Social order & special needs

Yesterday, endorsing NGOs of the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections 2.0 (BERSIH 2.0) had an emergency meeting and unanimously decided to proceed with the BERSIH 3.0 “Duduk Bantah” in Dataran Merdeka.

The emergency meeting was called to consider the statement made by the Home Minister on Sunday 22 April 2012 that we may be offered Stadium Merdeka or Stadium Bukit Jalil as possible alternate venues for “Duduk  Bantah”. Read more »

A legal challenge will be launched against the building of two new Catholic schools in southwest London.

The British Humanist Association (BHA) and the Richmond Inclusive Schools Campaign (RISC) are planning to mount a legal challenge against Richmond Council, following an application by the Diocese of Westminster to build a Catholic primary and secondary school. Read more »

A group of thugs, with the cooperation of the police, stormed a Christian orphanage in Hanoi, damaging the building and even beating the children who are guests of the center.

The thugs seriously injured a priest, who spoke out in defense of innocent young victims. He was rushed to a hospital in the capital, unconscious from the blows received to the head during the raid. Read more »

The Bar Council will deploy a team of monitors during Bersih 3.0 to watch for any incidents of violence and assist those who may be arrested during the April 28 rally, its president Lim Chee Wee said today.

He would not say if the council would participate in the event, Bersih’s third since 2007, but noted that the Bar “respects and protects” the right to assemble under the Federal Constitution, provided it stays peaceful. Read more »

Christian clerics in Turkey have expressed their anxiety regarding the growing threats they face in wake of an attack against Pastor Semih Serkek of the Protestant “Lütuf” (“Grace”) Church in Istanbul’s Bahçelievler district on April 7.

“Attacks against Christian clerics drop off for a while, then they begin to re-energize. [Such attacks] have begun to accelerate again in recent days. Read more »

Many people today idolize greed which is generated from misuse of power and supported by guns or violence, according to the Archbishop of Jakarta.

“Whether you realize it or not, greed determines a person’s way of life,” Archbishop Ignatius Suharyo told Catholics attending the Pontifical Easter Mass at the Assumption of Mary Cathedral Church in Jakarta yesterday. Read more »

The by-elections in Myanmar on April 1 brought home the issue of civic responsibility in ways that the previous national polls in 2010 could not do.

Aung San Suu Kyi, former political prisoner who spearheaded the landslide electoral victory in 1990, only to see the results ignored by the country’s military rulers, became a member of the lower house of parliament. Read more »

The women belonging to minority religious communities are "doubly discriminated and marginalized".

They are widely abused and harassed, often forced to conversions, and their education level is much lower than the rate of female literacy, at a national level: this is according to a Report presented today on the occasion of "Women's Day", by the "Justice and Peace Commission" of the Catholic Episcopal Conference of Pakistan and sent to Fides. Read more »

Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, gave the following address at the 19th Session of the Human Rights Council.

Madam President,

The implementation of human rights is a difficult challenge today, particularly with regard to the fundamental and inalienable right of every person to “freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief.” Read more »

Bersih 2.0 urges Prime Minister Najib Razak to immediately stop the serial political violence inflicted on opposition politicians and civil society activists by thugs reportedly related to UMNO and Perkasa, while police often just looked on and no one has been charged so far.

Bersih 2.0 warns that such impunity on political violence, if continued, leaves no room for clean elections in Malaysia. If political activisms are met with physical assaults even before elections, could the safety of opposition leaders and campaigners be guaranteed come the next election? Read more »