to “the highest religious judicatories” when they have properly decided an issue “as to religious law, principle, doctrine, discipline, custom, and administration.” It should be noted that in her written opinion filed last January, Circuit Judge Diane Goodstein expressly found that there were no such bodies in the Episcopal Church (USA) that had outside jurisdiction over either the Diocese or any of its parishes.

Read it all.

Taxpayers in the UK donate £2.7 billion a year in aid to countries where Christians are suffering some of the most extreme religious persecution in the world, figures show.

Analysis of official aid statistics shows that four out of five countries listed on a global human rights watch list, charting attacks or official suppression against Christians, receive money from the overseas development budget or through other official agencies.

Read it all

..Here’s what a Charity Commission spokesperson told me about that: “In May 2015, the Commission was made aware that the trustees of Barnabas Aid International were considering asking Dr Sookhdeo to serve on their board again. This gave rise to serious regulatory concerns..
………
…Sookhdeo’s lawyers sought leave to appeal against his convictions. However, he changed his mind and withdrew the application. In the words of a statement to Christian Today: “Despite having consulted a leading QC and feeling encouraged that his solicitors expect he would be vindicated at court, Dr Sookhdeo has decided, at least at this stage, not to proceed with his appeal against his conviction.”

The statement says: “His lawyers have urged him to consider the effect that an appeal and consequent retrial would have on his health and that of his wife Rosemary, not to mention the emotional stress that they would have to endure over the next one to two years whilst the appeal went through the courts. Dr Sookhdeo would also have to pay very considerable legal fees just to clear his name.”

It also says that he is “acutely aware” of the effect continued media coverage would have on the Barnabas Fund and that he is “very thankful and humbled by the continued support he has had for his ministry”.

The statement concludes: “With the support and confidence of its trustees, he will continue to serve Barnabas Aid International as its International Director. His expertise on Islam and his unrivalled knowledge of the persecuted Church are needed more than ever.”

So here’s the question.

What is Barnabas thinking?

Read it all and the background post is here

Two South Sudanese pastors on trial in Sudan for, amongst other things, “spying” have been freed by the Judge of Khartoum North Central Court, Ahmed Ghaboush. Had they been found guilty of this, they could have faced the death penalty.

Yat Michael had taken his child to Khartoum for medical treatment when he was arrested on 14 December, 2014, after being asked to preach at a local church during his stay. Peter Yen was arrested in January 2015 when he went to enquire about Michael’s whereabouts. The two men were then reported as missing until Sudanese authorities revealed that they were being held in prison for “crimes against the state”.

Guilty on some accounts, but freed due to time served

The DPA German news agency reported that the judge found Yat Michael guilty of a “breach of the peace” (Article 69) and Peter Yen (also known as David Reith) guilty of “managing a criminal or terrorist organisation” (Article 65). But he ordered both be released, as they had already served the sentences for these offences through their eight-month stay in prison.

Experts said there were fears that they would have been convicted of the more serious charges; it was felt the judge was under pressure to balance local expectations on him to uphold the principles of the Sharia-governed state, with adherence to international human rights standards.

Read it all

…the scale of the initial rescue is tragically small. The objective is to rescue 2,000 families. Compared to the carnage in Syria wrought by the pitiless combatants ”” 230,000 dead, half the 22 million population driven from their homes ”” it’s a paltry sum. But these are real people who will be saved. And for Weidenfeld, that counts.

Yet he has been criticized for rescuing just Christians. In fact, the U.S. government will not participate because the rescue doesn’t extend to Yazidis, Druze or Shiites.

This comes under the heading of no good deed going unpunished. It’s a rather odd view that because he cannot do everything, he should be admonished for trying to do something. If Weidenfeld were a man of infinite means, the criticism might be valid. As it is, he says rather sensibly, “I can’t save the world.” The Arab states, particularly the Gulf monarchies, are surely not without resources. With so few doing so little for so many, he’s doing what he can.

And for him, it’s personal. In 1938, still a teenager, he was brought from Vienna to London where the Plymouth Brethren took him in and provided for him. He never forgot. He is trying to return the kindness, he explains, to repay the good that Christians did for him 77 years ago. In doing so, he is not just giving hope and a new life to 150 souls, soon to be thousands. He has struck a blow for something exceedingly rare: simple, willful righteousness.

Read it all

According to David Alton, a crossbench peer who campaigns on religious freedom, “some assessments claim that as many as 200 million Christians in over 60 countries around the world face some degree of restriction, discrimination or outright persecution”. That is about one in 10 of the 2.2 billion Christians in the world. Christianity remains the faith with the most adherents.

“Whatever the real figures the scale is enormous. From Syria, Iraq, Iran and Egypt to North Korea, China, Vietnam and Laos, from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma, from Cuba, Colombia and Mexico to Eritrea, Nigeria and Sudan, Christians face serious violations of religious freedom,” Alton said. Persecution ranged from murder, rape and torture to repressive laws, discrimination and social exclusion.

One consequence was “a form of religio-ethnic cleansing of Christian communities”, said John Pontifex of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), a Catholic campaign group that monitors persecution. “The persecution of Christians is at a level we’ve not seen for many, many years and the main impact is the migration of Christian people. There are huge swaths of the world which are now experiencing a very sharp decline in the number of Christians.”

In the past 15 months, a number of egregious attacks have highlighted the targeting of Christians by Islamic extremists in the Middle East and Africa. They include:

Read it all and there is more information linked here

Speaking thirty years ago, Attorney General Meese warned that “there are ideas which have gained influence in some parts of our society, particularly in some important and sophisticated areas that are opposed to religious freedom and freedom in general. In some areas there are some people that have espoused a hostility to religion that must be recognized for what it is, and expressly countered.”

Those were prophetic words, prescient in their clarity and foresight. The ideas of which Mr. Meese warned have only gained ground in the last thirty years, and now with astounding velocity. A revolution in morality now seeks not only to subvert marriage, but also to redefine it, and thus to undermine an essential foundation of human dignity, flourishing, and freedom.

Religious liberty is under direct threat. Just days ago the Solicitor General of the United States served notice before the Supreme Court that the liberties of religious institutions will be an open and unavoidable question. Already, religious liberty is threatened by a new moral regime that exalts erotic liberty and personal autonomy and openly argues that religious liberties must give way to the new morality, its redefinition of marriage, and its demand for coercive moral, cultural, and legal sovereignty.

A new moral and legal order is ascendant in America, and this new order is only possible, in the arena of American law and jurisprudence, if the original intent and the very words of the Constitution of the United States are twisted beyond recognition.

Read it all.

World Watch List 2015
Deeper analysis, links and methodology

Open Doors released today its latest World Watch List (WWL). The annual list ranks the top 50 countries “where Christians face the most persecution”
Researchers calculate that 4,344 Christians were “killed for faith-related reasons” in 2014, which is “more than double the 2,123 killed in 2013, and more than triple the 1,201 killed the year before that,” reports World Watch Monitor (WWM). (Measuring martyrdoms has drawn debate in recent years, and Open Doors is usually on the conservative end of estimates.) By far the largest number of deaths occurred in Nigeria, where 2,484 Christians were killed; the next deadliest country for Christians was the Central African Republic (CAR), with 1,088 deaths. The remaining three deadliest countries were Syria (271 deaths), Kenya (119 deaths), and North Korea (100 deaths).

In addition, 1,062 churches were “attacked for faith-related reasons” in 2014. The majority of attacks took place in five countries: China (258 churches), Vietnam (116 churches), Nigeria (108 churches), Syria (107 churches), and the Central African Republic (100 churches). Last year’s highest-profile incident: a government campaign to “de-Christianize” the skyline of one of China’s most Christian cities. (The Pew Research Center also recently tallied the countries with the most government destruction of religious property.)

But it wasn’t increased violence that primarily drove persecution to record levels in 2014, but rather increased “cultural marginalization,” according to Open Doors. In other words, the “more subtle ‘squeeze’ dimensions of persecution” which make “daily life … harder and harder” for Christians. A substantial study by the Pew Research Center found that nearly 75 percent of the world’s population now lives in countries with high levels of social hostility involving religion. [CT compared how both groups rank the world’s worst persecutors.]

“Even Christian-majority states are experiencing unprecedented levels of exclusion, discrimination, and violence,” said David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors USA. “The 2015 World Watch List reveals that a staggering number of Christians are becoming victims of intolerance and violence because of their faith. They are being forced to be more secretive about their faith.”
………
The primary culprit in Africa and worldwide: “Islamic extremism,” which was the “main persecution engine” in 40 of the 50 countries on the 2015 watch list, including 18 of the top 20 countries (only 6 of which are in the Middle East).

The No. 2 driver of persecution was “dictatorial paranoia,” or “where leaders seek to control religious expression,” noted Open Doors. “It is the main persecution engine in 10 countries, including North Korea, and shows up as a secondary persecution engine in 16 more countries.”

And while “organized corruption”‘ is the main driver of persecution in only Colombia and Mexico, it is No. 3 (after “Islamic extremism” and “dictatorial paranoia”) “when its status as a secondary engine is taken into account,” noted Open Doors. “Christians increasingly have to pay a heavy economic price to remain faithful to Christ.”

Read it all

Via Anglican Mainstream we discovered this video interview with Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali. It’s 28 minutes long. He focuses on how persecution is escalating beyond persecution of individuals and churches to attempted genocide of entire communities and ethnic groups.

Here’s the link should the embedded video not play properly.

ACNA Archbishop Foley Beach has called for special prayer this Sunday, August 24, for those suffering in Iraq and Syria, and the ACNA has put together a special prayer resource.

You can find Archbishop Foley’s exhortation here
The prayer resource is available as a PDF file or as Word Doc. Please pray and please share this widely! The elves

…to this day the Christian community remains in the poorest sector of Pakistani society, consigned to menial jobs. Entire villages in parts of Punjab are Christian, with inhabitants working as labourers and farmhands.

There are sections of Pakistan’s Christian community that are well off and they came over from Christian Goa under the Raj, are more educated and mainly settled in Karachi. Many of their descendants still work in the corporate sector.

What all of them share is a sense of vulnerability with a number of the wealthier Christians leaving to settle in Canada and Australia as the climate of intolerance in Pakistan becomes more unbearable – and if some Muslims are thinking of leaving, Christians and other minorities will feel the pressure more acutely.

Pre-partition Pakistan was a much more diverse place and levels of tolerance have declined as Pakistani society has been increasingly Islamicised and more homogenous.

Pre-partition Christians could count themselves among minorities that made up 15% of the population. Now minorities fall short of 4% of the country. And with the introduction of Islamist militancy, their situation is that much more urgent.

Read it all

A pair of suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a 130-year-old church in Pakistan after Sunday [Mass?], killing at least 60 people in the deadliest attack on Christians in recent history…

Two suicide bombers are believed to have entered the All Saints Church after shooting dead police guards, and detonated their explosive vests. Police said 350 members of the congregation were in the church when the bombers struck and that the death toll is expected to increase because many were being treated in hospital are in a critical condition.

Read it all. More on the attack from the Diocese of Peshawar and a message from Bishop Humphrey Peters here

Message from Canterbury (1944) from British Council Film on Vimeo.

For more than half a century, Rachel Kane kept the memories at bay.

There were her daughters to think of, twins born in a displaced persons camp in the aftermath of the second World War. Kane didn’t want to burden them with tales of the Holocaust, of a husband shot to death by the Nazis, a baby who starved to death in the forest, an extended family wiped out in a mass execution.

Nazi memories return. She didn’t explain the nightmares that woke her, screaming, in the long string of cramped apartments the family called home after resettling in Detroit and then Los Angeles.

Instead, the university-educated Hebrew teacher who spoke seven languages regaled her daughters with stories about her “beautiful life” before Hitler’s armies stormed Poland, successfully locking the war years away until 1998.

That was when her second husband died. When she began to lose her battle with dementia. When she became convinced that the soldiers were coming for her, as they’d done so many years before.

Read it all.

DE SAM LAZARO: He says the Yoido church is adding 10, 000 members every year — this in a country where there were hardly any Christians a century ago. Nowhere, at least in recent history, has Christianity grown so much in such a short period. It may have much to do with Christianity’s place in recent Korean history. Unlike many other countries where Christianity was brought by missionaries, in Korea the church is not part of a colonial legacy. The colonial power here was Japan, and churches were involved very closely with the Korean independence movement. Although some Catholic influences in East Asia date back to the late 1700s, the first missionaries — American Presbyterians — arrived in the late 1800s.

Rev. HA (through translator): The missionaries 120 years ago came and built schools first. They established junior high, college, medical facilities, and they evangelized the noble families. So when we were still under Japanese, those intelligentsia — they linked that believing in Jesus Christ is equal to working for Korea’s liberation movement.

DE SAM LAZARO: And for a country that’s seen unprecedented growth in wealth and prosperity in the past four decades, it’s not hard to believe in miracles. Korea today is considered a developed country with a standard of living equal to some European Union nations.

Read it all.

Anglican Mainstream has posted a letter of thanks by Bishop Ben Kwashi of Jos, Nigeria, expressing his thanks to all who supported his family following the recent attacks on them.

Dear Fellow Pilgrims,

Today is one of the days in the last eight days that there is clear evidence that your prayers for me, Gloria, the family and the diocese is being answered. I have gathered strength to be able to write this letter to thank each one of you for taking up and sharing our pain with us, for all your mails and phone calls, but most importantly, for praying to the Lord to assist us in our trials. We ourselves have been on our knees for our Korean brethren who have been held hostage by the Talibans in Afghanistan and we are also praying for the people in Darfur ”“ Sudan, Congo and the entire Middle-east region.

It is fairly clear that the unwanted visitors who came to our house on the 24th of July 2007 about 2:00am were clear about their target: they came in with a ladder, sledge hammer, digger and other weapons .They came specifically to the back door, and spent at least 20 minutes before finally breaking in. This gave us some time to call for help. They had a fair idea where my bedroom was, broke the door and met me on my knees praying. They told me that they had come for me and that I should come with them. The rest is what you all know: God intervened, for even though they took me out to the place where they were to carry out their plan, the Lord changed their minds. They brought me back to my bedroom where God’s final victory was demonstrated, as I knelt to pray and read from the Bible Psalm 124 waiting for my death; a little while later Gloria joined me and we were praying together; about 10 minutes later they were gone. They took away valuables, all our cell”“phones, laptop. jewellery and left behind massive destruction.

This letter is to appreciate you all for your prayers, for your support, care and concern. We are living in difficult times all around the world, and we must ensure that our faith in Jesus Christ is firmly rooted and grounded in the word of truth, the scripture, and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Read it all here. (And please DO read it all. The best part is the final section which we’ve not posted here.)

For background on the attack and the attempt on Bp. Kwashi’s life, read here.

NEED TO VERIFY THIS. It is posted on a quite odd blog and was just circulated by Virtue. It could be some old article by Duin.
Daring Leaps of Faith
By Julia Duin
Courtesy The Washington Times

Having just come out of church, they were at an indoor cafe, conversing about former Muslims they knew who were now Christians. Some married into the faith. Some of the converts no longer believed in the Koran. Others said they had had visions or dreams of Jesus Christ. And others felt the Christian message of God becoming a man was more compelling than their faith. These converts face all kinds of dangers for having left Islam: ostracism from family members and friends, kidnappings and even death threats.

“Most of the people who come here start to question the Koran,” one of the Egyptians said. “They can read sources not available in our countries, especially sources in Arabic.” The government of Saudi Arabia, for example, blocks thousands of Web sites through its Internet Services Unit in Riyadh, including anything criticizing Islam. A Harvard University study conducted in May showed that out of 2,038 sites banned by the Saudis, 250 were religious.

In the West, seekers who’ve never heard a serious debate on Islam can click on Exmuslim.com, Islamreview.com and Arabicbible.com. Then there’s Paltalk.com, a chat site featuring discussions in various languages on a wide range of topics. Some former Muslims enter these chat rooms with the intent to convert Arabic speakers to Christianity, including “Sam Ash,” a New Jersey hairdresser.

“I ask them to prove to me that Islam is the way to God,” he said. “Jesus said He is the way, the truth and the life. If you can show I have eternal life through Muhammad, I’ll become a Muslim this moment.”

There is no lack of people who wish to challenge him, which is why he will not divulge his real name.

“I’ve been hacked” into, he said, “and you should see the viruses people send me.”

Most of these converts keep their new affiliation secret, as Islam considers those who leave the faith to be apostates. According to Islamic law as practiced in countries such as Iran, Sudan, Pakistan and in northern regions of Nigeria, the penalty for changing one’s religion is execution.

The U.S. State Department has documented numerous instances of religious persecution overseas against Muslim converts to Christianity. What is not so well known are the threats against such converts in the United States.

The full article is here.

From the International Herald Tribune:

Prophet cartoons protester convicted in London of incitement to murder

LONDON: A speaker at a rally protesting against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed was convicted Thursday of inciting murder.

Mizanur Rahman, 24, of London, spoke at a February 2006 demonstration protesting the publication in Europe of the cartoons, first published in Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten daily.

Prosecutors showed video of Rahman speaking about British soldiers and saying, “We want to see them coming home in body bags. We want to see their blood running in the streets of Baghdad.”

Rahman also had placards calling for the beheading and annihilation of anyone who insulted Islam.

He and three others convicted of offenses at the demonstration face sentencing on July 18.

Rahman had pleaded not guilty, and said the microphone had been thrust into his hand and that he was only repeating chants from others.

From IHT
(hat tip: Abu Daoud)

=========

For those wishing to refresh their memory of Feb 2006’s Cartoon Crisis, Kendall has a lot of links and wrote an excellent analysis of the issue on his old blog. (If the old blog is down, here’s the Google Cache version).

A provocative little blurb on Evangelical Outpost blog caught my attention:

The Failed States List 2007: The most failed state in the world according to the Index is Sudan. The second worse: Iraq.

The piece notes a relationship between stability and freedom of religion:

Freedom of worship may be a cornerstone of democracy, but it may also be a key indicator of stability. Vulnerable states display a greater degree of religious intolerance, according to scores calculated by the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom. Persecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh, Burma, Iran, and Uzbekistan has deprived millions of faithful of the freedom to follow their beliefs. But religious repression is often nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to muzzle the country’s civil society.

(HT: PoliBlog)

Here’s the Failed States 2007 report (available in full only to Foreign Policy subscribers)

An Egyptian Coptic Christian who was permitted to stay in the United States because of the probable threat of torture back home is now fighting deportation on a murder charge in Egypt.

The office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has decided to deport the man, Sameh Khouzam, 38, of Lancaster, Pa., because Egypt’s government has given diplomatic assurances that Mr. Khouzam will not be tortured upon his return.

In fleeing to the United States nine years ago, Mr. Khouzam maintained that he was repeatedly detained and tortured because he refused to convert to Islam. He denies the murder accusation.

Human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union, argue that the use of torture in Egypt is so routine and well-documented that deporting Mr. Khouzam would expose him to harsh treatment and would amount to a violation of the Convention Against Torture.

Under the convention, foreign citizens cannot be repatriated to countries where they stand a reasonable chance of being tortured.

Mr. Khouzam’s lawyers have won a temporary stay of deportation in federal court until tomorrow. The A.C.L.U., which has taken his case, is trying to get the stay prolonged so that it might argue for Mr. Khouzam’s ultimate release. He is being detained in Pennsylvania.

“The fundamental issue is whether the United States government can circumvent its obligation under CAT by obtaining inherently unreliable diplomatic assurances from the government of Egypt,” said Amrit Singh, staff lawyer at the A.C.L.U.’s immigrants’ rights project. “It’s particularly outrageous when the record is replete with evidence that he has been repeatedly tortured.”

Read the whole piece.

Lina Joy chose her faith long ago. Born a Muslim in the multiethnic nation of Malaysia, she started attending church in 1990 and was baptized as a Christian eight years later. But on Wednesday, Malaysia’s highest court blocked her final attempt to have her conversion legally recognized by the state. It was a blow to her heart as well as her soul. Malaysian law prohibits marriage between Muslims and non-Muslims, so Joy will not be able to wed the Christian man she loves.

Malaysia has long trumpeted itself as a moderate Muslim nation committed to safeguarding the rights of its diverse population, an ethnic olio worthy of a Benetton ad: Muslim Malays, Christian and Buddhist Chinese, Hindu and Sikh Indians, animist indigenous peoples. Indeed, earlier this week in the capital Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi hosted the annual World Islamic Economic Forum, where he held up his homeland as proof that Islam did not equal extremism.

Yet the Federal Court’s ruling on the Joy case undermines Malaysia’s claim of tolerance. Already, several Malaysian states have made renunciation of Islam punishable with prison time. Wednesday’s court decision was greeted by shouts of “God is great” from Muslims gathered outside the courthouse. Those supporting the separation of mosque and state were less jubilant. “This case is not just a question of religious preference but of a potential dismantling of Malaysia’s … multiethnic, multireligious [character],” said Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, a lawyer for Joy, before the verdict was announced.

Read it all.

Stephen Crittenden: The plight of Christian minorities in the Islamic Middle East is one of the 20th century tragedies to which we pay least attention.

From the Copts in Egypt, to the Maronites, the Melkites in Lebanon, Orthodox and Chaldeans, the Christian population of the Middle East is a fraction of what it was, and more vulnerable than ever. Nowhere is the situation worse at the moment than in Iraq. And few groups are more vulnerable than the ancient Assyrian Christian community. In fact, this week the Italian journalist Sandro Magister, has warned of the end of Christianity in Iraq.

In early May in a heavily Christian suburb of Baghdad, a Sunni extremist group began broadcasting a fatwah over the loudspeakers of the neighbourhood mosque: the Assyrian Christian community had to convert to Islam or leave, or die. Their Muslim neighbours were to seize their property. The men were told they had to pay the gizya – the protection money Jews and Christians traditionally had to pay to their Muslim overlords – and families were told they could only stay if they married one of their daughters to a Muslim.

More than 300 Assyrian families have fled, mostly to the north into the Kurdish region of Iraq where they are not welcome either They are sleeping in cemeteries, they have no food, more than 30 of their churches have been bombed, their children are being kidnapped and murdered.

Rosie Malek-Yonan is an Assyrian-American. She is a successful film and television actor who has appeared in many popular shows including Dynasty, Seinfeld, E.R. and Chicago Hope. Her novel, The Crimson Field, is a fictionalised account of the little-known Assyrian genocide that took place at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during World War One at the same time that the better-known Armenian genocide was taking place. She recently directed a documentary film on the same subject. And last year she was invited to give testimony before the US Congress about the plight of Assyrian Christians in Iraq. Rosie Malek-Yonan spoke to me from her home in California.

Rosie Malek-Yonan: The Assyrian people are the indigenous people actually of Mesopotamia, before it even was Iraq. All of that area was Mesopotamia and is the original homeland of the Assyrians. They date back to over 6,000 years and were always concentrated in that region.

Stephen Crittenden: And Christianity was accepted by Assyrians, well virtually in apostolic times, right at the very, very beginning?

Rosie Malek-Yonan: Right. Assyrians were actually the first nation to accept Christianity as an entire nation, not just individuals, but the entire nation, and we built the first church of the east.

Read it all

SOME would call it the Devil’s work. Two ancient religions have locked horns in a bizarre “freedom of speech” row that is echoing around the corridors of one of Scotland’s oldest academic institutions.

The University of Edinburgh has granted permission to the Pagan Society to hold its annual conference – involving talks on witchcraft, pagan weddings and tribal dancing – on campus next month. Druids, heathens, shamans and witches are expected to attend what is a major event in the pagan calendar.

But the move has enraged the Christian Union, which accuses the university of double standards after banning one of its events on the “dangers” of homosexuality.

Matthew Tindale, an Edinburgh-based Christian Union staff worker, claimed some faiths and beliefs appeared to be more equal than others on campus.

“This seems to be a clear case of discrimination,” he said. “It’s okay for other religions, such as the pagans, to have their say at the university, but there appears to be a reluctance to allow Christians to do the same. All we are asking for is the tolerance that is afforded to other faiths and organisations.”

Read it all.