Maryam Naghash Zargaran has been in Elvin prison for nearly three years. She had heart surgery before her incarceration, now difficult prison conditions have caused her health to deteriorate further. She had another heart attack, and requires regular medical appointments. She was given medical leave on 27 October, but had to halt her treatment when Tehran’s Attorney General refused to extend her leave permit. The 36-year-old Christian convert from Islam was arrested in February 2011 for converting to Christianity, being a member of a house church, establishing a house church, bringing young people to faith in Christ, contacting foreign ministries to carry out evangelism in Iran, and travelling to Turkey to attend Christian conferences. She was sentenced to four years on 9 March 2013. Also, please pray for fourteen other Iranian Christians who were arrested recently. Their families have no information as to their whereabouts.
Burundi: lives on the line
04 Dec 2015
Fearful of being recruited into the Imbonerakure (the violence-prone youth wing of the ruling party who are fighting anti-government forces), many Burundian children run away and become refugees in Tanzania. There have been seven months of crisis, sparked by President Pierre Nkurunziza's controversial decision to run for a third term. Since then 240,000 people have become refugees; thousands are unaccompanied minors. The journey is dangerous, walking for days through forests. Children who travel on their own fear danger from both armed people and other refugees who try to pass them off as their own children so that they can get better housing in the refugee camps. Violence continues, and the threat of civil war looms in a country full of poverty, beauty and potential. Often referred to as ‘the Switzerland of Africa’, Burundi is covered by mountains and bush and is bordered by Lake Tanganyika. See also: http://www.greatlakesoutreach.org/burundi-page
Powerful advocates are trying to write protections into the law for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Those advocates are battling against conservative Christians who are staunch in their beliefs of right and wrong; they wonder why anyone would deny others their rights. But some Christians say they’re tired of being made into the bad guys. They’re tired of being called the bigots and haters. They feel that the bigotry, hatred and discrimination is actually against them and they are being bullied, as the cultural tide seems to be moving away from hard-and-fast biblical prohibitions. They believe the government is abandoning them. Once at the core of American politics, some evangelical Christians feel increasingly relegated to the fringe, betrayed by their own conservative lawmakers as their cultural dominance is usurped by a smaller group wielding the heft of the media and corporations.
IS sources of cash
04 Dec 2015
Weapons, vehicles, employee salaries, propaganda videos, international travel - all cost money. IS's methods of financing are difficult to shut down. Terrorists use their control over a territory the size of the UK to develop revenue channels. The oil fields captured in Syria and Iraq fund the group through a black market oil trade flourishing along the porous borders of IS-controlled land. It is believed some traders have even sold oil from terrorists back to Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Because terrorists control an expansive territory, they can levy taxes on the people living there. Some of these taxes are more like extortion. The group is heavily diversified: if one funding source is shut down, they turn to others to generate revenue. A steady flow of money to IS from rich individuals in the Gulf continues, with Qataris the biggest suppliers. See http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/whos-funding-isis-wealthy-gulf-angel-investors-officials-say-n208006
Northern Ireland: gay marriage ban challenged
04 Dec 2015
A legal challenge to Northern Ireland's ban on gay marriage opened on Thursday. The landmark challenge has been launched by two couples - Grainne Close and Shannon Sickles, and Chris and Henry Flanagan-Kanem. They have been granted permission for a judicial review of the Stormont Assembly's repeated refusal to legislate for same-sex marriage. They were the first and second couples, respectively, to enter into a civil partnership in the UK after Northern Ireland made that option available in late 2005. Northern Ireland is now the only part of the British Isles which does not allow gay marriage, following the Republic of Ireland’s ‘yes’ vote in May.
Compulsory sex education in schools
04 Dec 2015
Campaigners are again pushing for sex and relationships education (SRE) to be made compulsory in all English schools. Currently local authority-maintained schools in England are obliged to teach SRE from age 11 upwards, and must have regard to the Government’s SRE guidance. Academies and free schools, the majority in secondary education in England, do not have to follow the National Curriculum and so are not under this obligation. But if they do decide to teach SRE, they must also have regard to the guidance. Parents are free to withdraw their children from SRE if they wish to do so. The only exceptions to this are the biological aspects of human growth and reproduction, which are essential elements of National Curriculum Science. But this could change if government-funded campaigners have their way. Private members’ bills have been tabled to introduce compulsory SRE. There have also been calls from across parties for the Government’s SRE guidance to be updated to equip teachers more effectively.
Archbishop of York begins walking pilgrimage
04 Dec 2015
Dr John Sentamu began a six-month walking pilgrimage of his deaneries in the north-east of England on Tuesday with morning prayers at St Mary's Church in Whitby, which hosted the Whitby Synod in AD 664, uniting Roman and Celtic branches of Christianity. He will spend six days in each of his 21 deaneries, walking ‘considerable distances’ between them. He said, ‘My prayers have led me to this pilgrimage. St Paulinus, St Aidan, St Cuthbert and St Hilda of Whitby in their time shared the good news of Jesus Christ with the people of the North. Praying for those who come to know Christ is a great privilege and a joy. During this pilgrimage, I would like to encourage everyone I meet to commit themselves afresh to try praying, be open to encountering Jesus Christ, pray for a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and receive the gift of the joy provided by Jesus Christ - and be thankful.’
This week, the Belfast High Court ruled that Northern Ireland’s abortion law is incompatible with human rights. By not allowing for exceptions where the child has a ‘fatal foetal abnormality’ (FFA), or where the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, the current law breaches the European Convention on Human Rights. Under Northern Ireland’s existing legal framework, abortion is permitted when the mother’s life is endangered by the pregnancy. Earlier this year, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission applied for a judicial review of the legislation. In his ruling on the case, the judge said that it was ‘illegitimate and disproportionate’ to ban abortion of unborn children with a FFA as they are ‘incapable of existence independent of the mother’s womb’. He also said that not allowing a victim of rape or incest to abort ‘completely ignores the personal circumstances of the mother’.