Tales from Dystopia II: Enemies of the State

A few years ago a shortlived South African newspaper, This Day, published a list of Enemies of the Apartheid State.
The South African archives had discovered and catalogued some of the files that the government kept on people they regarded as enemies of the state. This Day published the list in several successive issues, and I [...]

Many pregnant women decline abortion after sermon

One sometimes reads news items about how someone has blown up an abortion clinic, or terminated a doctor with a reputation for carrying out abortions. These things usually (actually, almost always) seem to happen in the USA. And when the perpetrator is caught, he (it is also usually a he) often tries to justify his [...]

Discovering the Doctrine of Discovery

This week I discovered the Doctrine of Discovery, and discovered a whole can of worms that went with it.
It started innocently enough — I read a news item on the web about the Episcopal Church in the USA repudiating the “Doctrine of Discovery”, and blogged, semi-jocularly, about being behind the times in learning that some [...]

Nato’s shame

It is not without reason that some people have nicknamed Nato the North Atlantic Terrorist Organisation.While it has talked much about the “war on terror”, ten years ago it teamed up with, and acted as the air force of a terrorist organisation, the Kosovo Liberation Army, whose atrocities have been systematically covered up.

clipped from www.wsws.org

Fresh [...]

Philosophy and the politics of abortion

One of the things that concerns me is the propensity of some Christians to believe and act on urban legends and this came up in a discussion about eugenics in Fr Gregory Jensen’s blog Koinonia: Eugenics Are Now On the Table.
Fr Gregory referred to an article by Gary Graham, Flashpoint! A Woman’s Right To Choose, [...]

The nine hippies of Tarnac

The face of big government just got uglier.

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk

Balaclava-clad police swooped on the remote village of Tarnac at dawn and arrested four men and five women, aged 22 to 34, over terrorist claims. Photograph: Thierry Zoccolan/AFP/Getty Images

the French government claims that Tarnac and its small shop are the headquarters of a dangerous cell of [...]

In memoriam: Helen Suzman

For nearly 15 years, from 1961 to 1974, Helen Suzman was a lone voice in parliament for freedom, democracy, justice and human rights. And the tributes on her death show how much even those who disagreed with her politically appreciated her stand.

clipped from www.thetimes.co.za

Tributes have poured in for anti-apartheid icon Helen Suzman, who died at [...]

The terrorists you hear about

The terrorists you hear about… and the terrorists you don’t hear about.
If you ask which group was responsible for most attacks on civilian aircraft in 2001, most people would probably think of Al Qaeda, with hijacked aircraft crashing into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.
But in terms of the [...]

Human Rights and Amnesty International

Since we’re blogging on human rights today, I thought I’d have s second bite of the cherry. My first post, below, was fairly abstract and theological. This one is more personal and anecdotal.
In 1972 I was banned by Petrus Cornelius Pelser, Minister of Justice. The banning order was a standard form, with names and the [...]

Kosovan army harvested organs from Serb prisoners

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk

Carla Del Ponte, the ex-chief prosecutor for war crimes in former Yugoslavia, has unleashed a storm of recrimination with allegations of a trade in human body parts in Kosovo and Albania after Nato bombed Serbia in 1999.
Del Ponte claims, based on what she describes as credible reports and witnesses, that Kosovan Albanian guerrillas [...]