In Punjab, Pakistan, another controversial charge has been
made under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. A group of 68 lawyers, who mounted a
protest against the arrest of one of their colleagues, have been charged with
blasphemy because they chanted ridicule against the local chief of police; the
chief’s name happens to be the same as one of the companions of the prophet
Mohammed, and someone complained that the chants offended his religious
feelings. The lawyers are likely to face three year jail terms if convicted.
There are growing fears that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are being exploited to
settle other disputes.
As the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square
massacre approaches, a former Chinese Triad member has revealed how he
masterminded an operation to smuggle students and intellectuals out of China
after the massacre. “Brother Six” had escaped from Maoist China himself in 1971,
and says he had been ‘hit hard’ by the television pictures of soldiers opening
fire on unarmed civilians. So when he was approached by student supporters in
Hong Kong a week after the massacre, he was sympathetic – and he already had
smuggling routes in place. Over 150 people were extracted, many by speedboat to
ships in international waters. A student leader says, “Of course we paid –
famous people were more expensive, everything in Hong Kong has a market price –
but the rest was up to Brother Six.” The total cost of the operation was about ₤75,000.
There have been growing international protests against the
death sentence handed to a heavily pregnant Sudanese Christian woman for
apostasy against Islam, and the sentence of flogging for adultery (the court’s
Islamic law does not recognise her conversion or her marriage to a Christian). Meanwhile, it has
emerged that her husband, Daniel Wani, is originally from South Sudan but is
now an American citizen.
The Church of England has released new guidance on sex
education in C of E schools. The guidance recommends some materials provided by
gay rights groups; indeed, the guidance mentions Stonewall more often than
Jesus Christ. The Archbishop of Canterbury said there was a major challenge in
“combating homophobic bullying while still teaching the traditional Anglican
view of marriage.” However, the director of Christian Concern and of the
Christian Legal Centre said, “The whole package is based on a false premise –
that homophobic bullying needs particular attention. We need to stop all
bullying.”
In Wuhan, China, a conflict between official and unofficial
churches has produced a violent end. A ‘house church’ (unofficial church)
bought and built by the pastor, Wu Qixi, was forcibly taken over by the Three
Self (official) church five years ago. The authorities promised that Pastor Wu
could return after three years; however, when he and several believers recently
tried to do so, they were attacked and beaten leaving the pastor in a coma. It’s
not clear whether the brawlers were staff of the official church or linked to the government; it is clear that they were not punished for the attack.
In sport, the end of the football season has brought joy or
despair to many football teams. Arsenal won the FA Cup, their first trophy for
9 years, though they were fortunate not to be beaten by Hull City who scored
two goals in the first eight minutes and had a third header cleared off the
line; if that header had gone in, all three of Hull’s central defenders would
have scored. Football widows also face joy in seeing the end of the season,
followed by despair at realising that the World Cup starts next month.
And finally, a 62 year old Turkish man who appeared on a TV
dating show surprised the audience, and his date, by revealing that the reason
he was single was because he had murdered his wife. “I’m an honest man,” he
said. “I killed her because she was going to leave me, and I killed her lover
before he could kill me. I’ve done 14 years in prison and I’m a changed man.”
He admitted that previous dates had found his history off-putting.
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