On April 27 Saudi Arabian Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman (Mbs), gave a long television interview to the Saudi channel “Al-Arabiya”[i], dedicated to his economic and social program for a new country in the framework of the 2030 vision, first unveiled in 2015.
In the interview he spoke of moderation in the application of Islamic laws, challenging Wahhabism, an ideology developed by Mohammed ben Abdelwahhab, an 18th century Saudi preacher, who reigned for a long time in the country and elsewhere, after promoting it for many decades in the Muslim world.
It would seem that MBS has come out in favour of the reform of Islam, when he stated: “All Muslim jurists and scholars have been talking about the concept of moderation for over a thousand years. So, I do not think I am in a position to clarify this concept, as much as I can … abide by the Saudi constitution, which is the Quran, the Sunnah, and our basic governance system and to implement it fully in a broad sense that is inclusive of everybody.” Until a few years ago, such a speech would have been unimaginable and [even that evening] it was hard to believe it, if broadcast live on the television channel.
MBS also declared that “the Constitution of Saudi Arabia is the Koran” and that his country is “obliged to implement the Koran in one form or another”; that is: all citizens will be respected as such and in their differences. To be more explicit, he stressed that only what is only said “unequivocally” in the Koran should be applied: “In social and personal affairs, we are obliged to implement only the stipulations clearly enunciated in the Quran. Thus, I cannot apply a sharia punishment without a clear or explicit Koranic stipulation of the Sunna.”
China moves to censor Christians online
Authorities in China have removed online Bible apps from app stories in China, as well as taking down prominent Christian chat accounts.
According to Father Francis Liu of the Chinese Christian Fellowship of Righteousness, those logging in to see Christian chat accounts in China saw the following message: “[We] recei-ved report that [this account] vio-lates the ‘Internet User Public Account Information Services Management Provisions’ and its account has been blocked and suspended.”
“Sadly, this doesn’t come as a surprise,” said Dr David Landrum, head of advocacy for Open Doors UK and Ireland. “Since President Xi Xinping came to power we have seen a concerted and strategic wave of persecution against Christians, with the use and abuse of technology at the forefront of this religious cleansing.”
Pakistan minorities await implementation of ‘historic’ ruling
New research assessing the Pakistan Supreme Court’s 2014 judgment to protect minority rights predicts its implementation will take more than two decades.
“During this period, a Supreme Court bench has conducted 23 follow-up hearings and passed nearly six dozen orders, yet Pakistan stands 21 years away from the finish line of full implementation, considering the existing pace of compliance,” the study states.
“The federal government reported the least number of compliance reports. No report had been submitted from Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Reportage from the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony and Ministry of Federal Education was in particular missing.”
Peter Jacob, executive director of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), virtually inaugurated his research titled “Justice Yet Afar” in Lahore on April 30. Speakers expressed concerns at the state’s lack of compliance with the 2014 Supreme Court judgment that mandated the federal government to create a national council for the rights of minorities and provincial governments to create task forces for religious tolerance, protect places of worship and crack down on hate speech, among other measures.
Malaysia: ‘Christians Are Enemies of Islam’
A malicious book accusing Christians of a grand conspiracy to undermine Islam has gone viral in Malaysia, even as fresh allega-tions are being brought against Kuala Lumpur’s archbishop for spewing anti-Muslim propaga-nda.
The Islamic book, Pendeda-han Agenda Kristian (Exposing the Christian Agenda), labels the “Nasrani” (Christians) as “ene-mies of Islam who are always malicious and display a negative attitude towards Muslims,” and who “will try their best to cause heartache among Muslims.”
Church Militant obtained a copy of the 130-page book from the official portal of the Selangor Islamic Religious Council (SIRC), which has a gov.my internet address — linking it to the government of Malaysia.
First published in hardback in 2014 and now made available in digital format in the Malay language, the publication accuses Catholics and evangelicals of adopting missionary schools and “contextualization” as a conver-sion strategy, especially by using the term “Allah” in the Malay-language Bible.
Ironically, the accusations come in the light of Pope Francis’ categorical rejection of efforts to convert people of other religions and in the wake of the pontiff’s Abu Dhabi Catholic-Muslim concordat with Sunni Grand Imam of al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayyeb in 2019.
It gives the lie to Pope Fran-cis’ fond hopes that his ‘interfaith dialogue’ will lead to harmony and peace between Muslims and Christians.
India Kills 22 Million Girl Babies in 30 Years
India’s sex-selective abortion holocaust astronomically eclipses COVID-19 fatalities, with up to 22 million female babies estimated to have been massacred in the last three decades, according to a new study in The Lancet.
Writing in the world’s most prestigious medical journal, seven Indian researchers posit “a total of between 13.5 million and 22.1 million missing female births from 1987 to 2016” due to sex-selective abortion — a consequence of “daughter aversion.”
India accounts for half of the world’s suppressed female births. The trend “conti-nues to increase” and “should be a cause for serious alarm,” the Lancet editorial noted.
“This ongoing slaughter of unborn baby girls dwarfs the number of recent COVID-19 deaths. It is a human tragedy of enormous proportions that will haunt India for generations,” social scientist Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute (PRI) told Church Militant.
“Since 1990, approximately 15.8 million women have gone ‘missing’ from annual birth cohorts,” a 2019 PRI report revealed. “We at PRI are confident that our number of 15.8 million missing girls in India is close to the mark,” Mosher said.
India conducted 12.7 million sex-selective abortions between 2000 and 2014, according to Mosher’s 65-page report, which lamented, “Since 2014, approximately 550,000 girls go ‘missing’ from the birth cohorts every year due to the practice of sex-selective abortion and other forms of prenatal sex selection.”
This ongoing slaughter of unborn baby girls dwarfs the number of recent COVID-19 deaths. It is a human tragedy of enormous proportions that will haunt India for genera-tions.
Among other factors for daughter aver-sion, religious groups like Hindus display a higher preference for sons, who are valued for carrying out funeral rites for their parents (as most Hindus believe that a son must fulfill this role).
PRI reported that Hindu women are, therefore, “significantly more likely than non-Hindu women to resort to abortion.” Church Militant asked statistician and mathematician Dr Will Jones to put the abortion versus COVID-19 fatality figures in global perspective.
“Around 1.8 million people died world-wide with COVID-19 in 2020, according to the official tally. Yet this is eclipsed by the number of unborn children whose lives are ended by abortion each year — an estimated 73.3 million in 2019,” Jones explained.
Modi blamed for inaction amid India’s pandemic crisis
Things are taking gory turns for India on multiple fronts. Even those who sympathize with Prime Minister Narendra Modi are upset with his decision-making style, which is centered only on the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
Subramanian Swamy, an MP of Modi’s own Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), recently said Modi should leave the management of the worsening Covid-19 pandemic situation to a crisis management team instead of making decisions on his own.
“We need a serious crisis management team now instead of PMO psychos to monitor and strategize the response,” tweeted Swamy, a former federal minister and a person known for calling a spade a spade.
The suggestion come amid experts warning of a more virulent and destructive third wave of Covid-19 in India. The second wave is reportedly reaching its peak, killing close to 4,000 people a day and adding more than 400,000 cases daily.
With more than 20 million cases and thousands dying daily, the crisis has exposed India’s rickety healthcare system. Besides, political and administrative chaos and governmental indecisiveness have resulted in the collapse of the existing healthcare system amid an impending economic disaster.
Uddhav Thackeray, chief minister of Maharashtra, which is leading the tally with more than 4 million cases, said a third wave is “inevitable given the higher levels of circulating virus, but it is not clear on what time and scale this phase three will occur.”
Many mosques in India turned into Covid centers
A catastrophic second wave of COVID-19 has overwhelmed India’s already creaky health infrastructure, with hospitals running out of beds and oxygen, while critical drugs are being sold on a thriving black market.
Social media platforms have been flooded with SOS messages from people pleading for oxygen cylinders and hospital admissions as authorities struggled to cope with the scale of the crisis.
Amid the shortage, many places of worship, including mosques and gurdwaras, across India have come forward to help needy patients and a number of them have been turned into care centres for COVID patients.
Mufti Arif Falahi, head of a seminary in the western city of Baroda, has taken on a different job over the past weeks: saving lives. A part of Falahi’s seminary in the western state of Gujarat, home to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been turned into a makeshift care centre for COVID patients.
“Every day, we have to turn away 50-60 people because we can only accommodate 142 with oxygen support,” Falahi told Al Jazeera over the phone.
On May 10, India recorded 3,754 deaths, a slight dip after two consecutive days of more than 4,000 deaths. Daily infections stood at more than 360,000.
Church leaders ask India to deploy military in Covid-19 crisis
As Covid-19 continues to claim thousands of lives daily in India, Catholic leaders have called on the federal government to deploy the military to deal with the crisis before it worsens.
“The second wave of Covid-19 is surely a national calamity and the entire nation is struggling as thousands are dying and hundreds of thousands are getting infected daily,” said Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, former secretary-general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI).
“The federal government should consider deploying military personnel to assist the civil administration to effectively deal with this alarming situation of people living in fear,” he told UCA News on April 27.
Since mid-April, India has been reporting more than 300,000 new Covid-19 cases and 2,000 deaths daily.
Several states and cities have resorted to lockdowns and night curfews and several other restrictions on socio-religious gatherings to break the chain of the pandemic’s spread.
Release vaccines for India: Indian American doctors urge Biden
A prominent group of Indian-American doctors on May 7 urged the US government to release at least 30 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses to India to help meet its “acute and severe” shortage in the country, which is experiencing one of the worst outbreaks of COVID-19 in the world.
The American Association of Physicians of Indian-Origin (AAPI), the largest representative body of Indian-American doctors in the United States, has also written letters to all the 100 senators, seeking their support in increased assistance to India.
AAPI said it has been working with the White House officials and urging the administration the importance and the need to send the much-needed vaccines to India to prevent and contain the spread of the virus.
At present, India is experiencing acute and severe shortages of the COVID-19 vaccines. AstraZeneca is releasing 60 million vaccines after due FDA approval this month. We urge the US government to release at least 30 million doses of the vaccine to India, said Dr. Sampat Shivangi, member National Advisory Council, SAMHSA, Center for National Mental Health Services, and currently serving as AAPI’s Legislative Wing chairman.
While providing all possible help and support that is essential at this critical period, AAPI recognises that in the long term, vaccination is still the best therapy and hope, he said.
Dalits refuse to carry bodies, huts torched in Odisha
As many as 30 Dalit houses were set on fire in a village under the Puri district of Odisha, eastern India.
According to Bada Khabar, an Odiya news channel, the houses in Brahmapur village were burnt on May 9 as the Dalit families refused to carry dead bodies to the crematoria.
A few months ago, the Dalit families unanimously decided not to pick up dead bodies, incurring the wrath of other villagers. First, the villagers denied the Dalits access to the village pond and tube well. The villagers also didn’t allow them to walk on the village road. No one talked to them, according to the report.
Later, the village ‘Kangaroo court’ decided to chase away all Dalit families from the village.
The 30 Dalit families of 100 people left the village and settled in Nathupur village and stayed under a plastic tent for three months.
According to “Bada Khabar” reporter, Tapan Lenka, the concerned police officers or district administration took no action during the three months. No one visited the families either, he added.
However, on May 10, Brahmagiri Tahasildar reached Nathupur and forced the Dalit families to vacate the place right away.
The Dalits’ refusal to carry their traditionally expected duty of carrying dead bodies was influenced by their school going children. The children requested them not to perform such jobs any more as they faced ridicule and discrimination from other students.
The Dalit students wanted to study and make different careers.
Social activists say India has seen many such cases. Dalits are attacked and murdered for eating beef, marrying their choice, wearing wrong shoes, going to church, entering temple, doing the job of their ability, giving speeches, singing songs, writing books and so on.
In India, 40,801 atrocities against Dalits were reported in 2016, up from 38,670 in 2015, according to the National Crime Record Bureau data.