Southern Africa:

• `RELIGION IN SCHOOLS’ IMPLEMENTED
• AFRICAN TRADITIONAL RELIGION TO BE HONOURED AT SA SCHOOLS
• DOCTORS WARN ABOUT RUBELLA LINK TO ABORTION
• CHURCH LEADERS CONDEMN ZIM’S ABUSES
• SA LAW FOR CHILD SEXUAL EXPERIMENTATION
• TRAP FOR EVANGELIST

* `RELIGION IN SCHOOLS’ IMPLEMENTED - According to Education Minister Kader Asmal the new religion policy for schools does not erode religious freedom. "In fact, the policy reinforces the place of religion in schools," Asmal said in a speech read by education deputy director-general Duncan Hindle at a Free State conference on religion in schools in Bloemfontein. He said it was unfortunate that people who criticised the new policy had not even read it and did not realise this. Asmal said the new policy, which was unanimously adopted by provincial MECs for education in Bloemfontein a few weeks ago, was officially launched on September 9. All the country's major religious groupings had expressed their appreciation and support for the new policy approach, he said. "It is not a prescriptive document. Instead it encourages creative and innovative ways that are sensitive to the diversity of our people." No teachers were currently trained for this and new learning materials, such as textbooks, still needed to be developed.
Submissions from South African Christian organisations, including CFT, had asked government to remove the enforced interfaith element of the Act. An important improvement to the draft version is the fact that Governing Boards will be able to choose the faith emphasis of the school. However, there is still the danger of the multi-religious approach being forced upon schools. See article below. (to index)

* AFRICAN TRADITIONAL RELIGION TO BE HONOURED AT SA SCHOOLS - The Department of Education has distributed a document 'Commemoration Days: A guide to public holidays, special and religious days celebrated in South Africa' and a multi-religious calendar together with its religion in education policy. It appears to be a kind of text book or guide for teachers about religion education and includes information about all South African religions. It explains about ancestors, healing, divining, visiting sangomas, witchcraft and initiation. As pointed out by Philip Rosenthal of `Christian View’, "clearly, all these questions are designed to break down a Christian child's natural abhorrence of witchcraft and ancestor worship and allow those who do practice these things to influence other children." (to index)

* DOCTORS WARN ABOUT RUBELLA LINK TO ABORTION - `Doctors for Life’ has warned that the SA Health Department may be gearing up to place pressure on health care workers to advise abortion for rubella infected mothers:
"Spring brings a variety of childhood infections, with rubella outbreaks currently in some areas. While rubella is usually a mild childhood illness, there are potentially devastating effects for the unborn child. Rubella symptoms are absent in 50% of infected mothers. The baby is vulnerable in the first 16 weeks of pregnancy. The worst risk is for babies under 4 weeks gestation; 33% of babies with an infected mother, will contract rubella. Cataract is associated with infection at 8-9 weeks, deafness at 5-7 weeks and cardiac lesions at 5-10 weeks. Congenital rubella syndrome may include purpura, hepatosplenomengally, jaundice, cerebral palsy, microcephally, microphthalmia and may result in spontaneous abortion or still-birth. Rubella epidemics occur cyclically, each few years, but even isolated cases are now unknown in such countries as the USA and the UK because there is a routinely administered, safe and effective vaccine. Abortion being legal in South Africa, the government could so emphasise the risks, without offering adequate support for the mother and child, that health care workers may be persuaded to advise abortion. They may even be persuaded to train to do abortion if faced with a sizeable rubella outbreak. If the government recommends abortion for possible rubella induced complications rather than practical care and compassion, this would be a double betrayal. Our training has been to save life, not kill, and the more vulnerable the patient, the greater the effort to nurture and help." (to index)

* CHURCH LEADERS CONDEMN ZIM’S ABUSES - Southern Africa's church leaders have produced a damning report on the reign of terror, human-rights abuses and "pernicious evil" committed by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's youth militia. The report on the activities of the ruling Zanu-PF's youth force, released in Rosebank, Johannesburg, on Friday, gave chilling accounts of brutal acts committed by militants at national indoctrination centres across Zimbabwe - including murder, systematic rape, maiming, abduction and disappearances of opposition members, torture and arson. The report was prepared by a South African-based human rights group, Solidarity Pace Trust. The report contained testimonies from victims of violence, as well as perpetrators and observers. It had photographs, affidavits and medical reports supporting the allegations. At the border Gezi and Kamativi training centres, young girls were systematically raped by their instructors, who were senior army officers, the report said. "Defected militia report orgy-like sexual activity among the militia themselves, with young girls being subjected to sex with multiple partners on almost a nightly basis. "One female militia [member] who agreed to be tested was found HIV-positive, as well as pregnant." Some youths who deserted were now haunted by the acts they had committed. The report quoted an ex-militia member on the run in Johannesburg as saying: "I have lost everything: my family, my nation, my chance at education, my future. I have become a street kid." The church leaders - including Solidarity Peace Trust chairman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Zimbabwe and his deputy chairman, South African Anglican Bishop Rubin Phillip - condemned Mugabe for the "pernicious evil" engulfing the country: "The appalling danger posed by the militia must be faced urgently." The church leaders demanded that Mugabe's regime close all training centres, and disband the militia. (7 Sep, Sunday Times) (to index)

* SA LAW FOR CHILD SEXUAL EXPERIMENTATION - The following petition, signed by hundreds of members of CFT, was sent to the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development protesting the `Sexual Offences Amendment Bill’:

1. Ensure that the age of consent is not less then 18 years.
2. Delete the special defence of "sexual experimentation" for children aged 12-16 years. We believe this is unnecessary and unwise as it will encourage children as young as 12 to begin sexual behaviour, or others to exploit and encourage them. (to index)

* TRAP FOR EVANGELIST - Bloemfontein - Masked men have allegedly stripped an evangelist, made him lie next to a naked prostitute, took photographs of them and threatened to kill him "like professor Johan Heyns", if he didn't pay them R750 000. The evangelist, who prefers to remain anonymous for safety reasons, says he was contacted by a woman supposedly suffering from glandular cancer. She called him to her hotel room to pray for her recovery. But once in her room he was overpowered by two men and mentally abused. He told Volksblad of his harrowing experience and said he had been fleeing from the extortionists for the past week. "They attacked my Christianity and said I was the third evangelist they had caught. They played Russian roulette with me, stripped me and made me lie next to the naked woman before taking photographs. "This is unheard of. They said they were Christians and we were Satan and they would make sure we disappeared from the face of the earth. They said they were the people who had ended professor Heyns's life and they would also end mine." The extortionists also took his Bibles, clothes, credit cards, wallet, diary and car keys. He had to leave the hotel with a sheet wrapped around his body. (8 September, News24) (to index)

International News

• `FIGHT AGAINST FILTH’
• INDONESIAN BOARDING SCHOOLS USED TO RECRUIT
• ’WORLD TOMORROW’ LEADER DIES
• INDIA SENTENCES MURDERERS OF MISSIONARY
• RUSSIA TIGHTENS UP ABORTION LAWS

* `FIGHT AGAINST FILTH’ - More than 150 organizations and individuals put their names on a petition asking President Bush to use his bully pulpit and declare a "fight against filth" by proclaiming Oct. 26 to Nov. 1 as National Pornography Awareness Week. "If he does that, the primary focus of the week . . . will deal with the adult obscenity problem," said Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media, the group taking the lead by organizing National Awareness of Pornography Week. The week is part of Morality in Media's White Ribbon Against Pornography Campaign, or WRAP. "The greatest harm that pornography does is to family life," Peters said. "Pornography damages, and very often destroys, a marriage." Michael McManus, founder of the group Marriage Savers, said one-half of America's horrific divorce rate has a tie to pornography. (15 September, Focus on the Family) (to index)

* INDONESIAN BOARDING SCHOOLS USED TO RECRUIT - The use of a small network of Indonesian boarding schools as a recruiting avenue for the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist group has sent alarm bells ringing in the West. Some officials worry that Saudi Arabian money is being used to spread the intolerant Wahhabi Islam adhered to by members of Al Qaeda and the affiliated JI. They are doing this through the country's schools and mosques and so produce a steady creep of radical ideas in a country famed for its religious tolerance. Of particular concern is what, precisely, is being taught in the country's 10,000-plus Islamic boarding schools, called `pesantren’. Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged spiritual leader of JI who was sentenced to four years in jail earlier this month, is still the head of theAl- Mukmin pesantren in Central Java. Three brothers on trial for the Bali nightclub attacks that killed 202 people, helped run Pesantren Al-Islam in East Java, and Imam Samudra, sentenced to death this past week for being the field-commander of the Bali attack, told interrogators that he used Koran study groups at government-run Islamic high-schools in western Java to recruit operatives. (16 September, CS Monitor) (to index)

*’WORLD TOMORROW’ LEADER DIES - Evangelist Garner Ted Armstrong, who founded two independent ministries and was once the voice of the religious television program "World Tomorrow," died Monday of complications from pneumonia. He was 73. Armstrong founded the Church of God International in 1978 after his father, Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Pasadena, Calif.-based Worldwide Church of God, excommunicated him after a dispute. He founded the Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association in Tyler in 1978, along with the Church of God International. He left the second body after allegations surfaced involving sexual abuse. Armstrong founded the Intercontinental Church of God in 1998. Mark Armstrong called the Intercontinental Church of God the "true" religion, with beliefs rooted in the Bible and the Ten Commandments. (16 September, AP) (to index)

* INDIA SENTENCES MURDERERS OF MISSIONARY - An Indian court convicted 13 men on September 15 for the 1999 murder of an Australian missionary and his two young sons, ASSIST News Service learned. Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines and his sons Philip, 10, and Timothy, 8, died in January 1999 when a mob burned their vehicle while they slept outside a church in Manoharpur, a tribal village in eastern India's Orissa state. The killings were among a series of attacks against missionaries and Christian institutions blamed on right-wing Hindus who complained that poor Hindus were being pressured to convert. Judge Mahendranath Patnaik, who conducted the 2 1/2-year trial, said he would hand down sentences on September 22, AP reported. A 14th defendant was acquitted for a lack of evidence. Dara Singh was accused of leading the mob that set fire to Staines' vehicle. For nearly a year after the murder, he was on the run, apparently protected by supporters who sympathized with his campaign against Christians who make up about two percent of the population, said Voice of America (VOA). Several Christian groups and human rights organizations said Dara Singh was associated with right-wing Hindu groups, but a judicial inquiry into the attack found no links between him and organized Hindu groups, VOA reported. And in Australia, the missionary's brother, John Staines, said he hoped the killers would be spared the death penalty. "We have forgiven them in Christ's name. I think that these men have to face up to what they've done. By the same token, I don't want to see them put to death because of it," AP quoted him as saying after the verdict. Staines' widow, Gladys, said in a September. 8 interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that she had also forgiven her husband's killers. "The Bible teaches us that we are to forgive others. I realized that if we don't forgive, we let bitterness come into our own lives," she said. Before the slayings, the couple had spent more than 30 years working with leprosy patients in Orissa's Baripada district, and Mrs. Staines has remained, continuing that work. (15 September, Assist News) (to index)

* RUSSIA TIGHTENS UP ABORTION LAWS: A government resolution on abortion, approved last month, is the first restriction of any kind on the practice since a ban imposed by Stalin was lifted in 1955. Russia is currently estimated to have nearly 13 terminations for every 10 live births, and the highest abortion rate in Europe after Romania. The resolution, which went virtually unnoticed in the country's media, envisages restrictions on women's access to abortion after 12 weeks. It is being hailed by anti-abortionists as a first step towards recognition of the rights of the unborn child. Alexander Chuyev, a pro-life campaigner and independent deputy in the State Duma, described it as a "small victory". But some pro-choice campaigners see it as the thin end of the wedge.
"The resolution is the first step towards an attack on the rights of women," Russian Family Planning Association director, Inga Grebesheva, told BBC News Online. Previously, women in Russia could receive an abortion between 12 and 22 weeks of pregnancy by citing 13 special circumstances, including divorce, poverty and poor housing. The measure is now irreversible, although it has still to go through the bureaucratic machinery of the Ministry of Health before it can be put into practice. (29 July, BBC online) (to index)