Eritrea: Orthodox Patriarch Antonios expelled for ‘heresy’

Abune Antonios, Patriarch, Eritrean Orthodox Church
Eritrea’s Orthodox patriarch, Abune Antonios, who was placed under house arrest by the government in 2007, has been expelled by pro-government bishops in his church on accusations of heresy, the BBC reported. The attempt to excommunicate is widely seen as symptomatic of Eritrea’s government push for more political control over . . . Read More

‘It’s time to be real: what happens in Iraq is ethnic cleansing’ – UK analyst

Tahira Church in Qaraqosh, a Christian town in northern Iraq, shortly after liberation from Islamic State in November 2016. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)
What Iraq’s Christians want from the West is to say the plain truth: that there is ethnic cleansing of Christians in the region and it is ongoing, Dr Tim Stanley told a meeting at the UK’s parliament last Tuesday, 9 July. The historian and columnist, working for UK daily newspaper . . . Read More

Iraq: UN team starts probe into IS war crimes

Destroyed market in the town of Bartella, 15km east of Mosul, which was liberated from IS by Iraqi forces in October 2016. (Photo World Watch Monitor)
One of the world’s most influential Muslim clerics has told a UN team that an investigation into “heinous crimes” committed against Christian and other Iraqi minorities was welcome and urgent, reports Agenzia Fides The team, known as UNITAD, started its work formally this month following a UN resolution in September 2017. . . . Read More

Calls for inquiry into UN peacekeepers’ role in massacres in Central African Republic

As many as 100 civilians lost their lives in an attack on a refugee camp and cathedral in Alindao last month, said Amnesty International. (Photo: Catholic Church in CAR)
United Nations peacekeepers failed in protecting civilians in the Central African Republic during an attack in November that killed as many as 100 people, among them two priests, according to a report by Amnesty International that was published 14 December. Multiple eyewitnesses told Amnesty that UN peacekeepers did not stop . . . Read More

IS ‘won’t escape justice’ after Trump signs genocide accountability act

US President Donald Trump signs the "Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act of 2018" in the presence of, among others, Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, Iraq (l). (Photo: Getty)
US President Donald Trump has signed into law a bill that will help to ensure aid is provided to Islamic State’s victims in Iraq and Syria and to hold the perpetrators accountable, reports Associated Press (AP). “In recent years, IS has committed horrifying atrocities against religious and ethnic minorities in Syria . . . Read More

70 years since universal declaration, human rights ‘ignored and abused all over the world’

Ahok protests
Ahead of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Monday, 10 December, rights group ADF International has called for “recommitment” to the founding principles, which it says are being “consistently ignored and abused … all over the world”. Chief among those rights, ADF notes, is the . . . Read More

CAR: Children hurt as another displaced persons camp attacked

As many as 100 civilians lost their lives in an attack on a refugee camp and cathedral in Alindao last month, said Amnesty International. (Photo: Catholic Church in CAR)
A church-run camp for displaced people in south-eastern Central African Republic was attacked on Tuesday, 4 December, less than three weeks after 60 people, including two priests, were killed in an attack on another camp. Tuesday’s attack took place in the town of Ippy, which is 200km north of the . . . Read More