A court in military-ruled Myanmar has dismissed an appeal by a prominent ethnic Christian leader four weeks after he was imprisoned and a day before thousands of political prisoners were freed.
Myitkyina Prison Court in Kachin state rejected an appeal from Dr. Hkalam Samson on May 2, according to media reports, quoting the defendant’s lawyer.
His lawyer told reporters that Samson, a former leader of the Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC) who was sentenced by the same court on April 7 to six years in prison for unlawful association, defaming the state and terrorism, will appeal to higher courts.
The prison court rejected his appeal a day before 2,135 political prisoners were freed from various prisons across the country on May 3, the day Myanmar marked Vesak, an auspicious day in the Buddhist majority nation.
Most of those who benefited had been sentenced under Section 505(a) of the penal code for inciting opposition to the military regime, which carries a maximum jail term of three years.
More than 21,000 people have been arrested since the military seized power after toppling Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi-led civilian government on Feb.1, 2021, according to a local monitoring group.

Amnesty International said in a report that it is deeply concerned about thousands of individuals still unjustly languishing in prisons across Myanmar, including Samson.

“This long overdue release should mark the first step towards the immediate release of all individuals who have been arbitrarily detained for exercising their basic rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly or other human rights,” Ming Ye Hah, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for campaigns, said in a statement on May 3.

Shanghai’s newly installed Bishop Joseph Shen Bin welcomed three officials of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in the diocese. They also jointly unveiled a studio the diocese built, a report on the Shanghai diocesan website said.
The three-member team included the conference’s vice chair, Qian Feng, its director for the regional working committee, Yu Xiufen, and Xu Mei, the conference’s deputy director of the Ethnic and Religious Committee.
Shen briefed the officials on the current situation of Shanghai diocese and efforts to implement the CCP’s sinicization policy, the report said.
Sinicization is a political ideology promoted by the CCP that aims to impose strict rules on societies and institutions based on the core values of socialism, autonomy, and supporting the leadership of the party, across ethnic and religious communities in China.
Shen was appointed bishop of Haimen, with both government recognition and a papal mandate in 2010. The state-controlled Church appointed him bishop of Shanghai on April 4, apparently violating the Vatican-China agreement of 2018 on the appointment of bishops.
Shen is reportedly the head of the state-run Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China, which the Vatican does not recognize. In 2017 he was also the vice president of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, the state-initiated organization administering the Church in China.
During the meeting with the officials, Shen was accompanied by senior clergy, including Father Ignatius Wu Jianlin, a CPPCC political advisor, and Father Gu Zhangjun, vicar-general of the diocese that covers China’s largest city and major economic hub. Feng urged Catholics to adhere to the direction of the sinicization of religion, and actively guide religion to adopt socialism.

An excited crowd of friends and co-workers welcomed home the Shafaq family as they pulled up to their new house in Owensboro the evening of April 2.
It had been a journey of two long years, but at last Khaibar Shafaq — a case manager and paralegal for Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Owensboro — was reunited with his wife and three children, who had flown into Chicago earlier that day.
“I feel really happy, blessed, grateful, so thankful,” said Shafaq, who offered both hugs of gratitude and introductions of his family to those gathered at his home.
Back in August 2021, Shafaq had travelled with his wife, Zuhal, daughter Farangis and sons Ahmad Belal and Ahmad Khetab out of Afghanistan to a safe location in Istanbul, Turkey.
The Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan that year after the departure of United States troops meant danger for many Afghan citizens — especially Shafaq, who had worked with and supported the U.S. government while aiding those displaced by the Islamic State group.
In order to cherish his quality time with his family, Shafaq had turned off his phone and did not check his email during his final day in Istanbul.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb, have received an official invitation from the United Nations Security Council to each deliver a historic speech during its meeting in June in New York, Al-Monitor has learned.
An Egyptian clerical source told Al-Monitor that the speeches of the prominent religious leaders will be delivered before a high-level session of the council dubbed, “The Importance of Human Fraternity Values in Promoting and Sustaining Peace,” due in mid-June at the UN’s headquarters.
“The United Arab Emirates [which will be holding the Security Council’s presidency] will highlight pressing and urgent humanitarian issues and try to take serious steps toward establishing security and ending conflicts around the world,” the invitation states.
The two religious leaders will confirm their attendance this month, the source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.
“They [the two leaders] are used to supporting any step that can promote peace in the world, so their attendance could help solve crises and stop wars around us,” the source added.
The historic speeches will come at a time the world is witnessing unending quarrels, fights and wars. The war in Ukraine has entered its second year and the latest fighting in Sudan could destabilize the fragile situation in Central, North and West Africa.
Moncef Slimi, a political analyst on Arab and European affairs and head of the German-Maghreb Institute for Culture and Media, told Al-Monitor that it would be the first time the Security Council hosts two religious leaders as prominent as Pope Francis and Sheikh Tayeb.
“That would be an important political and moral message at a difficult time for the world, both in the Arab world where wars are raging, most recently in Sudan, as well as in the West, where Ukraine’s war continues unabated,” he said.