Feba Zimbabwe

Human rights activists have called for economic action against France for its continued Roma expulsions in the face of widespread international criticism.

Human rights activists have called for economic action against France for its continued Roma (Gypsy) expulsions in the face of widespread international criticism.

US Jewish leader Rabbi Jonathan B. Freirich and Hindu statesman Rajan Zed are among those calling for sanctions against a policy they believe is both racist and an affront to human dignity.

In a joint statement, the two men said it was incomprehensible that French President Nicolas Sarkozy was stubbornly pursuing mass Roma expulsions while European Union bodies were slow to respond.

France, which expelled around 10,000 Roma last year, has dismantled 117 Roma settlements and expelled 635 Roma during the past few weeks. It has announced an intention to demolish 300 such camps in total.

"It appears that European Union has a two-tier citizenship policy. If you belong to the 'upper' tier, then you can travel freely anywhere in borderless Europe, but if you fall in 'Roma' tier, your travel is severely restricted," said Rajan Zed and Rabbi Freirich.

Collective deportations were blatant discrimination and smelled of xenophobia, racism, and intolerance, they continued, bitterly criticising the "military-style" bulldozing of Roma settlements.

One of Europe’s most discriminated-against communities, Roma regularly encounter social exclusion, racism, substandard education, hostility, joblessness, rampant illness, inadequate housing, lower life expectancy, unrest, marginalisation, stereotyping, mistrust, human rights violations and appalling living conditions, Zed and Freirich declared.

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A new campaign initiative backed by a coalition of global partners is raising money to provide agricultural training for 90,000 farmers in Zimbabwe.

A new campaign initiative backed by the Evangelical Alliance UK and a coalition of global partners is raising money to provide urgently needed agricultural training for 90,000 farmers in Zimbabwe. The aim is to feed up to 5 million people over three years.

According to the United Nations, Zimbabwe still needs emergency food aid for 1.7 million people in 2010 alone, despite better harvests earlier in the year.

Christians in the UK and around the world, along with some of the four million exiled Zimbabweans, are committing to join the prayers and action of local churches inside the country as part of the initiative.

The coalition movement, LoveZim, wants to help improve the lives of Zimbabwean farmers and break the cycles of poverty and dependency they are being subjected to in conditions of national political and economic instability.

“This is a call for all Christians in the UK, in Africa and across the world to participate in prayer and action that can change Zimbabwe forever," commented the Rev Levy Moyo of the Council of Zimbabwe Christian leaders UK.

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A growing number of governments, civil society groups and individuals are opposing harsh prison sentences handed down to Iran's seven Baha'i leaders.

An increasing number of governments, human rights groups and prominent individuals are raising their voices against the harsh prison sentences handed down earlier this month to Iran's seven Baha'i leaders.

As lawyers for the prisoners prepare to appeal against the 20-year jail terms, the government of New Zealand has voiced its concern that the trial "was conducted in a manner that was neither fair nor transparent."

"New Zealand is dismayed that Iran has failed to uphold its international human rights commitments, and its own due legal processes in this case," said Foreign Minister Murray McCully.

"The sentences appear to be based wholly on the fact that these people are members of a minority religious group," he added.

"New Zealand calls on the Government of Iran to protect the fundamental rights of all its citizens, and to end its ongoing and systematic persecution of the Baha'i."

The governments of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the USA, as well as the European Union and the President of the European Parliament, have already condemned the sentencing of the seven.

In the wake of calls from numerous international organisations for the prisoners to be released, groups focused specifically on human rights abuses in Iran - such as the Human Rights Activists News Agency and United4Iran - as well as Amnesty International, have now launched letter-writing campaigns encouraging supporters to call for justice for the seven.

Prominent individuals, including British barrister Cherie Booth, have also been raising their voices in support of the Baha'i leaders.

Minority Rights Group International (MRG) – which campaigns on behalf of disadvantaged minorities and indigenous peoples – has expressed its deep concern over the lengthy sentences.

"Given that independent observers were not allowed to attend the trial, and the history of persecution that the Baha'i community has faced in Iran, the outcome will do nothing to encourage faith in the Iranian justice system,' said Carl Soderbergh, MRG's Director of Policy and Communications.

"MRG calls on Iran to quash the convictions and release the defendants immediately," Soderbergh added.

Before their arrest in 2008, the seven prisoners were all members of a national-level group known as the "Yaran" – or "Friends" – that helped to see to the minimum needs of Iran's 300,000-strong Baha'i community.

Among the human rights groups now calling for justice, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) is asking people throughout the world to join a "We are Yaran" campaign of letter writing.

The HRANA draft letter states: "There is no evidence in support of the charges leveled against these Baha'is, and the ultimate judgment of imprisonment is unjust and insupportable."

United4Iran – a non-partisan global network promoting fundamental human and civil rights in Iran – is requesting that visitors to its website call attention to the plight of the prisoners, by sending email letters to world leaders and Iranian officials.

Considering the advanced ages of several of the Baha'i leaders, says the group, "the IRI (Islamic Republic of Iran) has effectively dealt life sentences."

In the United States, Amnesty International is urging its members to write to the head of Iran's judiciary to protest the trial and sentencing.

Cherie Booth QC called the legal proceedings against the seven a "sham trial" in an article published in The Guardian newspaper in the UK.

"During two years of incarceration, lawyers working with [Nobel laureate Shirin] Ebadi were granted less than two hours with their clients," wrote Ms Booth, who is married to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

She continued: "They had only a few hours to examine the case files, comprising hundreds of pages. In the little time they were granted, they discovered the files were compiled by officials from the ministry of intelligence, despite Iranian law stipulating that such agents 'should not be entrusted with the investigation ... of the accused.'

"The catch-all charge of espionage exposes the reality behind the regime's cruel behaviour. Over the years, Baha'is have found themselves accused of being tools of Russian imperialism, British colonialism, American expansionism and most recently Zionism.

"But when we learn that Baha'is accused of spying for Israel are offered exoneration and the restoration of all the rights of citizenship if they will simply recant their faith, we can see such charges are totally baseless.

"The desecration of Baha'i cemeteries, the demolition of shrines and confiscation of Baha'i property are unlikely punishments for a band of spies.

"The truth behind this sentence is that it is an attempt to decapitate Iran's 300,000 strong Baha'i community. As members of Iran's biggest religious minority, they have suffered decades of discrimination, harassment and appalling treatment. Most recently, 50 Baha'i homes were razed in northern Iran, and we know of at least 47 other Baha'is currently imprisoned," wrote Ms Booth.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, the Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, has called the 20-year jail terms for the Baha'i leaders "a most appalling transgression of justice and at heart a gross violation of the human right of freedom of belief."

"I unite myself in prayer for those of the Baha'i Faith who are suffering at this present time in Iran and also to the many other peoples of goodwill who are suffering for their faiths in other parts of the world," said Cardinal Keith Patrick O'Brien.

In a video statement posted on YouTube, the actor and comedian Omid Djalili said he was "very upset" by news of the prison sentences.

"The Baha'i Faith is a peaceful religion with a world embracing vision of unity for all people, of all faiths. It is a staunch defender of human rights. So the fact that these seven are held in prison as if they are perpetrators of the most heinous crimes is just ridiculous," said Mr Djalili, whose clip received more than 8,000 views in its first few days.

The prisoners - Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Mahvash Sabet, Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Vahid Tizfahm - denied all the allegations made against them which included espionage, propaganda against the Islamic republic and the establishment of an illegal administration. They are now incarcerated in Gohardasht prison in Karaj, some 20 kilometers west of Tehran.

"By all accounts, the charges against them were utterly baseless, and the trial itself was nothing but a charade," said Diane Ala'i, representative of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations in Geneva.

"For as long as they are held in prison, this international outcry will continue," she said.

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Anabaptist churches and service organizations from around the world have gathered in Addis Ababa to look at ways of working together more effectively.

Representatives of Anabaptist churches and service organisations from around the world have gathered in Addis Ababa to look at ways of working together more effectively.

The consultation, the first ever of its kind for Anabaptist service groups worldwide, drew 53 participants from 27 agencies, departments, or committees of Mennonite World Conference (MWC) member churches.

From 18 countries and all continents, more than 80 per cent of the total global Anabaptist membership was represented, according to Reg Toews, Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada, one of three consultation facilitators.

As outlined by Pakisa Tshimika, Mennonite World Conference Global Church Advocate and another of the facilitators, the consultation grew out of previous conversations on diakonia held in connection with the MWC General Council in Pasadena, California, USA, in 2006.

Participants called for “a space or entity under MWC auspices in which every member relates in an interdependent way in order to more effectively serve the church and the world.”

They also agreed to support the new endeavour with finances, personnel, gifts, and skills. With equal access to service bodies and churches in both the North and the South, the new initiative is to focus on both local and global connections while maintaining each participating agency’s identity and autonomy.

Participants agreed to appoint a provisional task force, charged with gathering and disseminating information about current Anabaptist service activities and planning for future consultations and activities. The task force will be under the direction of MWC during its initial mandate, which will last until May 2012.

The proposal depends upon approval by the delegating bodies by the end of 2010.

During the consultation, participants were reminded of the risks of being involved in humanitarian service when they remembered the death of Mennonite Central Committee aid worker Glen Lapp in Afghanistan, which happened while they were gathered in Ethiopia.

With thanks to MWC and Lorne Peachey

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A US inter-church group has met with Colombian church representatives to discuss issues of internally displaced people and regional relations.

An inter-church group from the USA has met with Colombian church representatives to discuss issues of internally displaced people as well as the relationship between the two regions - writes Anna Lemler.

The meeting was hosted by Consejo Latino-Americano de Iglesias, or Latin American Council of Churches. Its staff presented extensive information about the complex social problems in Colombia and ways that the organisation hopes to respond.

During the encounter, representatives from Colombia, including Episcopal Bishop Francisco Duque-Gómez, underscored the social issues facing the country and steps the churches are taking to respond. Challenges of displaced families, human rights, poverty, and Afro-Colombian rights were highlighted.

The Episcopal Church of Colombia was recently honored by the nation's Senate in recognition of its pastoral care and social development work over the past 50 years.

The diocese was officially constituted as a missionary church by the Episcopal Church's General Convention in 1963 and has since been committed to outreach ministries to provide health care, food, and education to the most vulnerable groups in its society, especially the displaced, hungry and homeless, children and widows.

The diocese is part of Province IX of the Episcopal Church. With its 21 congregations, it has made strategic alliances with local governments in an effort to maintain and strengthen its aid programs.

After listening to the presentations of the Colombian leaders, the US church leaders responded. The Rev Michael Kinnamon, General Secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and Episcopal Bishop Johncy Itty, chair of the Church World Service's board of directors, spoke about how their organisations are currently addressing the issues and how they intend to respond in the future.

Kinnamon said that the government and churches in the US have neglected Latin America and that he is committed to ensuring that the region is no longer ignored.

The meeting was the first of its kind. The US group is taking a week to travel to Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador to hear more about the issues and to build stronger relationships.

Anna Lemler is a Young Adult Service Corps volunteer for the Episcopal Church serving in Bogotá, Colombia. With acknowledgments to the Episcopal News Service.

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The gay human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has received an enthusiastic response at the Greenbelt Christian festival, despite controversy over his invitation.

The gay human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has received a standing ovation at the Greenbelt Christian festival.

Speaking about “the struggle for queer freedom in Africa”, he attacked church leaders who condone homophobic abuse, but praised the “brave, heroic Christians who refuse to go along with the persecution of people who are gay, lesbian or bisexual”.

Greenbelt, one of Britain's largest Christian festivals, has drawn over 21,000 visitors over the weekend. Tatchell was speaking on Saturday evening (28 August).

Prior to the weekend, Tatchell had told Ekklesia that he was “looking forward” to the weekend and that, while not a Christian himself, “we have more in common than divides us”. The turnout suggests that few had heeded a call by the socially conservative group Anglican Mainstream, to boycott Greenbelt because of Tatchell's presence on the programme.

Tatchell drew enthusiastic applause from parts of the audience, and uncomfortable expressions from others, when he accused the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, of “colluding” with the persecution of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Africa.

“The Anglican Church and Archbishop Rowan Williams have a lot to answer for, because they have put church unity before human rights,” he said.

Tatchell outlined the contrasting legal situations facing sexual minorities in various parts of Africa and elsewhere in the world. These range from South Africa, which was the first country in the world to outlaw homophobic discrimination in its constitution, to Uganda, which plans to introduce the death penalty for a repeat 'offence' of same-sex relations.

Pointing out that most homophobic laws in Africa date from the colonial era, Tatchell said, “They're not genuinely African laws”. He added, “They're laws that were inspired by a conquering imperial power”.

In response to questions, he emphasised that it is necessary for Western advocates of human rights to support African LGBT people in their campaigns, rather to open themselves to accusations of colonialism by seeming to impose their values from outside.

Tatchell gave emotional descriptions of the abuse of LGBT people in countries such as Nigeria and Kenya, where he accused Christian and Muslim leaders of whipping up mob violence. He also attacked conservative evangelical groups from the USA who have travelled to Uganda to argue that the country's biggest problem is “not poverty, not corruption, not human rights abuses, not rigged elections” but homosexuality.

He was keen to make a distinction between Christians who oppose homosexuality and those who encourage persecution. “It's one thing to say that homosexuality is wrong, and people are entitled to that belief,” he said, “What they're not entitled to do is to say that the law of the land should discriminate”.

But Tatchell was quick to praise Christians who have stood up against such attitudes. He singled out South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Ugandan Bishop Christoper Senjyonjo, who has “paid a very, very heavy price” and been denied his pension.

He also spoke passionately of LGBT African Christians, including Davis Mac-Iyalla and Jide Macauley, who have risked their lives by being open about their sexuality.

“For all of those, gay and straight, who do take a stand, I salute you, I thank you,” he concluded.

Tatchell was questioned on a number of points during in the question-and-answer session that lasted for a long as his talk. One questioner suggested that he had underestimated the importance of church unity in working against persecution in the long term.

Tatchell drew laughter early on in his talk, when he began by “paying tribute to Anglican Mainstream, who by their attacks on me and on Greenbelt, have boosted ticket sales and ensured a successful Greenbelt”.

He didn't refer to the issue again until it was raised by a questioner, who asked about the possibility of legal action against Anglican Mainstream, whose spokesperson Lisa Nolland had suggested that Greenbelt had put children at risk by including Tatchell on the programme.

But Tatchell insisted that, “I'm a great believer in free speech; that includes people criticising me”. He said Anglican Mainstream had quoted him selectively and out of context. He accused them of bearing false witness. There was enthusiastic applause as he added, “I would urge Anglican Mainstream to re-read their ten commandments”.

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The general secretary of the WCC has spoken of the enrichment his ecumenical journey has received from family members belonging to Pentecostal churches.

“Among the many challenges that we face in the search for Christian unity is the need to overcome divisions and prejudices that exclude one another,” says the Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit.

The General Secretary of the World Council of Churches was speaking recently to the 22nd Pentecostal World Conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

In his greeting – the first ever offered by a WCC General Secretary to a Pentecostal World Conference – Tveit highlighted the hope that comes with being invited to the conference and spoke of his personal experience with Pentecostal churches.

He also expressed how the WCC and Pentecostals have a common call in God’s mission and need each other to fulfil this call.

“It is my deep conviction that the member churches of the WCC, some of which are Pentecostal, need the closer bond to the Pentecostal churches you represent,” he said to the group. “And it is my humble conviction that you need us.”

“To be one is to give witness together to the cross and the resurrection of Christ, to follow God's call together to work for justice and peace in God's world, to obey God's commandment to be a good neighbour to all [who] need us as whoever they are, wherever they live, whatever skin colour they may have and whatever religion they might follow,” he said.

Referencing the first letter to the Corinthians in the New Testament where the apostle Paul says there are many members in the church, yet one body, Tveit said, “I cannot say to any brother or sister in Christ that I have no need for you. We need each other because it is only together that we can grow into the one body of Christ.”

Acknowledging his Scandinavian roots, Tveit, who is Norwegian, said the Pentecostal movement has contributed much to the spiritual life of the Nordic countries and to his own faith journey.

He said part of his ecumenical journey includes “being richly blessed” by family members who belong to Pentecostal churches and participating in the processes that led the Norwegian Pentecostal churches to full membership in the Christian Council of Norway.

Reflecting on the conference theme of “Equip Yourself, Others and the Church” as “a call for growth together in unity for God’s great mission,” Tveit said that the WCC and Pentecostal churches “will find new ways of witnessing to our unity in Christ and sharing in God’s mission. That you have welcomed me here today is one such sign of hope.”

The Pentecostal World Conference is a 3-day event drawing together Pentecostal church leaders from around the world. In Sweden there are nearly 450 Pentecostal congregations.

The World Council of Churches is a global fellowship of 349 churches in some 140 countries representing more than 550 million Christians, some of which are Pentecostal churches.

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“I hear those voices that will not be drowned”. These words from Peter Grimes are pierced through the four metre high sculpture by Maggi Hambling which stands on the beach at Aldeburgh in celebration of the life and work of Benjamin Britten. Read against the Suffolk sky, they go straight to the heart.

The recent acquittal of four London-based activists for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) raises profound issues for traders in products which originate from illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, says Simon Natas, a lawyer involved in the case.

The acquittal this week of four London-based activists for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) raises profound issues for traders in products which originate from illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

The case also poses challenging questions for the UK authorities, who have failed to confront the legal and moral problems surrounding settlement trade.

In September and December 2009, the activists entered a shop selling products from cosmetics company Ahava in Monmouth Street, Covent Garden in London, and locked themselves to oil drums filled with concrete. In both cases, the shop was forced to cease trading for several hours.

As a result, the activists were charged with offences under s.68 and s.69 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The section 68 offence, known as aggravated trespass, is committed where the accused trespasses on land and does something intended to obstruct or disrupt any lawful activity.

An offence is committed under s.69 of the Act where the accused refuses to leave the land as soon as practicable having been ordered to do so by the senior police officer at the scene. The officer must have reasonable grounds to believe that the person subject to the order is committing, or about to commit an offence of aggravated trespass.

Even if it subsequently emerges that the activity which the accused intended to disrupt was unlawful, he or she will be guilty of the offence under s.69 as long as the police officer had good reason to believe otherwise.

The defendants certainly set out to prevent the shop from trading. The central issue was whether the shop was trading lawfully, defence contending that it was not.

The defendants adduced evidence that the products on sale in the shop were manufactured at a plant in Mitzpe Shalem, an illegal settlement in the OPT. It was argued that the trade in Ahava products encouraged the growth of the settlement, thereby assisting in the transfer of Israeli civilians into the OPT in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva convention.

But the origin of Ahava products had other, more immediate legal implications. Firstly, the goods on sale in the shop are labelled “Made by Dead Sea Laboratories Limited, Dead Sea, Israel.” This suggests that the goods are manufactured within Israel’s recognised borders.

A retailer may commit offences by presenting misleading information about the origin of a product. For example, the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 makes it a criminal offence to mislead consumers as to the geographical or commercial origin of a product.

The UK government’s own guidance to retailers (“the DEFRA guidelines”), published in December 2009, state that “traders would be misleading consumers, and would therefore almost be certainly committing an offence, if they were to declare produce from the OPT (including from the West Bank) as ‘Produce of Israel’.” Relying on the government’s own legal advice, the defendants argued that by passing off settlement goods as produce of Israel, Ahava was committing criminal offences in domestic law.

On the first day of trial, the prosecution dropped the s.68 charge, which meant that they would not seek to prove that the Ahava shop was trading lawfully. The significance of this decision was obvious.

The prosecution pressed on with the s.69 charge but the Ahava employee on whose evidence the prosecution relied refused to attend court, even after a witness summons was issued. Had she attended and then been cross examined by defence lawyers, Ahava’s activities would have been subject to very public scrutiny.

The lessons for settlement traders are obvious. When BDS activists target companies that profit directly from the occupation and are prosecuted, the illegality of the settlements will become an issue. As the Ahava case shows, illegality in international law is likely to give rise to illegality in domestic law. Companies engaged in settlement trade will find that their activities are brought under the legal spotlight, something they are unlikely to enjoy.

But there are also problems for the authorities. How do they police direct action against companies whose activities may themselves be unlawful? For how long can police officers continue to plead ignorance about the legal issues surrounding settlement trade, especially when activists carefully explain why it is they feel compelled to act? The authorities have shown little willingness to deal with complaints against Ahava, but public pressure is growing. It is time that consumer protection rules were properly enforced.

The government should also press the EU to conduct a fundamental review of the EU-Israel trade agreement in light of evidence that it is being wrongly exploited by settlement traders and cannot be properly policed. Beyond this, the government should consider whether it should take steps to prevent the marketing of all settlement produce in the UK.

No one can seriously doubt that settlement trade drives settlement growth. Like all governments, the UK is under a duty to bring an end to serious breaches of peremptory norms of international law. The denial of Palestinian self-determination through settlement expansion surely comes within this definition.

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(c) Simon Natas is a partner and solicitor advocate at Irvine Thanvi Natas solicitors, specialising in criminal defence and human rights law. He acted for the defendants in the 'Ahava Four' case.

This article is published under a Creative Commons license (see below) with grateful acknowledgment to JNews (http://www.jnews.org.uk/), which provides alternative Jewish perspectives on Israel-Palestine.

Neither fundamentalism nor functionalism offer a way forward for the churches today in terms of their public witness and political engagement, says Simon Barrow. The different stances taken by church bodies in the 2010 general election suggest important lessons for the future.

This article is the editorial in the journal Political Theology, Volume 11, No 4, September 2010 - http://www.politicaltheology.com/PT/issue/view/833

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Without doubt, Christians in Britain have become significantly more attuned to politics over the past forty years – not least through the proliferation of lobby groups and church related single-issue campaigns on everything from homelessness and world debt right through to the environment, bio-ethical issues and specifically religious concerns about advocating or restricting free speech.

In this context, it has usually been appropriate to write about ‘politics in its widest sense’ as distinct from ‘party politics’. For while each of the main three political parties in the UK now has a Christian affinity group attached to it, gathered in some degree of conversation through ‘Christians in Politics’, there is a much greater diffidence about partisanship than would be evident, for example, in parts of the US. The ‘religious right’ and the ‘religious left’ have not hitherto been so recognisable in Britain as on the other side of the Atlantic, for example.

But there are now signs that the mood is changing and that at least three overlapping trajectories of engagement are emerging. One is a ‘functionalist’ desire to combat cynicism towards politics in the name of Christian civic duty. Another is an ‘interventionist’ intent to combat trends within the wider polity in the name of an assertively conservative Christian self-understanding. A third is the progressive, ‘exemplary’ wish to push for more radical change to the system arising from commitment to values-in-practice among Christians alongside other civic and religious groups. These approaches roughly correlate with centre, right and left convictions, though with consonances and dissonances that do not necessarily fit received templates.

In turn, such impulses may be seen as reflecting various gut-level and head-level responses to the demise of the traditional influence of organised religion, particularly historic Christianity, within the shifting British political landscape – especially in the Westminster orbit. That is, they are part of the disruption occasioned by a continual transition from a Christendom context (understood as a culture decisively shaped by the mutual interests of ecclesial power and governing authority) to a post-Christendom one (understood as a range of possibilities inhering in the transition towards a plural, mixed-belief society of competing interests).

Traditional theses built around secularisation and de-secularisation (or ‘re-religionisation’) are ubiquitous in media interpretations of what is going on. But they are not always helpful to understanding, because they frame the issue in terms of the presence or absence, growth or decline, of ‘religion’, without necessarily asking the more important and nuanced question about what kind of religion is engaging with what kind of politics by what means and to what ends?

Solidly in the middle of the new landscape, though not necessarily possessing the degree of long-term traction that its current organisational base suggests, is the ‘functionalist’ impulse (in Weberian terms) towards securing the stability of the present democratic settlement. Since the 1970s, local churches, assisted ecumenically by what are now Churches Together formations at regional and national level, have played a significant role in hosting public meetings (‘hustings’) for candidates in parliamentary elections. The idea has been to provide a one-off civic forum for the interrogation of those standing for office, with church buildings being seen as an important symbolic representation of the ‘moral compass’ needed to hold them to account.

What was noticeable in the run-up to the 6 May British General Election – which also saw the first ‘hung parliament’ for 36 years (no one party holding a majority under a first-past-the-post voting system), the maturing of internet-based campaigning tools, and the first full coalition administration since the national government of 1931-40 – was the extent to which mainstream church leaders were publicly urging people to ‘back the system’.

Leaders of the Church of England, the Catholic hierarchies in England & Wales and Scotland, the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian), the main Free Churches (Methodists, Baptists and the United Reformed Church – who share a Public Issues Team) and the cross- and non-denominational Evangelical Alliance all came out with very strong public statements suggesting that it was a “Christian duty”, not just a civic one, to vote on 6 May.

The “make your cross count” message was also pumped out powerfully by Premier Christian Radio (which has transitioned from being a London station to being a national digital one) and by many Christian websites. They all seemed to assume, in many pronouncements and in some national gatherings with party leaders, that the ‘real’ choice was between Labour, Conservative and Liberal.

The background to this upsurge of ecclesiastical backing for orthodox electoral participation had been a massive haemorrhaging of public support for parliament in the wake of a series of highly damaging expenses scandals involving elected MPs – but also a growing feeling among Christians to make their voices and opinions count in the face of legislation affecting them, as well as a range of big ‘ethical issues’.

The questions not faced by this response were the larger ones about the nature of the system itself and the location and role of religion within the political process. It merely assumed the Christendom position of building influence and backing the status quo. Indeed the “moral obligation to vote” momentum among church leaders such as the Archbishop of York was so strong that the idea that some might choose to withhold endorsement for the system altogether seemed beyond comprehension.

Even more significantly, there was virtually no mention of electoral reform as a moral issue about who gets to have their vote count and who does not, of independent or non-party candidates, of smaller parties, or of ways of working for change which question rather than simply reinforce the adversarial, male dominated ‘Westminster culture’.

Yet these were precisely the questions many people at local community level wanted to ask in the face of public disillusion, the growing power and identity of parliaments and assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and concerns about a consensus between the ‘big three’ parties far more suffocating than their differences – particularly on the role of markets, despite the global debt-recession crisis.

Though speaking a language of social concern, ‘the churches’ as ‘national institutions’ seemed, as ever, much more attuned to patronage and top-down political influence than street level engagement. Meanwhile, an insurgency was occurring. The Power 2010 coalition – mobilising in key ‘swing’ constituencies and online – brought together a raft of civic groups and a handful of faith ones to push for a radical agenda of political reform (proportional representation, an elected second chamber, civil liberties and more) arrived at by a consultative process and involving over 100,000 people in an internet vote. It soon gave way to Britain’s first-ever organised campaign for a ‘hung parliament’ to prevent the continuation of a two-party duopoly, backed by participants across the political spectrum. The established parties and some business leaders fought hard against this, but aided by demographic factors, it was precisely what the electorate delivered.

The absence of the historic churches and their media from the core of this campaign was noticeable. Attuned to ‘old’ establishment politics, they seemed oblivious to the possibilities of the new – which go with the grain of an ‘exemplary’ trajectory towards grassroots cooperation for change. Indeed, in spite of a whole raft of popular methods being developed in communities and online (such as a ‘participatory question time’ at the Charities Parliament a week before the poll), hustings based in local churches remained remarkably traditional and non-experimental overall. A real opportunity for innovation was missed.

The ‘interventionist’ religious right, meanwhile, though it has been very well organised as a lobby network against what it sees as secularising developments in society (such as the idea that churches might embrace equal treatment of gay people in public service provision and employment), was singularly ineffective in articulating electoral issues and standing ‘Christian candidates’. They received derisory votes and spoke a language of moral panic, militancy and confessional zeal which failed to engage either the appetite for change or the experience of most ordinary people in a plural society.

While there is no appetite in Britain for the kind of narrow secularism which would eliminate faith in the public sphere, there are not many hungering to return to an era of religious hegemony or to grant Christians or others a privileged place in the social order. Despite the failings of its inherited institutions, the democratic impulse remains strong.

This leaves both the ‘functionalists’ and the right-leaning ‘interventionists’ in a tricky position – as was highlighted by a lobbying initiative in the build up to the election initiated by Power 2010 and the Christian political think-tank Ekklesia – of which I am a co-director. The idea was to seek to encourage the 24 Church of England bishops and two archbishops who have seats ‘as of right’ in the House of Lords to take the initiative in working towards a reformed second chamber in the UK. Britain remains the only mature democracy in the world today that gives unelected male-only representatives of one denomination, from one religion, guaranteed places and votes in the country’s legislature. Ekklesia, which advocates a post-Christendom ‘exemplary’ and reforming role for Christians alongside others in civil society, argues that this kind of privilege is Christianly, as well as democratically, flawed. The issue, the reformers say, is not that church or other faith leaders should be excluded from parliament, but that they should get there by the same route as everybody else (election or nomination, depending on the system), not through ancient and unaccountable patronage.

The online campaign to encourage the 26 Lords Spiritual to be protagonists for change rather than defenders of archaic privilege, enabling them to move from the back foot to the front foot in political terms, attracted a huge response. Seventy-five thousand letters were sent. Yet the reaction of most in the churches was not to welcome an attempt to engage Christian leaders in political debate. The bishops themselves chose not to respond to calls for democratic accountability and some voices from within the Established Church even objected to the idea of such lobbying – though those on the receiving end of it get to vote on UK laws and certainly encourage their followers to lobby other parliamentarians.

This little cameo perhaps illustrates how un-adaptive and out-of-touch the ‘functionalist’ ecclesial approach to mainstream politics can be. To defend the system at a time when it is under pressure for genuine reform is not to be apolitical (as one major church body claimed when approached about the moral case for a proportional voting system), but effectively to act as a bulwark against change. It is also missing out on a great opportunity. As public spending cuts bite and reform stalls in the face of continuing retrenchment, the need for fresh, alternative thinking beyond conservative politics and neo-liberal economics will remain.

People of faith have a huge amount to offer in this context: patterns of sustainable living and community cohesion; skills in conflict transformation and peace-building; projects for combating poverty; participation in local and global action on debt, environment, housing, health, and more. Mixed in with this are inherited ways of speaking and engaging on the basis of ‘moral communities’ galvanised by participation, not privilege. This is the post-Christendom pattern. But it is also an approach drawing on deep roots within the Christian tradition, including those elements of non-conformity, subversive witness and dissent which the Christendom habit of modelling ecclesial life and activity on top-down patterns of governing authority has marginalised or denied.

Neither fundamentalism nor functionalism offer a way forward for the churches today. Retrenching into fearful verbal warfare with secularity is hopeless. Christians in Britain are invited to be a creative minority, rather than clinging nostalgically to a majoritarian mindset which no longer reflects their numerical and institutional strength. The public square in the UK is neither naked nor fully clothed. It is a place where there is plenty of room for people who can cut their cloth from garments old and new, working together for the renewal of virtues and coalitions at the grassroots – not those constructed from on high.

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© Simon Barrow and Equinox Publishing Ltd.

The author: Simon Barrow is co-director of the Christian political think-tank Ekklesia. He was formerly assistant general secretary and global mission secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. His background includes work in current affairs journalism, community-based political action, and theological education.

Political Theology (http://www.politicaltheology.com/PT/index) is a journal that investigates and examines religious and political issues. The journal is interdisciplinary, drawing on the disciplines of theology, religious studies, politics, philosophy, ethics, cultural studies, social theory and economics. As such, it aims to reflect the diversity of religious and theological engagements with public and political life. The journal has a review section which embraces reflections upon religion, theology, politcal theory, political biography, film and fiction. The editor is Graeme Smith from Chichester University. Subscription details here: http://www.politicaltheology.com/PT/about/subscriptions

Prophets are not good at making laws because they are too busy searching out injustice – thank God. Such folk are not leaders or governors. On the other hand, law-makers re pragmatic and a bit dull. Graeme Smith contends that the Labour Party is, and should be, in the business of electing a leader not a prophet.

It is decision time for Labour Party members. Beginning this week ballot papers start dropping on comrades’ doormats across the country. It will bring to an end a protracted, some would say overly long, contest.

But, as someone who rushed headlong, unrestrainedly, into the arms of Tony Blair, I have been glad of the extended period to consider my options. It has been good that we have had a broad field to choose from (just), and a real contest. But the campaigning is drawing to a close, the prevarication must cease, and the cross has to go besides someone’s name. So who should it be?

One thing, more than personality, more than policies on education, or foreign affairs or deficit reduction, more than age or gender or ethnicity or even televisual beauty, has influenced my choice. However much it seems like the perfect antidote to the Blair years the next leader of the Labour Party must not be a prophet. Leadership and prophecy are not the same thing, in fact they are best kept well away from each other.

There are three key reasons why Labour can’t indulge its fantasy for a prophet as the next leader. First democratic politics is all about coalitions. It is about setting up big tents and encouraging people in. Good democratic leaders build alliances and make deals. They compromise and negotiate. Prophets are terrible at this sort of thing. Prophets are essentially religious. They must be pure and blameless, able to stand above the fray, casting judgements on the sins of the rulers and the peoples.

A good prophet knows how to spot a heresy. The problem is democratic political parties are not like religions. They cannot afford the privilege of having faultless orthodoxies unsullied by compromise. In politics prophets are either dictators or eccentrics, fanatics or fools. Good leaders are not prophets and they can rarely, if ever, afford the luxury of prophetic utterance.

Second good political leaders preach hope. They offer visions which seek to draw in as many as possible. They promise us a better society. This is why we are prepared to compromise, because we share the vision. By contrast prophets speak the truth. They speak the truth to power, be it governors or governed. This is not to say that good political leaders lie, they do not. Nor is it saying that democracy has no place for truth tellers, it does and they are a vital part of its life.

Prophets do invaluable service holding rulers to account. We need the Tony Benns and Keith Josephs. But prophets critique what is in front of them whilst democratic leaders direct our gaze beyond the immediate to something greater and better and more splendid. It is because of this hope, made real for us by good leaders, that social change is possible.

Third, leaders are agents of change whilst prophets are spectators of the present. Richard Rorty is helpful here. Rorty argues that the academic Left in the US has become too fixated with clever theory and cultural sophistication. It is busy observing and explaining, adding to knowledge, whilst changing nothing. They are spectators. This compares poorly with the academic Left of the first half of the twentieth century. They knew how to change things. They knew how to campaign to make laws fairer. They understood the mechanisms for improving democratic society and they made them work for the vulnerable. The contemporary Left knows how to call society rotten in a myriad number of ways, the old-fashioned Left stopped society from being so rotten.

Prophets are not good at making laws. They are too busy searching out injustice and oppression – thank God. Such folk are not leaders or governors.

Leaders are like the old-fashioned academic Left in the US, agents of change, law-makers. They are a bit dull. They seem a bit compromised, not quite as pure as we would like. They have a large number of friends who inhabit a number of different milieux. They can seem, well, slippery. But they make change possible and real. They are the leaders in a well-functioning democracy. David Miliband looks like one such figure and so this week he will have my vote.

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© Graeme Smith is Senior Lecturer in Practical Theology at the University of Chichester. He is editor of the journal Political Theology (http://equinoxpub.com/journals/politicaltheology) and his most recent book is A Short History of Secularism (IB Tauris, 2008).

A 'people's tribunal' hearing testimonies from victims of anti-Christian violence in India's eastern Orissa state in 2008 has criticised state agencies.

A 'people's tribunal' that heard testimonies from victims of anti-Christian violence in India's eastern Orissa state in 2008 has criticised state agencies for aggravating the suffering of those caught up in the attacks - writes Anto Akkara.

"There is a shocking level of institutional bias on the part of state agencies (including police) leading to their collusion in the violence, connivance in efforts to block the subsequent process of justice and accountability," declared the jury in New Delhi at the end of the unofficial 22-24 August 2010 National People's Tribunal on the violence in Orissa's Kandhamal jungles.

"After hearing these testimonies, all that I can say is that I hang my head in shame as an Indian," lamented A. P. Shah, a retired chief justice of Delhi high court who headed the jury of eminent people from different walks of life. All the jurors were non-Christians with the exception of Ruth Manorama, who is a member of the Church of South India.

The jury urged a special investigation by India's federal government into violence against Christians by Hindu extremists following the slaying of Hindu leader Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati in August 2008.

While the Orissa government acknowledged 42 deaths, activists presented affidavits to the tribunal stating that more than 90 people had been killed, and 300 churches and 5400 Christian houses had been looted and destroyed, creating more than 54,000 displaced people in Kandhamal.

Catholic Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, which includes Kandhamal, was among those present as the tribunal jury pronounced its verdict.

"Our aim is to bring forward the complete truth and deprivation suffered by Kandhamal people, and ensure justice and rehabilitation to the victims," Ram Puniyani, a Hindu activist from Mumbai, told ENInews.

Puniyani is one of the coordinators of the National Solidarity Forum, a coalition of more than 50 social action groups that organised the tribunal that marked the second anniversary of the violence.

Kanaklata Nayak, whose husband was killed in front of her, told the tribunal that she was forced to flee Kandhamal with her young children due to threats she received after testifying in a local court against the alleged killers.

The tribunal accused the Orissa administration of "underestimating the magnitude" of the violence in Kandhamal that continued for weeks with the state government making few apparent attempts to curb it.

[With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Conference of European Churches.]

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A new opinion poll suggests that the majority of Scots are not ill-disposed towards the upcoming visit of the Pope, despite disagreements about his views.

A new opinion poll suggests that the majority of Scots are not ill-disposed towards the upcoming visit of Pope Benedict XVI, despite disagreements about his views - with the majority being "neither for nor against".

The Opinion Business Research poll, which was commissioned by the Scottish Catholic Media Office, found that 31 per cent of respondents were "very or fairly favourable" to the papal visit, while 63 per cent were neither in favour nor opposed.

Those opposed comprised a smaller than expected minority, with three per cent objecting and just two per cent "strongly" objecting.

Commentators say that the results are encouraging in respect of the continuing diminution of the religious sectarianism which has in the past marked many areas of Scottish life, not least in Glasgow.

Scotland on Sunday newspaper commented: "When historical antipathies were still mainstream opinion in this country, the results would have been very different. Even 15 years ago, opposition would have been significantly greater."

It continued: "That is not to gloss over the fact that five per cent of objectors represents a quarter of a million people in a population of just over 5 million. It would be wrong, however, to make assumptions about their motives... Although the poll did not explore the opinions of those opposing the visit, a reasonable supposition would be that many are motivated by their opposition to the Pope's unyielding line on abortion, contraception and homosexuality. Or the Church's conduct over recent child abuse accusations. Or simply because they are secularists who question the Catholic Church's status and influence. These are legitimate points of view, and critics of the Catholic Church have a right to use the visit to give voice to their opinions.

"Even among these groups, however, proactive opposition to the visit seems limited. An organisation called Protest the Pope has now abandoned plans to demonstrate in Scotland, though it intends to hold a march in London."

The paper added: "Tiresome bleating does no-one any good, and makes us all appear petty and small-minded."

Simon Barrow, co-director of the religion and society think-tank Ekklesia commented: "The latest polling evidence indicates that a majority of the public, in Scotland at least, have a pragmatic approach to the forthcoming visit of Pope Benedict XVI. There is unease in many quarters, not least committedly Christian ones, about some of his views. But most people are neither uncritically adulatory nor bitterly antagonistic. They want conversation not confrontation, and will judge the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics on his words and actions, not on the ceaseless pro- and anti- propaganda that has surrounded preparations for the visit."

Meanwhile, a new network entitled Catholic Voices for Reform is being launched to bring together those within the Church who favour a more open and receptive spirit, which they see as central to the Catholic tradition, as distinct from the 'traditionalists' who oppose change.

Those proposing reform - including a change in the Church's opposition to birth control, acceptance of women's ministry, a renewal of institutional structures and lay participation, and a welcoming stance towards lesbian and gay Catholics, will offer contrasting views to some of the official 'Catholic Voices' - the established group which has recruited and trained 20 media-friendly spokespeople to defend existing church positions before and during the Pope's September tour.

The network Catholic Women's Ordination (www.catholic-womens-ordination.org.uk/) has played a leading role in the new network.

Ekklesia's Simon Barrow said: "It is especially important that we hear from a diversity of voices within the Catholic community itself during the papal visit. A great number of ordinary Catholics wish to see genuine change and openness within the Church, based on historic Christian commitments. But their views and example can easily be lost amid what appears to be a war of political position between noisy advocates and angry critics of the current pontiff."

He added: "Perhaps the biggest signal in the Opinion Business Research poll is that in an increasingly post-Christendom context, most people do not have strong views one way or the other, at least in terms of the way the issues surrounding the papal visit are presently being presented. This indicates that the competing passions of both ideological religionists and ideological secularists are missing the public mood to a significant extent."

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Thousands of participants in the four-day Greenbelt Christian arts festival in Cheltenham have been reminded about the plight of blockaded Gaza.

Thousands of participants in the four-day Greenbelt Christian arts festival at Cheltenham Racecourse have been reminded about the plight of blockaded Gaza.

A campaign entitled "If Greenbelt was Gaza" has been asking the 20,000 plus attenders of the annual event to "confront the stark contrast" between ordinary life in Britain and the "day-to-day life experienced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip".

Christians in Palestine and Israel are among those calling for international solidarity with the people of Gaza, and concerted action towards a just-peace which offers security and hope to all people in the region, Jews and Arabs alike.

The Gaza initiative asks festival-goers to consider how they would manage with only one tap on the site or how many thousands of people would survive without basic provisions.

Greenbelt is backed by international development agency Christian Aid, the Methodist Church in Britain, the YMCA, the Church Times, and the Church Times.

The Methodist Church passed a policy in June 2010 calling for a boycott of goods from illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank . The issue is also a matter of debate within the Church of Scotland.

Israeli human rights group B'tselem, Christian Aid's work in the Occupied Territories, Israeli-Arab peacemaker Archbishop Elias Chacour, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), and anti-Zionist Israeli academic Ilan Pappe are among the other voices being heard.

More about Greenbelt here: http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/

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Home Office asylum and immigration statistics show that government must acknowledge "serious failings" in the asylum process, says the Refugee Council

In response to the publication on Aug 27 of the Home Office asylum and immigration statistics for the second quarter of 2010, Donna Covey, Chief Executive of the Refugee Council said: “We are pleased the government is currently looking to improve the asylum system, but these statistics show how important it is that they acknowledge some of the serious failings of the asylum process.

“Too often people seeking safety in the UK are let down by the asylum system - these figures show that almost a third of appeals are still being allowed, proving a significant proportion of initial asylum claims are being wrongly refused (this figure is almost half for Somali asylum seekers (49 per cent) and Zimbabwean asylum seekers (48 per cent). With the government proposing further cuts to legal aid for asylum seekers, we are concerned that without legal advice, many more will be wrongly refused protection and returned to countries where their lives are in danger.

“The detention figures are also cause for alarm - up to 40 per cent of people detained were later released back into their community, showing that detaining them was unnecessary in the first place. Detention must only be used as a last resort, and for the shortest time possible."

Covey continued: “We now urge the government to focus on improving the first stages of the asylum system, to ensure people are supported throughout the process so that the right decisions are made first time. Not only will this save public money by getting people out of the system faster and avoiding costly legal challenges, this will also ensure people who have fled horrors in their own countries can start rebuilding their lives here.”

Read the Home Office statistics here: http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs10/immiq210.pdf

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As key talks loom again, World Council of Churches delegation is travelling to the region to emphasise the need for a “just peace”.

At a time when there are signs of hope emerging from the churches in the Middle East around the conflict in Palestine and Israel, a World Council of Churches delegation led by General Secretary the Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit will be travelling to the region to emphasise the need for a “just peace”.

While planning for the visit was initiated several months ago, it now coincides with the start-up of peace negotiations on 2 September 2010 in Washington DC United States.

“The purpose of this visit is to support the churches in the region and to encourage all actors involved to make needed changes to the situation there,” Tveit said prior to the visit.

The delegation, which includes WCC staff members and the moderator of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, the Rev Kjell Magne Bondevik, will be visiting with WCC member churches, ecumenical partners and leaders from the Jewish and Muslim communities as well as WCC partner agencies and political leaders. The visit is 28 August to 2 September.

“We want to reaffirm that the WCC as a fellowship of churches is working and praying for peace and justice for all people in the Holy Land,” Tveit said. “The conflict in the region requires a political solution. All religious institutions and communities should work together for a just peace. This is essential for a reconciliation and healing process.”

“We are aware of the extreme difficulties facing the negotiations beginning 2 September,” he said. “We pray for those in charge of this important work and believe that the negotiations must be inclusive of all in the region who suffer because of this conflict and be based on principles of international law.”

During the visit ,Tveit will also say that the Kairos Document, which was developed by Palestinian Christians in late 2009, is resonating in WCC member churches around the world.

“The WCC member churches are viewing this document as [a] cry for justice coming from Palestinian Christians, whose human dignity is being diminished and denied,” Tveit said.

The WCC has been encouraging its member churches to develop and coordinate active advocacy plans to address government, international bodies, interfaith partners and churches in the region to end the occupation of Palestinian territories and the suffering of both Israeli and Palestinian people.

The visit is also one part of an overall effort within the WCC leading to the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation, to be held in Jamaica, May 2011, where nearly one thousand people will gather to move forward the Ecumenical Declaration for Just Peace.

The WCC delegation will visit with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), which is a WCC-sponsored programme that brings people from around the world to Palestine-Israel to provide a protective presence to vulnerable communities. The ecumenical accompaniers monitor and report human rights activities and abuses and support Palestinians and Israelis working for peace.

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Christian Aid has welcomed Kenya’s new constitution but warns the country’s democratic institutions must be bolstered to prevent members of the political elite furthering their own interests.

Christian Aid has welcomed Kenya’s new constitution which passed into law 27 August, but warns the country’s democratic institutions must be bolstered to prevent members of the political elite using the reforms to further their own interests.

It says the greatest challenge now is to ensure the provisions of the constitution are rapidly translated into eagerly-awaited benefits for ordinary citizens.

The new law, which replaces the country's 1963 independence constitution, maintains a presidential system, but one with checks and balances. These include devolved government, the enshrining of the National Human Rights Commission and the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission in law, and an end to MPs’ tax free status.

The allocation of 15 per cent of the national budget to 47 counties around the country is one area where new abuses may flourish, Christian Aid warns.

Dereje Alemayehu, Christian Aid’s East Africa County Manager, said: ‘The constitution enshrines principles and creates institutions that could enhance accountability and bring an end to the pervasive impunity that characterised Kenya’s past political evolution. It is critical that the reforms are not captured by the chameleon political elite.

‘The new constitution is a significant political breakthrough, with the lack of safeguards it contains being the most important issue behind the ethnic tensions which led to recent conflict.

‘Now civil society must be empowered to take full advantage of the democratisation it promises, enabling citizens to hold those in power to account, while ensuring that policies reflect their needs and interests, and safeguard their rights.

‘The battle against corruption, for instance, will also need to be taken to grassroots level in the new counties. In the past, powerful Provincial Governors and MPs were notorious for their neglect of duty and the impunity they enjoyed.

‘Transparency and accountability now will greatly depend on the structures to be put in place and the involvement of citizens in holding the county governments to account. We need to empower citizens to make MPs answerable to their constituencies. The new constitution has provisions for constituents to recall their MPs if they don’t perform. Where necessary, this must be acted upon.’

Mr Alemayehu added that Christian Aid’s work in Kenya will focus on advocating the implementation of the Bill of Rights contained in Chapter 5 of the constitution.

In addition to civil and political rights, such as freedom of speech and association, socio-economic rights, including the right to health care, housing, sanitation, food, safe water, social security and education, are also enshrined, as well as the government’s responsibilities and roles in providing basic services.

In addition, efforts through partner organisations will be concentrated on ensuring and monitoring implementation of the constitution’s new policies on tax, climate change, gender issues, the marginalisation of northern Kenya, land policy, health and ethnicity.

He added that it was critical that a process of reconciliation now took place to bring on board those who against the Constitution, including a number of church leaders, as well as the ‘water melons’ – those who positioned themselves between the ‘green’ (Yes) and ‘red’ (No) camps without allowing them to water down the huge democratic achievements of this constitution.

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Amnesty International has expressed concern over the atitude of the French authorities towards Roma and travellers.

Amnesty International yesterday (27 Aug) expressed deep concern about recent statements and measures taken by the French authorities that appear to target Roma and Travellers. The organisation is troubled that some Roma people are being returned from France to their countries of origin following statements by the French government suggesting links between Roma and criminality.

The French Minister of immigration, Eric Besson, has announced that around 250 Roma would be returned yesterday, and that around 800 would be returned by the end of this month. 86 Roma were already returned to Romania and Bulgaria on 19 August and around 130 the following day.

The measures followed the announcement by the French government that around 300 irregular camps inhabited by Roma and Travellers would be closed within three months, following a ministerial meeting on 28 July to discuss “the problems posed by the behaviour of certain Travellers and Roma”. During that meeting, President Sarkozy reportedly referred to irregular camps inhabited by Roma as “sources” of criminality, allegedly including child exploitation and prostitution. Amnesty is alarmed that such statements were made by the President of the French Republic, as they could perpetuate negative stereotypes which contribute to the stigmatisation of and discrimination against Roma and Travellers.

Amnesty International considers that French officials should be working to fight discrimination, rather than making inflammatory statements linking entire communities to alleged criminality. The organisation is concerned that such statements may lead to even further discrimination against Roma and Travellers. No one should be returned or expelled simply because they are Roma.

Amnesty welcomes the 25 August statement by Viviane Reding, the European Union Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, on the Roma situation in Europe. Commissioner Reding regretted that “some of the rhetoric that has been used in some Member States in the past weeks has been openly discriminatory and partly inflammatory”.

Members of France’s traveller communities, the majority of whom are French citizens, have also been targeted by the announcement that 300 irregular camps would be closed.

Under French law, all municipalities (communes) with more than 5,000 inhabitants must establish authorised halting sites for Travellers. However, in April 2009 the government was criticised by the French Equal Opportunities and Anti-Discrimination Commission (HALDE) as only 25 per cent of the municipalities under that obligation had done so. The HALDE stressed that the State’s failure to fulfil its obligation resulted in an increase of the number of Travellers living in unauthorised halting sites.

Amnesty International is calling on the French authorities to focus on fully implementing its own legislation and provide adequate halting sites and protection of the housing rights of all.

The organisation also reminds the French authorities of their obligations under international human rights law to guarantee the rights of all people, including Roma and Travellers, to adequate housing. The French authorities cannot evict anyone from their home, even if it is in an irregular settlement, unless all other alternatives have been exhausted and they have consulted all affected residents. Evictions can only be carried out when appropriate procedural protections are in place; adequate alternative accommodation must be provided; and relocated residents must be offered compensation for all losses.

Amnesty International also urges France to remove any provisions of French law which are discriminatory against Travellers, such as requiring them to carry travel permits and restricting their voting rights.

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Reform of admissions policies is needed to stop growing inequality in school provision in England, says a new report from children's charity Barnardo's.

Poor children already lagging behind their better-off peers in terms of educational achievement are held back by socially selective school admissions, says a new report from the children's charity Barnardo's.

Unlocking the gates: Giving disadvantaged children a fairer deal in school admissions outlines how widening access to good neighbourhood schools has a critical role to play in narrowing the opportunity gap in education.

The charity, which has a church background, is calling for banded admissions to publicly funded schools in England to address growing inequalities, ensure that all children have a fair opportunity to get a quality education, and to combat some of the feared effects of the Conservative-led government's 'free schools' policy.

Children born into disadvantage, already less likely to do well in school, more likely to leave at 16 and become ‘NEET’ (not in education, employment or training) and less likely to go on to higher education, are condemned to go the worst not the best schools, says Barnado's.

While able and articulate parents will go to extraordinary lengths to increase the odds of their child getting in to their chosen secondary school - moving house, hiring private tutors or attending Church more regularly - many poorer parents find it impossible to navigate the daunting school admissions system.

Sometimes these parents are not even in a position to appreciate their children are in a race which might be vital to their futures, says the charity.

Barnado's stance is a particular challenge to church and other faith schools, who receive massive taxpayer funding, but are allowed by law to discriminate in favour of their own communities in admissions and employment.

The recent growth in foundation schools and academies means that there are increasing numbers of schools which act as their own admissions authority. In January 1988, 15 per cent of schools were their own admission authority, by January 2009, that figure almost tripled to 42 per cent.

"The churches and other faith groups, whose creeds preach equality but whose current practices are based on selection and privilege, have a particular opportunity to take a lead in radically reforming their admissions policies to open up educational opportunity for all in the schools they sponsor," said Simon Barrow, co-director of the Christian think-tank Ekklesia, which has advocates reform of religious foundation schools as part of the Accord Coalition for inclusive education.

"Some Christian foundation schools, like the Lambeth Academy, have been setting a good example of what can be achieved, but church authorities, not least the Church of England, have been dragging their feet or opposing reform," he added.

"Preserving advantage for yourself is not a Christian virtue, whereas concern for your neighbour irrespective of background or outlook, and special concern for those pushed to the margins, are clear imperatives of the Christian message, reflected deeply in both the biblical texts and in the church's tradition," said Barrow.

The system for determining school admissions is complex and presents a particular challenge for disadvantaged families who are leading chaotic lives, say reformers.

Frequent house moves, a lack of spoken or written English, disability or learning difficulty, and domestic violence, are just some of the circumstances which lead to many parents failing to submit an application for their child at all.

Martin Narey, Barnardo’s chief executive commented today: "The school admissions system has become a complex game, one that many parents in poorer households are not aware is going on around them."

He continued: "Even when conscious of a race for the best schools, some less confident and able parents are often overcome by a fatalism and are resigned to the fact that their son or daughter will be left with whatever school other parents don’t want."

Unfair admissions practices result in schools with skewed intakes that do not reflect the population of the surrounding area, says the charity.

The top secondary schools in England take on average only five per cent of pupils entitled to free school meals (a proxy for low income); this is less than half the national average. Despite evidence showing that social segregation harms pupil performance and that all children do better if schools have a mix of pupil ability and background, half of all pupils entitled to free school meals are still concentrated in a quarter of secondary schools.

Narey goes on: "If we are to wipe out the entrenched poverty that erodes the life chances of one in four children in the UK, if we are to re-ignite social mobility, then we must stop educational disadvantage being passed down from one generation to the next."

"Secondary school admissions fail to ensure a level playing field for all children. Instead we are seeing impenetrable clusters of privilege forming around the most popular schools. Allowing such practice to persist – and almost certainly expand as increasing numbers of schools take control of their own admissions - will only sustain the achievement gap in education and undermine the prospects of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children," says the Barnado's chief.

The consequences are significant. Children from disadvantaged homes are half as likely to get five good grades at GCSE as their classmates - in 2009, 27 per cent of children eligible for free school meals achieved five A* to C grades (with maths and English) at GCSE, compared to 54 per cent of those not eligible.

Also, pupils who do not receive free school meals stand a 32 per cent chance of going onto higher education, while pupils in receipt of free school meals stand only a 13 per cent chance – a gap of 19 percentage points.

As Government plans to expand the number of foundation schools, academies and free schools continue, Barnardo’s is calling for greater school 'freedoms' (as more schools act as their own admission authorities) to be matched by clearer accountability, to ensure a balanced pupil intake.

Report recommendations aimed at ensuring the secondary school admissions system does not leave the poorest behind include:

* Promoting ‘banding’ (admitting equal proportions of pupils in different ability bands) as a fairer basis for school admissions;
* Requiring schools to report annually on the profile of their pupil intake in reports to parents and governors, and increasing scrutiny of admissions practice by the School Adjudicator and/or OFSTED;
* Separating responsibility for setting school admissions policies from administering them, as while policies often meet the letter of the law, practice can fall short.

Read the whole report here: http://www.barnardos.org.uk/what_we_do/campaigns/education_campaigns.htm

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Africa is facing climate change that will kill more people than traditional causes such as malaria and HIV, says a Ugandan environmental expert.

The continent of Africa is facing a future in which climate change will kill more people than traditional causes such as malaria and HIV, according to a Ugandan environmental expert.

Dr Rose Mwebaza has warned Anglican bishops from Africa who are meeting in Entebbe, that lakes across the continent are shrinking and drying up, crops are failing, deforestation is leading to terrible flooding and, as a result, people are fighting and killing each other over resources.

“Africa is facing several [environmental] challenges,” said Dr Mwebaza, a senior legal advisor on environmental security at Nairobi’s Institute of Security Studies. These include increased droughts and reduced availability of water; desertification - one factor in major flooding - and increased incidents of diseases in previously unaffected areas.

“Lake Chad in 1973 covered several countries,” she said. “It is reduced to a shadow of its former self. It is vanishing from the continent right in front of our eyes.”

The same was true of Mount Kilimanjaro, she said. Once covered with plenty of snow, experts predict that, within 2 to 5 years’ time, there will be none left on that mountain. “These are the things that are happening right in front of our eyes.”

“I think climate change is going to cause more deaths than many of the other traditional causes such as malaria and aids,” she said. “Whenever I say that, people look at me surprised, but it’s true.”

“The Rift Valley used to be a bread basket, a fertile area… it’s now a wasteland. A lot of the rivers are completely dry. What this is leading to is that it has become a security problem. People are literally killing each other over resources.”

“[Governments] are facing the problem of malaria and several other diseases that didn’t exist before or existed only in a few locations…that is adding to the health challenges of those countries.

Against this grim backdrop, Dr Mwebaza told the All Africa Bishops Conference that there were, however, some relatively simple things that churches could do to support communities to mitigate the impact of climate change. She highlighted three things: information, energy projects and reforestation projects.

“If the church provides the community with information centres, either in the parish or diocesan office, you would be amazed at how those information centres can transform communities.” An example of this transformative information includes how to build simple pan dams to capture rainwater for irrigating crops, watering cattle and - together with water purifying techniques - to provide potable water.

A simple energy project that Dr Mwebaza explained had made a major difference in her diocese, is biogas. Turning cow dung into gas that is burned for light and heat is cheap and low-tech, prevents oil smoke-related health issues, allows children to study into the evening and means less deforestation. The church, she said, could help promote such projects in dioceses and parishes.

Finally Dr Mwebaza said that planting trees would have a huge environmental impact and could also make the church considerable sums of money through carbon trading schemes. “The church is the one of the biggest landowners on the continent. If they reforested just a quarter of the land they have they could make a significant difference.”

She gave the example of a government-led reforestation project in Uganda, in Kibaale and Mt Elgon that are projected to amount to 1,500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide worth US$45 million dollars.

The Second All Africa Bishops Conference (AABC) from the 23 – 29 August 2010 is meeting in Entebbe, Uganda. The conference brings together Bishops from 400 dioceses in Burundi, Central Africa, DR Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Seychelles, Mauritius, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Tanzania, Egypt and Uganda.

More here: http://www.africanbishops.org

With thanks to the Anglican Communion News Service

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