Enenche Godwin Akogwu Murdered in Kano

23 January 2012 - Reporters Without Borders condemns TV reporter Enenche Godwin Akogwu's targeted murder while covering a series of deadly bombings by the militant Islamist sect Boko Haram on 20 January in the northern city of Kano, and urges the authorities to do everything possible to ensure that those responsible are identified and brought to justice.

"Akogwu's death is especially shocking as he was not a victim of the bombings but was gunned down shortly afterward while trying to cover them," Reporters Without Borders said. "He is the second journalist to be killed by Boko Haram, following Zakariya Isa, who was shot outside his home in another northern city on 22 October 2011.

"As well as attacking federal government buildings or churches, as it did on Christmas Day, Boko Haram has shown a new side to its violence with this targeted killing; it has shown itself to be an enemy of the media and journalists as well. We firmly condemn Akogwu's murder, offer our condolences to his family, colleagues and friends, and urge the authorities to quickly adopt measures to protect reporters."

Akogwu, 31, was the Kano correspondent of Channels TV. He was slain by an unidentified gunman while trying to interview victims outside Farm central police station on Justice Dahiru Musdapher Road, which was one of the targets of the suicide bombings.

Akogwu was from Aiodio, in the Otikpa district of Ogbadibo, in the southeastern state of Benue. After joining Channels TV in Abuja three years ago, he was sent to Kano. He had never been threatened and had just received an award from the station's chairman for the quality of his work. President Goodluck Jonathan, who has pledged to end Boko Haram's attacks, offered his condolences to Akogwu's family.

At least 166 people were killed in a total of about 20 explosions on 20 January at eight strategic locations in Kano, which included the police headquarters, an intelligence agency building, an immigration department building and the home of a senior police officer. The bombings were claimed by Boko Haram, which was almost certainly also responsible for Akogwu's murder. (For more on the Kano fatalities, read this.)

Mysterious death
The body of radio journalist, Nansok Sallah, was found on 19 January in a stream under a bridge on the Zaramagada-Rayfield road, 200 metres from a military checkpoint, in Jos (the capital of the central state of Plateau), where he worked for Highland FM.

As nothing of value was taken from him, his colleagues fear that he was the victim of a targeted murder, but the cause of death and possible motive are still unknown. From the Langtang North area in Plateau state, Sallah had worked for Highland FM for three years and hosted a programme called Highland Profile. He had not received any threats.

Reporters Without Borders urges the authorities to carry out a thorough investigation and to do their utmost to shed light on Sallah's death.

For more information:

Reporters Without Borders
47, rue Vivienne
75002 Paris
France
rsf (@) rsf.org
Phone: +33 1 44 83 84 84
Fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51
http://www.rsf.org/

Quote of the Week - Archbishop Nicholas Okoh

"In the last few years the Church of Nigeria has been shunned and occasionally vilified for its orthodox stance on central matters of Christian faith and practice by those who are seeking 'progressive Africans' to work with on their social agenda. The Church's orthodox stance has been patronized as due not to any convictions about the truth of the Bible but the pressures of their Islamic context.

"We have no hatred for anybody in the UK, USA or Europe, nor for Muslims even when they kill and harm us. Our only desire is to live in peace and serve God. We do not think it right for anyone to harm anyone. It is not human to do that, not only ungodly." -- The Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria, Nicholas Okoh

Egypt Fundamentalists Gain Majority: How will Ethnic Christians Fare?

Placard reads, "If it wasn't for the revolution, the National Democratic Party would still be there."
Credit: Maya Alleruzzo / Associated Press

REPORTING FROM CAIRO -- A new political era began in Egypt on Saturday as Islamist parties won nearly three-quarters of the seats in parliamentary elections to inherit a nation mired in economic crisis and desperate to move beyond military rule and the corrupt legacy of deposed President Hosni Mubarak.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s dominate political and religious force, won 47% of the 498 seats in the lower house of parliament, according to official final results. The ultraconservative Salafi Islamist party Al Nour won nearly 25%, followed by the secular parties New Wafd and the Egyptian Bloc, with about 9% each.

The results confirm the dramatic transformation of the Brotherhood, which for decades was banned from politics and endured the mass arrests and torture of its members. The victory by the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party is a potent sign that political Islam is emerging from a year of uprisings to replace secular autocrats across the Middle East and North Africa.

A new parliament “would not have seen the light if it wasn't for the pure blood of the martyrs who triggered this revolution,” Freedom and Justice Party said in a statement. “The party believes that Egypt's renaissance and development demands participation of all sects of this nation to fulfill this great responsibility.”

The elections were a sobering lesson for young activists whose nascent parties were no match for the grassroots networks and entwined religious and political message of the Islamists. The liberal activists helped ignite the revolution that brought down Mubarak but, winning only seven seats, they have been surpassed by more formidable political powers.

Read more here.
 
 
For Egypt's Coptic Christians, the win of the Islamists at the ballot box was no surprise. Opinion is divided, however, on how to react: stay and fight for equal rights, or leave.
 
It is an understatement to say that 2011 has been a difficult year for Egypt’s exhausted Christians.
 
It began with the bombing of the Two Saints Church, only minutes after the New Year started, and culminated in the victory of Islamists with more than half of the parliament in the first phase of the elections.

Indeed, according to the latest results, the Muslim Brotherhood’s newly licensed Freedom and Justice Party won no less than 40 per cent of the seats, while the Salafist El-Nour Party won 20 per cent of the seats. And this is only the first phase, which covered nine of the country’s governorates. There are two more phases before a final picture of the first post-Mubarak regime can be drawn.

If the first phase results are anything to go by, Islamists will be the overwhelming majority in the next parliament. This outcome, which was expected, has still left the Coptic community reeling.

It has been a year where Coptic churches were burned by Salafist groups, where residents of the southern city of Qena demonstrated and blocked the city’s highways to protest the appointed of a Coptic governor, where Copts repeatedly took to the street to protest increasing discrimination and where deadly clashes between Coptic protesters and the army left at least 28 dead in what became known as the “Maspero massacre,” taking place in front of the State TV building in Maspero.

It’s also been a year where various Islamists speaking on TV shows called Christians kafirs (heretics) and insisted that they should pay the jizya (Islamic fine for non-Muslims), pushing Egypt’s Christians to spiral into an even more intense wave of panic.

Now, however, speaking to Ahram Online, various faces of Egypt’s Christian population talk about their fears, aspirations and predictions of how life under an Islamic dominated parliament will be for them.

Father Filopater Gameel, a Coptic priest, and a leading member of the Maspero Youth Union and eyewitness to the Maspero massacre.

"I am not surprised that the Islamists won the parliament majority. There were many hints in recent months that they were going to easily win many seats. The fact that they were insisting that the elections take place while all the other political forces were pleading that the elections be postponed hints that both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists made a deal with the military council.

"The elections were filled with rigging and violations. The Supreme Electoral Committee (SEC) has already announced that many ballot boxes will be disregarded because concerns that they were rigged. We also saw violations in terms of niqabis (fully veiled women) entering the polling stations and refusing to identify themselves so that they can keep entering the station and vote more than once. We’ve also heard of cases were the Salafist El-Nour Party blocked the door to the polling stations, so that any voter going in would have to pass by them first, which is actually against the law that bans campaigning in front of polling stations.

Also, during the electoral process there was heavy usage of religious slogans and mosques were used for campaigns and to promote the Islamists.

"The Islamists were pushing for the elections even when the martyrs blood had not yet dried in Tahrir Square and Maspero. But we Copts now insist on continuing the electoral process until the end. The Copts are flexible and are able to adapt to any regime. We tasted bitter medicine during the Mubarak regime and we will probably face more of that under the rule of the Islamists.

"The Copts will be the voice in Egypt that will continue to call for freedom, equality and a civil state. We will remain here and continue the fight for the beautiful and ancient Egyptian civilisation.

Read more here.

Kano Death Toll at 250

Nigeria’s second-largest city, Kano, is under a 24-hour curfew Saturday following a string of bombings and gunfights that claimed the lives of around 150 people late Friday night. The death toll varies according to the source: AP says at least 143, CNN hears 156 and AFP, 162. Exact number aside, it was undoubtedly the deadliest coordinated strike claimed by Islamist sect Boko Haram, notes Reuters, and hospitals are struggling to deal with the dead and injured.

The death toll in Nigeria’s northern city of Kano is bound to continue rising. Reuters hears word that at least 178 people were killed while one doctor tells the AFP that the final toll is likely to be around 250. On Sunday, aid workers continued the grim process of collecting bodies from the streets, reports the BBC. Meanwhile, there is increased speculation that the attack was launched as a way for Boko Haram to free some of its members from jail. Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan arrived in Kano Sunday to pay his condolences, reports the Associated Press.
Nigerian police said the attackers targeted eight government sites: five police buildings, two immigration offices and a local headquarters of the country’s secret police. The BBC hears word that the bombings may have been suicide attacks, but nothing seems certain yet as residents have been hiding in their homes, afraid of what could happen next. Nigeria also closed its borders with Cameroon and Niger Saturday, reports CNN.

Source: The Slatest

Patricia Mejia: Bad Apple in the Pro-Life Barrel

By Timothy Herrmann


An international commission committed to the promotion and protection of human rights in the Americas recently published two reports that challenge laws protecting life from conception in both North and South America. One report published by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights denies physicians the right to conscientiously object to performing an abortion, while the other recommends national litigation to legalize abortion.

The reports were authored by one of the Commission’s predominant bureaucrats, Commissioner Luz Patricia Mejia, who serves as the Special Rapporteur to Women’s Rights for the Commission. According to Ligia de Jesus, Assistant Professor at the Ave Maria School of Law, the commissioner’s aggressive lobbying on behalf of the legalization of abortion has been a defining characteristic of her term as Special Rapporteur since her election in 2008.

Within the Inter-American system of human rights, both the commission and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights are meant to uphold the principles inscribed in the American Convention on Human Rights.

The convention is explicitly pro-life, stating “Every person has the right to have his life respected. This right shall be protected by law and, in general, from the moment of conception. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.”

Instead of upholding the human right to life guaranteed by the Convention, the reports reflect the personal opinions and influence of Commissioner Mejia who affirms her own agenda rather than protects the original intent of the convention.

In one report, titled “Access to Information on Reproductive Health from a Human Rights Perspective,” Mejia links the so-called right to abortion to the “right” to information by claiming that a woman’s right to access information on reproductive health services is jeopardized when a doctor refuses abortion services to a patient. She cites a Colombian Constitutional Court case that legalized abortion in 2008 to support her claim, and falsely asserts that the case confirms that preventing women access to abortion is the same as preventing women access to information on reproductive health services.

Although the Commission is only a quasi-judicial body whose reports and resolutions are non-binding in international law, the Commission has been petitioned in the past by organizations like the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) in the hope that the Commission will produce a report recommending the outright legalization of abortion in Latin America, according to Professor de Jesus.

One such case was brought by CRR before the Commission in 2002 on behalf of Paulina del Carmen Ramirez Jacinto who, at 14 years of age, received legal authorization for an abortion in Mexico given that the baby was conceived during sexual assault. CRR claimed, and the Commission agreed, that the pro-life counseling that she received and that led her to keep her baby “constituted an ‘undue interference’ with the pregnant child’s purported right to abortion.”

Reports like those published by Mejia seek to encourage the Commission to support efforts by groups like CRR to sanction an international right to abortion where none exists.

 
Source:  Friday Fax

Obama's "Corrupting Foreign Policy"

By Wendy Wright



NEW YORK, January 20 (C-FAM) The citizens of several countries are pushing back against President Obama’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender foreign policy imperative. Leaders in El Salvador launched a website on “Obama’s Corrupting Foreign Policy” and are asking the U.S. Senate to reject Obama's nominee for ambassador to their country.

President Obama announced in December that the promotion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) behavior is a top foreign policy priority, even for the U.S. military oversees. At the same time, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a high-profile speech at the UN equating LGBT status with religion. The State Department told ambassadors worldwide to recognize “gay pride month," and it released a list of “accomplishments” including the fact that a U.S. ambassador had published an OpEd promoting the LGBT agenda on behalf of the United States.

Mari Carmen Aponte, a temporary ambassador to El Salvador, published an essay conflating disapproval of homosexuality with “brutal hostility” and “aggression” by “those who promote hatred.” It is Salvadorans’ “responsibility” to become advocates for LGBT issues and “to inform our neighbors and friends about what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender,” she wrote. The OpEd ran in a major Salvadoran newspaper in June, igniting a firestorm by offended citizens.

More than three-dozen leaders in Latin American countries rebuked the ambassador. In a declaration in a Salvadoran newspaper, they accused the U.S. representative of “disregarding our profound Christian values, rooted in natural law,” by trying to “impose . . . a new vision of foreign and bizarre values, completely alien to our moral fiber, intending to disguise this as ‘human rights’” with “an air of superiority.” The only thing they agreed with, they stated, is that violence should be repudiated “just the same as against skinny, fat, tall or short” people.

The leaders also sent a letter to U.S. Senators protesting Aponte’s appointment. At a congressional hearing in December, Senator Jim DeMint read their complaint and criticized Aponte’s “presuming to represent the views of all Americans” in her OpEd. “I would like to apologize to the Salvadoran people on behalf of the United States and reassure them that most Americans share their values," DeMint said.

Salvadorans perceived that the assault extended beyond Aponte and launched a website this week exposing “Obama's Corrupting Foreign Policies.” It chronicles the campaign by US officials to promote homosexuality, and the counter-campaign by Latin Americans.

The Washington Times, a major Washington, DC newspaper, published a letter from Latin American leaders warning that the aggressive promotion of homosexual rights constitutes a “war on religion.” The Obama administration has placed people in other countries “on the front lines,” the letter said, and is “demeaning our culture and insulting our values.” The leaders wrote, “We support the legitimate human rights of all our citizens. We do not support made up ‘homosexual rights’. We do not appreciate the ambassador from another country coming in and preaching to us. We intend to defend our moral values and preserve our families.”

In Pakistan, the US embassy hosted an LGBT “pride celebration” in June which provoked protests in several cities. A leader of one of the rallies said, “America has unleashed a storm of immoral values" and "we’ll resist at all costs.” The U.S. ambassador to Serbia promoted a homosexual rights march in that country last October which led to riots with an explicitly anti-Western tone.

 
Source:  Friday Fax

US Embassy in Damascus Closing

The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration is preparing to close the U.S. embassy in Damascus and evacuate all American personnel by the end of this month amid rapid deterioration of the security situation in Syria, senior administration officials said.

The embassy will be shuttered, officials said, unless embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad provides enhanced protection that he has so far been unwilling to authorize.