Free Republic

(Compass) - Eritrean authorities extended their crackdown on organized religion to Roman Catholics, jailing 25 members of the Catholic Church during a wedding rehearsal in Asmara on January 9. Police inexplicably entered the building and took the entire wedding party to jail, where they remained under arrest as of yesterday. The arrest marked the first reported crackdown against Eritrea’s Catholic community, which enjoys “official” recognition by the government, along with Orthodox and Lutheran Christians and Muslims. The same Sunday morning, security police swooped down on a wedding ceremony in Barentu and arrested the 67 evangelical Christians present. All the...

The events that occurred in the US on Monday, September 11th shocked the world both by their sheer violence as well as by the cool and calculated determination with which the emblems of "invincible American power" had been hit. It is not our intention to propose a political analysis of these events since it has already been done by more qualified and authorized persons. It is our duty rather as Catholics to analyze these events in the light of our Faith and to draw conclusions for our Catholic life. Indeed, if the 11th of September is an open declaration of...

The seed of the Church is Her martyrs. So has it ever been. We now come to the final period of Spanish holiness, that sown by the martyrs and cultivated by the monastics and bishops who followed from the end of the ninth century until the downfall of Orthodox Iberia in about 1050. This last age opens with St. Vintila, a hermit who reposed at Pugino near Orense in Galicia in 890 and is feasted on 23 December. In c. 900 St. Lambert, a servant working near Saragossa, was killed by his Moorish master for being a Christian - his...

The Second Age of the Martyrs The Spiritual Renaissance of seventh-century Spain comes to an end but a no less glorious period then begins. It is a second age of martyrdom, this time under the Muslim Moors or Saracens, who invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 711 and showed themselves to be just as ferocious as the pagan Romans.However, the full extent of Moorish cruelty did not become apparent until the ninth century and the eighth century is something of an overlapping period between the seventh and the ninth. Nevertheless what was to come in the ninth was presaged by...

(Compass) - Fresh violence broke out in the central Nigerian state of Plateau on December 29, 2004, when Muslim militants attacked the village of Gana-Ropp, killing Christian community leader Davou Bulle and critically injuring his wife and son. Assailants shot Bulle in the chest as he and his family were returning home from their farm. The attack came just weeks after the federal government lifted a six-month state of emergency imposed on the state between May and November 2004. Police later announced the arrest of eight suspects in the attack. Plateau state Police Commissioner Joseph Apapa told journalists in Jos...

The Egyptian Christian director of a home for troubled Coptic girls goes on trial January 16 in Cairo on charges of holding a 16-year-old Coptic girl against her will and without her parents’ permission, and also of trying to rape her. Shafik Saleh Shafik, 57, claims the case against him is an attempt to close down his recovery ministry among Coptic girls who are being enticed to leave their Christian families and convert to Islam. “The state security police wrote on their report about me that I am a ‘very dangerous man,’ because I am preaching Christianity,” Shafik told Compass....

ISLAMABAD, Jan 12: Suicide bombers are not necessarily uneducated, poor and psychopaths but are as much economically well-off as their surrounding population. These views were expressed by a leading Australia-based Pakistani sociologist, Dr Riaz Hassan, who was delivering a lecture on suicide bombers here on Wednesday. .... Dr Hassan described some novel facts and figures he had gathered while conducting his ongoing research on suicide bombers. About 66 per cent of the Palestinian suicide bombers were high school or university graduates. .... To the surprise of many, Dr Hassan said, there had been a considerable decrease in the number of...

[India News]: Srinagar, Jan 12 : Two militants and a counter-insurgent associate with Ikhwan were among four persons killed and a policeman injured in separate incidents in Jammu and Kashmir, where a hardcore Hizbul Mujahideen militant was arrested, official sources said today. The two ultras affiliated with Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Toiba outfit and a 55-year-old woman were killed in a gunbattle between militants and security forces at Partapora village of Shopian in Pulwama district of South Kashmir last night, the sources said. The encounter was triggered by militants who opened fire on a search party in the village, they said adding the...

How do you staff 130 parishes with 55 priests, settle yet another round of clergy misconduct lawsuits and replace a retiring bishop? For Vermont's 148,000 Catholics, the new year promises historic challenges and change. Members of the state's largest religious group will start work Saturday on their chief concern when as many as 300 priests and parishioners meet privately to discuss how to consolidate churches to deal with a clergy shortage. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Vermont projects the number of priests will drop by half in 10 years, leaving about 55 clergymen to minister to more than twice as...

Photo taken on Jan. 7, 2005 shows the income tax building on fire during a clash between militants and the Indian security troop in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir.(Xinhua Photo/Farooq)Indian security troops stand off with militants in the income tax building on fire during an attack launched by the militants on the building in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir. (Xinhua Photo/Farooq) An injured Indian security man is carried to a safe place during a clash between militants and the Indian security troop in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir. Militants attacked the income tax building in Srinagar on Jan. 7. (Xinhua Photo/Farooq) Indian security troops stand...

A soldier was killed and three were wounded on Friday afternoon when three Palestinian gunmen fired at an Israeli car traveling between the Tapuah and Migdalim Junctions near Nablus on the West Bank, Judea and Samaria Police said. The soldier, who suffered critical wounds, died of his wounds at the Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva. Another soldier remains in serious condition and the other two are recovering from moderate wounds, Nir Yiffet, a Magen David Adom paramedic told the Jerusalem Post. The four, who were on their way to the Ma'aleh Ephraim Paramilitary School from which they had graduated before...

ISTANBUL (AFP) -- Turkish nationalists chanting slogans and waving the flag of an extreme right-wing party Thursday tried to disrupt a Greek Orthodox religious ceremony here called the benediction of the waters of the Bosporus, eyewitnesses said. As part of a tradition dating back to Byzantine times, a crucifix is thrown into the waters and young divers plunge in, competing to recover it. Some 60 nationalists interrupted the proceedings waving flags of the National Action Party (MHP) and chanting: "This is Turkey here, like it or leave it." Hundreds of members of Istanbul's Greek Orthodox community attended the traditional ceremony...

Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei on Wednesday stressed that "enemies of the Islamic Republic are trying to humiliate and diminish the value of martyrdom and the culture of jihad in the eyes of the youth, particularly students." In a message to the 8th Congress on Martyred Students held in the southeastern provincial capital of Kerman, the Iranian leader urged students to continue to promote the culture of jihad and "martyrdom" (To die for something you believe in) among themselves as "a source of national strength and foundation of pure worship." Ayatollah Khamenei, in his message, cited by IRNA,...

Joseph's Tomb in Shechem [Nablus] view a 100 year old photo of Kever Yoseph Rosh Hodesh Tammuz 5763 Over 150 Visit Joseph's Tomb05:17 Jul. 01, '03 / 1 Tammuz 5763 (IsraelNN.com) Under IDF guard, over 150 persons during the night visited Joseph's Tomb in Shechem to observe the annual memorial day of his death. WITHOUT WORDS: Adar, 5763 Selichot at Kever Yoseph- Erev Yom Kipur 5763 Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com - 9 iyar 5762"I CRIED AND ASKED FORGIVENESS; JOSEPH'S BROTHERS SOLD HIM AGAIN"Despite the IDF's withdrawal from Shechem this morning, many Jews still demand that Israel retake and retain the...

Terrorist Attack at the Erez Terminal (IFM January 5, 2005) During the night IDF forces identified an armed terrorist, who infiltrated the Erez terminal, in the northern Gaza Strip.Initial investigation shows that the terrorist infiltrated the terminal via the Palestinian tunnel that leads to the Israeli terminal, activated an explosive device that created a hole in the tunnel's wall and entered the courtyard connecting the Israeli and Palestinian checkpoints. The terrorist hurled grenades and opened fire at an IDF post near the courtyard. An IDF force which arrived at the scene shot the terrorist, killing him. No injuries were reported...

News ERP KiM Newsletter 05-06-04 Seventeen year old Serb killed by Albanian extremists today - Diocese most strongly condemns the crime and continuation of ethnic terror in Kosovo Bishop Artemije visited the family of the killed Serb teenager today and send a sharp message to the international mission in Kosovo saying that the continuation of the ethnic violence and terrorism are direct consequences of a failure of the Mission to take more decisive measures against organized Albanian terrorist gangs and mafia. The international mission in Kosovo may be quite correctly equaled to policy of tacit approval and passive collaboration with...

News ERP KIM Info Service has received from well informed international sources in Kosovo a timeline of the incidents and events in Kosovo Province in the period between 15-20 March. At the moment the Diocese is actively collecting all available information on these events in which more than 4.000 Serbs have been left homeless, at least 8 Serbs died and around 30 churches have been either completely destroyed or seriously damaged by Kosovo Albanian mob. All available information and our contacts with different intelligence sources prove that the operation (called by some as Operation Matchstick) was carefully planned beforehand and...

Ethnic Chinese tell of mass rapes Reports are beginning to emerge that hundreds of women and girls of Chinese descent were raped during the riots that swept over Indonesia last month. As more women and girls - previously too scared to speak - come forward, a disturbing pattern of systematic rape has been revealed. According to witnesses, the rioters would attack houses, rape the younger women, burn the house, and then move on to the next house. Girls as young as 11 were targeted, and were often raped in front of their families by as many as 10 men. Ethnic...

September 30, 2000 Terrorism against Jews by Radical Islamic Organizations and Groups Dr. Ely Karmon ICT This article is based on a paper presented at the Conference on Extremism and Anti-Semitism on the Eve of the New Millennium, organized by The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism of Tel Aviv University, ADL and WJC, in New York (9 - 12 January 2000), and will be published by The Stephen Roth Institute. During the last decade, terrorism by radical Islamist groups has been considered the greatest threat to Jews and Jewish communities worldwide. The most...