Myanmar's 2-Child Policy for Muslims

Michael Cook

It is hard to imagine a more inhumane policy than China's one-child policy. But there is one: the two-child policy imposed on Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims. Late last month government authorities in the largely Buddhist country reaffirmed a 2005 policy which punishes Rohingya women who bear more than two children with hefty fines and loss of legal rights for the children.

After a long silence on the issue, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has condemned the measures. She has told the media that if reports of the policy were true, it was illegal. "It is not good to have such discrimination. And it is not in line with human rights either."

According to al-Jazeera, a government spokesman, Win Myaing, explained that the regulations were meant to dampen sectarian tensions. The Rohingya live mostly in two town, which are islands in a sea of Buddhists. "The population growth of Rohingya Muslims is 10 times higher than that of the Rakhine (Buddhists)," he said. "Overpopulation is one of the causes of tension."

The Rohingya number between 800,000 and 1 million, most of them living near the border with Bangladesh. They have been the target of legal discrimination and sectarian violence. Human Rights Watch has accused the Myanmar government of conducting a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against the Rohingya.

Tensions between Buddhist Burmese and the Muslim Rohingya go back centuries but were greatly heightened during the British colonial period and the Japanese occupation in World War II. Since 1982 Myanmar has not even acknowledged that they are citizens.

In 2005 local authorities began to enforce a two-child policy. Rohingya couples who wish to marry must seek government approval - a process which can take up to two years. They must agree to have no more than two children. More children are punishable with fines and imprisonment. As a result unsafe abortions are common among women who become pregnant before they are legally married or who are carrying a third child.

According to Human Rights Watch, "Rohingya children born out of wedlock or in a family that already has two children do not receive any status whatsoever from the government, making them ineligible for education and other government services, unable to receive travel permissions, and they are later not permitted to marry or acquire property. They are subject to arbitrary arrest and detention."

Source: BioEdge

Trouble Brewing in Turkey

Protests continue in the Turkish cities of Ankara and Istanbul. Riot police were called out and used tear gas against the protesters in Gezi Park. In the western city of Izmir police raided the houses of dozens of students and took them into custody for sharing this photo via Twitter.

The picture is taken from a video (02.06.2013 İzmir Gündoğdu Meydanı polis müdahale) that shows a policeman randomly and violently pulling the hair of passerby girl who had done nothing wrong.

Even the Turkish media was targeted, though it has remained silent about the abuse.

Reuters' photojournalist Osman Orsal was seriously injured when he was hit on the head by a tear gas grenade last Friday. He was near the French consulate in the Beyoglu district at the time and was taken to Taksim Hospital where he received nine stitches. His condition is reported to be improving.

The riots are turning into an anti-government protest movement and two people have been killed and many injured among participants and observers,” the press freedom organization said. “We regret that, despite many appeals for calm made since late last week and the partial withdrawal of police from Istanbul's Taksim Square, police violence has continued.

Orsal took the photograph that symbolises the police crackdown on the Gezi Park occupation.

Erhan Karadag, a journalist with the privately-owned national TV station Kanal D, was questioned by police in Ankara on Saturday night on the grounds that he was believed to support the protests in the capital. He was held at Ankara security headquarters and released the next day. His lawyer said he was detained for taking milk to the demonstrators so they could use it on their faces to soothe the effects of tear gas.

Ahmet Sik, who was hit on the head on Friday, left hospital the next day, after his wound was stitched. His stitches will be removed after 10 days.

The demonstrations began in protest against the government's plan to develop Gezi Park, located on the symbolic Taksim Square on the city's European side. Media workers have been hit by water hoses and tear gas directed against the demonstrators.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the brutal police action against media workers covering the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul. We understand that 14 journalists have been injured, some seriously, since the protests began in Istanbul and elsewhere. Dozens of other people have been affected by tear gas, which has been used widely against the protesters.

“We strongly condemn the deliberate targeting of journalists by the police during the protests. In common with dozens of organizations, including the Journalists' Association of Turkey, we express our outrage. We call for the safety of journalists covering the protests to be guaranteed and for the protest movement to be treated fairly impartially by government media.”

The demonstrations began in protest against the government's plan to develop Gezi Park, located on the symbolic Taksim Square on the city's European side. Media workers have been hit by water hoses and tear gas directed against the demonstrators.

Read more here.

Related reading: Censorship in Turkey; European Court on Human Rights Defends Religious Liberty in Turkey; Scenes from Istanbul Protests; Occupy Gezi Brings Out Turkey's Creative Side; Turkey's Kissing Protest

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Anglicans Seek to Navigate Around God's "NO"

The Anglican Way has become the way of compromise, group process, and concession.

Women bishops in the Anglican circus

Alice C. Linsley
(Formerly the Rev. Alice C. Linsley, Episcopal priest)


In November 2012 General Synod of the Church of England did not to give approval to the proposed legislation to enable women to become bishops. Though the proposal seems to have widespread support, when it came time to vote it lacked the necessary two-third majorities in all three Houses of Synod. This after after much prayer and invocation of the Holy Spirit.

Those comfortable with compromise of the Gospel see no danger in departing from the tradition of the Church. They did not anticipate this development and were confident that the Holy Spirit was leading in the direction they wanted to go. The proposal having failed, they regrouped in December to produce a "new legislative package" to bring before the Synod in July.

This "working group" presented to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York a report in May which placed emphasis on simplicity, reciprocity, mutuality and the need to make rapid progress.

Progress. Rapid. Lord, have mercy!


What does this mean?  It means that the Church of England is not content with God's answer.  It insists on moving forward to the consecration of women bishops and once that is done, it will require all clergy to consent to that decision. The report is unequivocal on this point:

Once legislation has been passed to enable women to become bishops the
Church of England will be fully and unequivocally committed to all orders of
ministry being open equally to all, without reference to gender, and will hold
that those whom it has duly ordained and appointed to office are the true and
lawful holders of the office which they occupy and thus deserve due respect and
canonical obedience;

Anyone who ministers within the Church of England must then be prepared to
acknowledge that the Church of England has reached a clear decision on the
matter..

This will be the equivalent of an ethnic purge. Anglicans holding to the Tradition of the Church will be forced to leave, compromise their consciences and the Gospel, and/or incur "significant costs in defending themselves against legal challenges."

It will create even greater distance between Anglicans and the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics. It will mean no longer sharing the historic episcopate with those churches.

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York are fooling themselves if they think otherwise. Here is how they justify such disorder in the church: 

Since it will continue to share the historic episcopate with other Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and those provinces of the Anglican Communion which continue to ordain only men as priests or bishops, the Church of England will acknowledge that its own clear decision on ministry and gender is set within a broader process of discernment within the Anglican Communion and the whole Church of God;

This has become the "Anglican way" and it leads to disaster.  Dear Dr. Toon is rolling in his grave.

Related reading: Forward in Faith Response; Modernist-Traditionalist Divide in Anglicanism; Some Thoughts on Women Priests; Impressions of the New American Anglicanism; C.S. Lewis' "Priestesses in the Church?"

Jupiter, Venus and Mars conjunction

The astrophotographer Thierry Legault took this beautiful picture on the northwest coast of France on May 36, 2013. The image shows a triple conjunction involving the planets Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury.

David Grinspoon, a NASA astronomer and the author of a history of Venus observation, offered the following summary of the ancients' preoccupation with Venus:

"Venus must always have seemed a unique, animated entity. For our ancestors the details of the complex movements of Venus served as important harbingers of war and peace, feast and famine, pestilence and health. They learned to watch every nuance for the clues they could wrest of what nature had in store. They watched carefully, obsessively, through skies not yet dimmed by industrial haze and city lights, and they learned to predict accurately, for years and decades to come, the rising, setting, dimming, brightening, and looping of Venus."

By 4245 BC, the Horite priests of the Nile had already established a calendar based on the appearance of the star Sirius that becomes visible to the naked eye once every 1,461 years. Apparently, Nilotes had been tracking this star and connecting it to seasonal changes and agriculture for thousands of years. This is verified by the Priest Manetho who reported in his history (241 BC) that Nilotic Africans had been “star-gazing” as early as 40,000 years ago. Plato, who studied in Egypt, claimed that the Africans had been tracking the heavens for 10,000 years. 

The ancient Kushite astronomers would make much of this conjunction in the West. Jupiter represents the King and Creator of the universe. Mars represents "Horus the Red" (Hor Dshr), and Venus is the emblem of Hathor-Meri, the virgin queen who brought forth Horus, the Seed of Ra. We have the divine Triad of the Horites. The west is the direction of the future.

Related reading: Ancient African Astronomers, The Celestial Dance Observed by the Magi

Quote of the Week - Pascal

"Not only do we know God through Jesus Christ, we only know ourselves through Jesus Christ."-- Blaise Pascal

Storm Chasers Killed in Oklahoma

Three stars of the former reality show Storm Chasers were among the nine people who were killed in the powerful storms that struck Oklahoma on Friday night, reports CNN. Tim Samaras, one of the world’s best known storm chasers, was among those killed highlights National Geographic. Samaras’ son, 24-year-old Paul Samaras, was also killed, along with Carl Young. The three were best known for starring in the former Discovery Channel reality show Storm Chasers. "They all unfortunately passed away but doing what they LOVED," Jim Samaras, Tim's brother, wrote on Facebook.

Read it all here.

Coptic child murdered; dumped in sewer

A six-year-old Coptic Christian boy was abducted in Egypt earlier this week, held for ransom, and then, after his family paid his ransom, was still murdered by his Muslim abductor—apparently because he feared being exposed. Cyril Yusuf Sa’d, the boy, was kidnapped by Ahmed Abdel Moneim Abdel-Salam, who demanded 30,000 pounds. But after receiving the money from the Christian boy’s family, instead of releasing his captive he killed him, and threw his body in the sewer system of his home.

According to the report, the boy’s “family is in tatters after paying 30,000 pounds to the abductor, who still killed the innocent child and threw his body into the toilet of his home, where the body, swollen and moldy, was exhumed.”

Abducting and holding for ransom Christian children is on the rise on Egypt. In previous weeks two other Coptic boys—including an altar boy—were seized from right in front of their churches, as the war of attrition on the nation’s indigenous Christians continues.

From here.

Related reading: Coptic Christians Fear Future in Egypt