Christian family kicked out of their home for refusing to convert

Story by Jordan King 

File photo of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Henryville, Ind., Saturday, taken on March 3, 2012.© AP

A Christian family has been barred from their village in India after refusing to convert to Hinduism, an international Christian human rights organization has reported.

A man identified only as Vikram, his wife and their five children had lived in their Hindu-majority village in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh for years before villagers stormed their home and kicked them out on June 16, the International Christian Concern (ICC) said.

Christians are facing persecution in India, according to the ICC and other organizations, amid a push for India to become a Hindu nation.

Newsweek has contacted India's Ministry of Minority Affairs for comment via email.
The Context

This expulsion highlights intensifying religious pressures in India, where Hindu nationalist groups and politicians increasingly advocate for a Hindu-majority identity and stricter legal boundaries for religious minorities.

Forced conversions, social boycotts, and anti-conversion laws have contributed to a climate of fear among Christian communities—particularly in states such as Chhattisgarh, where such policies are most aggressively enforced.

There were 160 reports of violent attacks against Christians in India last year, the European Centre for Law and Justice reported in March, including attacks on church and prayer meetings and physical assaults.

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7 evangelical Christians jailed for refusing to convert not to Islam but to Catholicism in Mexico

Hazel Torres 

18 December 2015

Reuters
Pilgrims hold up images of the Virgin of Guadalupe during an annual pilgrimage in honor of the Virgin, the patron saint of Mexican Catholics, at the Cathedral of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Dec.11, 2015.

Seven evangelical Christians are facing a different kind of persecution—this time not by Islamic radicals but, surprisingly, by fellow Christ-believing Catholics.

In a report carried by Charisma News, the International Christian Concern (ICC) said it has learned that the seven evangelical Christians were sent to jail in Chiapas, Mexico, on Dec. 15 after they refused to convert to Catholicism.

ICC said Mexican state and federal authorities had been informed of threats to illegally expel or send to prison members of the evangelical community in the area, but they refused to intervene.

The evangelicals earlier received an ultimatum to convert to Catholicism or face expulsion and imprisonment by local officials of the place where they reside—in Leyva Velazques, a municipality of Las Margaritas, Chiapas.

Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion in Mexico where 82.7 percent of the people adhere to the faith, based on a census conducted in 2010. However, Mexico's Constitution explicitly protects the right of all citizens to profess and practice the religious belief of their choice.

Reports said the Catholics' ultimatum forced eight families in the village to sign documents indicating their willingness to convert to Catholicism.

But seven of their fellow evangelicals refused to sign the document and were sent to jail, according to Luis Herrera, Director of the Coordination of Christian Council of Churches.

Other evangelical Christians in the community are continually being pressured to renounce their faith by local officials of Leyva Velazques, according to ICC.

The Christian group said this incident shows the growing trend of religious persecution in rural areas of Mexico under the noses of state and federal government officials who refuse to do anything to protect religious minorities.

In June, ICC reported more than 70 cases of religious persecution against minority Christian communities in the states of Chiapas, Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Puebla and Guerrero. Each case involved 20 to 100 victims.

Isaac Six, ICC's Advocacy Director, has appealed to the Mexican government to stop the persecution of Christian minorities in the country's rural areas.

It is simply unconscionable for the state and federal governments of Mexico to repeatedly ignore the arbitrary arrest and expulsion of their own citizens by local governments on the basis of religious belief," he said.

"Today, hundreds of men, women, and children are homeless in Mexico because they chose to follow their beliefs, and because their government refused to act. We call on the federal government of Mexico to immediately intervene and halt the unlawful detention of members of the evangelical community in Leyva Velazques," Six said.

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Former San Francisco archbishop named in sex abuse complaint

By: Ari Burack
09/15/11 10:29 PM

Examiner Staff Writer

Cardinal William Levada, who was San Francisco archbishop from 1995-2005, has been named in a sex abuse complaint, along with the pope and others. (AP file photo)

Former San Francisco Archbishop William Levada is one of a group of top Vatican officials named in a sex abuse complaint filed this week with the International Criminal Court.

Representatives of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and the Center for Constitutional Rights on Tuesday called for an inquiry by the court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, into charges that the church hierarchy tolerated widespread sexual abuse on a global scale.

The complaint names Pope Benedict XVI, the now-Cardinal Levada and two other cardinals. Levada was archbishop of San Francisco from 1995 to 2005, and now heads the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is responsible for overseeing abuse cases.


Levada has also been accused of suppressing clergy abuse cases while in San Francisco.


A statement from SNAP on Wednesday urged “investigation and prosecution of high-level Vatican officials for their roles in the on-going protection of perpetrators, hiding of crimes and the enabling of rape, sexual assault and torture of thousands of individuals around the world.”


The group also urged victims of clergy sexual abuse, as well as church employees with information about such crimes or attempts to cover them up, to come forward.


An attorney for the Vatican, in a statement to The Associated Press, denounced this week’s complaint as a “ludicrous publicity stunt and a misuse of international judicial processes.”

According to the AP, an investigation by the International Criminal Court would be highly unlikely, as the court has received nearly 9,000 independent proposals for inquiries since its creation in 2002, and has never opened a formal investigation based solely on such a request.


Pam Spees, an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, conceded she was “not hopeful” an investigation would be launched by the court.

The prosecutor’s office said in a statement that it would study the evidence presented, but would first have to determine whether the alleged crimes fall under its jurisdiction.

aburack@sfexaminer.com


The Associated Press contributed to this report.



Source:  http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/crime/2011/09/former-sf-archbishop-named-sex-abuse-complaint#ixzz1Y9HSBgtE

Clergy Sex Abuse Victims File International Court Case Against Pope (VIDEO)

Interpol issues arrest notice for Gaddafi

From: AAP      

 Interpol secretary-general Ronald Noble

September 09, 20117:03PM

WORLD police body Interpol has called for the arrest of fugitive former Libyan leader Mummar Gaddafi for his alleged crimes against humanity, following a request by the International Criminal Court (ICC).   

Interpol said it had issued a "red notice" for the arrest of Gaddafi, his son Seif al-Islam and his intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, one day after ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked for the agency's help.

The international police organisation asked its 188 member countries "to take all measures consistent with their national laws to help the ICC locate and apprehend Gaddafi".

The "request for Interpol 'red notices' will significantly restrict the ability of all three men to cross international borders and is a powerful tool to help in their location and arrest," Interpol secretary-general Ronald Noble said.

"Gaddafi is a fugitive whose country of nationality and the International Criminal Court want arrested and held accountable for the serious criminal charges that have been brought against him," Noble said.

A "red notice" by the international police co-operation agency, which is based in the central French city of Lyon, seeks the arrest for an extradition or surrender of a person to an international court based on an arrest warrant.

On June 27, ICC judges agreed to Moreno-Ocampo's request for arrest warrants against Gaddafi, 69, Seif al-Islam, 39, and Senussi, 62, for crimes against humanity committed by Libyan troops on their orders, using "lethal force" to quell the uprising against his regime. Interpol secretary-general Ronald Noble

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