A human rights group in the southern Philippines has welcomed a  government statement announcing the imminent lifting of martial law across Mindanao, but it called for an international probe into alleged atrocities committed by the military while it has been in force.

The group BarugKatungod (Stand for Rights) said two and a half years of martial law in the region had resulted in more than 162 killings. At least 704 cases of “fabricated charges,” 284 cases of illegal arrest and detention, 1,007 victims of aerial bombardments and the forced evacuation of at least a million people were also reported.

“This announcement to end martial law will ultimately not bring relief for all the victims,” said Bishop Redeemer Yanez of the Philippine Independent Church, convener of the rights group. The presidential palace announced on Dec. 10 — International Human Rights Day — that President Rodrigo Duterte will not seek another extension of martial law in Mindanao.

At least 629 Pakistani girls sold as enslaved brides to Chinese husbands. This is the official number of the recent phenomenon of trafficking in women from the South Asian country to the Chinese giant. This was revealed by an investigation by the Associated Press, which managed to have the original reports of the complaints filed since 2018.

However, according to investigators, the phenomenon is far more extensive, if only the judicial authorities had continued to register the complaints at the same pace as the first few months. After an initial investigative momentum, there is a progressive slowdown in the registration of cases.

People “informed of the facts” motivate this contraction due to pressure and interference from the Islamabad government. In fact, it would have exercised its influence to curb investigations so as not to damage the “profitable” link with Beijing.

Proof of this is the acquittal of 31 Chinese in a single case of trafficking in human beings, freed by the court of Faisalabad in October. According to some family members of the victims, who speak under anonymity, the accusing victims later refused to testify against their torturers because of threats or for compensation received to keep silent.

Osamu Giovanni Micico had never read the Bible, knew nothing of the stories of Christ in the gospels, and had never heard of the apostles, when his experience studying sacred art in Italy brought him to the Catholic faith. “When I came to Italy, painting was the only street for me as far as my profession goes. Thank God, that is also where God gave me my spiritual rebirth,” Micico told CNA.

Catholicism “transformed my life. The way I relate to others, the way I view the world. And the direction I’m taking in my life. The meaning of suffering. It all changed. My conversion gave life to death.”

From his childhood and adolescence in Tokyo, Micico was interested in drawing and painting, but he originally pursued a science-based career to please his parents.

During university, however, he encountered an artist who inspired him to pursue his passion for painting.

The 37-year-old artist moved to Florence in 2008 to study the paintings of the Old Masters, such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. He told CNA that at the time he mostly painted landscapes or portraits, except when he copied the great masterpieces to learn from them. But he did not know what he was looking at.

“I was with my Catholic friend, asking my friend, who are those fishermen?” the artist said. In a way, he noted, he encountered the gospel the same way it was encountered by people in the Middle Ages who could not read, through the symbols of art.

“I was ‘reading’ those paintings before I knew the gospel. I didn’t know what stories they represented,” he explained.

“I think like music, those paintings spoke to me with harmony and it animated my soul. It was not just technique – that they made a realistic painting – but there was something else that was very holy there.”

Another personal encounter was influential in Micico’s conversion: his friendship with Irish religious artist and Catholic Dany MacManus, who was then living in Florence. While Micico still knew nothing about the Bible, MacManus invited him to a lecture he was giving on St John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. “That left an impression,” Micico said.

MacManus became Micico’s godfather at his baptism in 2010. “Art was the entrance. I think that even without words, like with the music of Bach, one can intuit the beauty of a creator,” he said. “Ultimately, God the merciful was represented in the painting … That’s what spoke to me.”
Micico now creates sacred art himself.

Pope Francis has praised Thailand for promoting harmony and peace in a video message ahead of his visit to the kingdom that begined on Nov. 20.

“In this world that too frequently experiences discord, division and exclusion,” Thailand has shown commitment to work hard “to promote harmony and a peaceful coexistence,” he says.

This commitment, he says, “can serve as an inspiration” for all the people around the world who are working to “promote a great, true development of our human family in solidarity, in justice and in living in peace,” Vatican News reported.

Pope Francis visited Thailand on his 32nd Apostolic Journey from Nov. 20-23 before heading to Japan.

In his message, he said he will have the opportunity to meet and “encourage” the Catholic community of Thailand “in their faith and in the contribution they make to the whole of society.”

He is hoping to “strengthen the bonds of friendship that we share with many Buddhist brothers and sisters.”

“I trust that my visit will help to highlight the importance of interreligious dialogue, mutual understanding and fraternal coope-ration,” says the Pope.

He thanked the people of Thailand “from the bottom of” his heart for all the preparation that is being made for his visit.

This is the first papal visit to Thailand in nearly four decades following the journey made by Pope John Paul II in 1984.

Pope Francis’ visits to Thai-land and Japan show his love for marginalized communities, says Cardinal Charles Bo of Yangon, president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences. In his fourth visit to Asia, Pope Francis is scheduled to arrive in Bangkok on Nov. 20. Three days later, he leaves for Tokyo and nuclear-bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki before returning to Rome on Nov. 26.

Pope Francis has “chosen countries where the Catholic community is a minority. His concern for communities on the margins has amplified their presence,” Cardinal Bo said in a statement.

Two years ago, “he chose to visit two countries where the Christian presence is so small. Christianity was in Myanmar for 500 years. His visit made this small flock to be known to the world,” said the cardinal.

In his 2017 Asia visit, Pope Francis covered Muslim-dominated Bangladesh and Buddhist-majority Myanmar, the base of 71-year-old Cardinal Bo.

Pope Francis became the first Pope to visit Myanmar, where Christians form just 6 percent of a population of some 54 million people. Catholics make up about one percent or some 750,000.

In yet another incident of religious intolerance in Pakistan, a Christian journalist quit Dunya News after she was allegedly persecuted for her faith by co-workers and insulted for not converting to Islam after marrying a Muslim, media reports said.

Gonila Gill (38), married to Husnain Jamil, was the only Christian journalist registered with the Lahore Press Club, reported AsiaNews.

“People talk rubbish about my faith. But I will not lose hope and remain steadfast in my religion,” Gill was quoted as saying by the news website.

In Pakistan, several incidents of violation of religious freedom have come to fore recently.

According to a recent US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) report, “Extremist groups and societal actors in Pakistan continued to discriminate against and attack religious minorities, including Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Ahmadis and Shia Muslims.”

Pakistan had failed to “adequately protect these groups and it perpetrated systematic, egregious religious freedom violations,” it said.