How a random sampling regime could help detect COVID and highlight infection hotspots

Hannah Peters/Getty Images

Stephen John Haslett, Massey University and Richard Arnold, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonFor the detection of community transmission of COVID-19, New Zealand currently relies on contact tracing, testing of self-selected people with symptoms and those with permission to travel between different alert levels, and surveillance testing of staff at businesses permitted to operate in higher alert levels.

Surveillance testing has picked up cases before they knew they were contacts of another infected person. But people who are only tested after they feel unwell may have already passed the virus on to several others. Others who have COVID-19 may not display symptoms.

As a supplement to current testing, we suggest a sound, properly designed random sampling regime of certain areas or workplaces to provide a cost-effective way to determine, with known probability, if there is any COVID-19 in a specified area or group.

The critical point is that such COVID Clearance Check surveys must be random.

Continued wastewater testing, contact tracing and community testing stations remain critically important. But they don’t provide any measures of accuracy because currently they don’t incorporate formal sampling designs.

Probability theory behind random sampling

A statistically designed random sampling scheme, based on as few as 100 people or households from key sub-populations, would give a very high probability of detecting if there are any COVID-19 cases. However, to determine this probability, it is critical the sampling is random.

Geographical locations could include certain neighbourhoods and wastewater catchment areas. Workplace sampling could focus on large businesses, rest homes, hospitals and prisons.

COVID Clearance Checks based on random sampling could shorten lockdowns, lessen social impact, save money and support businesses. Once Aotearoa’s borders reopen, they would provide critical information of known accuracy about infection hotspots.

---

Read more:
COVID will likely shift from pandemic to endemic — but what does that mean?

---

The formal sampling scheme is based on probability theory, which provides the mathematical connection between COVID prevalence (p₀), sample size (n) and the probability of detecting the virus in the subpopulation (p).

Unless a subpopulation is very small, its size has little effect on the sample size required. For a simple random sample, which selects people or households essentially independently and with equal probability, the probability of detecting COVID is:

p = 1-(1-p₀)ⁿ

For example, for a 3% prevalence of COVID and a random sample of 100, the chance of detecting the virus is over 95%. A larger sample would be required to detect COVID at lower prevalence, for clustered random sampling schemes, or for higher levels of detection probability.

Instead of simple random sampling of households, systematic sampling (which selects households at a fixed interval in a list or along a route) could be used to simplify fieldwork without loss of accuracy.

Survey design and structured fieldwork would provide the mechanism for implementing the random selection of people and safe work conditions for the sampling team. For random sampling, this is now feasible because saliva tests have recently been approved by the Ministry of Health.

Using self-administered saliva tests would reduce close contact between field staff and household members, minimising the risk of spread.

New Zealand has approved the use of rapid antigen testing as a screening tool to protect critical worksites.
Phil Walter/Getty Images

How it would work

Examples where a COVID Clearance Check survey would be useful include towns or city suburbs, and households in catchment areas with positive wastewater results. Sampling areas around MIQ facilities, but not including them, would provide information on possible community transmission.

As a first step, the Ministry of Health would identify particular areas or groups of interest, and then randomly select a sample within it, using statistically sound methods, to ensure every person had a known non-zero chance of being included.

For area sampling, having pre-notified residents, field staff would drop off saliva tests at each sampled household. Household tests would then be collected, either for separate individuals or combined, using set safety protocols.

---

Read more:
Antigen tests for COVID-19 are fast and easy – and could solve the coronavirus testing problem despite being somewhat inaccurate

---

Any selected households which do not return test results would be contacted again to reduce non-response bias. Any detected cases would bring other current control mechanisms into play.

Detecting all cases in an area is different and more difficult than detecting whether there are any cases. Cases detected by COVID Clearance Check sampling provide a searchlight rather than fully illuminating the situation. Finding all cases would require much larger sample sizes, which is why such checks supplement rather than replace current surveillance methods.

Using well-designed and implemented random sampling schemes can be an effective, rapid and low-cost way of assessing whether there are any community cases, without testing thousands of people who are not necessarily those of greatest interest. When useful, such surveys can be repeated, using another sample from the same area or group.

As we are now all realising, keeping COVID-19 out of Aotearoa cannot be a long-term plan. Once vaccination rates are high and borders begin to reopen, COVID Clearance Checks using random sampling to monitor possible hotspots will become increasingly useful, even necessary, for surveillance.

---

Alistair Gray, at Statistics Research Associates, is also a member of the Ministry of Health COVID-19 Expert Advisory Network and has collaborated with us on this article.

Stephen John Haslett, Emeritus Professor of Statistics, Massey University and Richard Arnold, Professor of Statistics and Data Science, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Yes, Syria’s Assad regime is brutal. But the retaliatory air strikes are illegal and partisan

Civil war has raged in Syria for seven years.
AAP/ Youssef Badawi

Amy Maguire, University of Newcastle and Jason von Meding, University of Newcastle

The mainstream media have broadly accepted the justifications from the United States, France and Britain of humanitarian motivation for the retaliatory strikes against Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime.

Journalist Adam Johnson analysed US mainstream coverage and reported that:

major publications take the bulk of the premises for war for granted — namely the US’s legal and moral right to wage it — and simply parse over the details.

The air strike proceeded without publication of proof that Syria was responsible for the alleged atrocity in Douma. Reports are emerging that cast doubt on the official narrative.

Regardless, swift action was demanded and taken. Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons are only now gaining access “to establish facts around the allegations of chemical weapons use in Douma”.

Strikes illegal under international law

Alongside claims for justification from the Trump administration, similar rhetoric featured in statements from French and British leaders. French President Emmanuel Macron claimed there was no doubt Syria was responsible for a chemical attack on civilians, in gross violation of international law. He said:

We cannot tolerate the trivialisation of chemical weapons, which is an immediate danger for the Syrian people and our collective security.

British Prime Minister Theresa May agreed, saying “we cannot allow the erosion of the international norm that prevents the use of these weapons”. May identified the lack of consensus in the UN Security Council as a driving factor in the joint military action.

Even this week the Russians vetoed a resolution at the UN Security Council which would have established an independent investigation into the Douma attack. So there is no practicable alternative to the use of force to degrade and deter the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime.

The United Nations Charter contains a prohibition on the threat or use of force against another state. Exceptions to this rule of international law are tightly constrained:

• Under Article 51 of the Charter, states retain a right to individual and collective self-defence in the case of an armed attack.

• Under Chapter VII of the Charter, the Security Council may authorise military force to restore international peace and security, if non-forceful measures have failed.

The British government has published a brief asserting the legality of the air strike on Syria as an exercise of “humanitarian intervention” (effectively invoking the doctrine of the “Responsibility to Protect” or R2P, without explicitly mentioning it).

The argument is that the UK and its allies were entitled to use force against Syria because:

• there was convincing evidence of large-scale and extreme humanitarian distress;
• there was no practicable alternative to using force in order to save lives; and
• the use of force in response was proportionate and time-limited to relieve humanitarian suffering.

Yet the R2P doctrine does not establish a new legal basis for the use of force. It allows for the use of force as “humanitarian intervention” only within the provisions of Chapter VII of the Charter, in the case of grave international crimes.

The Labour opposition in the UK has released its own legal opinion, sharply contradicting the government and asserting that the strikes were illegal.

Illegal but legitimate?

The allies responsible for this week’s air strike have not claimed explicit authorisation under the Charter. Instead, their aim has been to establish the legitimacy of the strike. This approach was endorsed by the European Union and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

According to President Trump:

The nations of Britain, France, and the United States of America have marshalled their righteous power against barbarism and brutality.

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The Assad regime cannot be absolved of its brutality. Indeed, it is a fundamental objective of the post-second world war international legal order to save humanity from the “scourge of war” and promote human rights.

And there can be little doubt that the international legal system is far from perfect, having failed to protect populations around the world from gross violations of humanitarian and human rights law.

In Syria, hundreds of thousands have been killed over seven years of civil war, and millions are now refugees or internally displaced. The complexity of the conflict has seen monitors cease to estimate a death toll.

However, efforts to establish an alternative foundation for military action, beyond what is currently legal, pose risks that must be grappled with.

If states are permitted to determine when force is warranted, outside the existing legal framework, the legitimacy of that framework may be fatally undermined. How could any consistency of response be ensured? By what standard will states distinguish between benevolent and “rogue” regimes?

Leader of the UK opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, challenged Prime Minister May on these grounds:

Does the humanitarian crisis in Yemen entitle other countries to arrogate to themselves the right to bomb Saudi positions in Yemen, given their use of cluster bombs and white phosphorous?

Jeremy Corbyn | Response to Prime Minister’s Syria Statement.

It is relevant in this context that Saudi Arabia is a highly valued client of the British arms industry. According to War Child UK, total sales to the kingdom have topped £6 billion since the conflict in Yemen began. The UK has refused to support a proposed UN inquiry into allegations of Saudi war crimes in Yemen.

Meanwhile, crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations are alleged against Myanmar, the Philippines and Israel, among other states, without attracting the kind of “humanitarian intervention” undertaken in Syria.

Humanitarian intervention or regime change

Jeremy Corbyn has made the case for diplomacy as the only reasonable way forward. Syria should not be a war theatre in which the agendas of external actors take precedence, he argues.

The US has long envisaged regime change in Syria, and stepped up sponsorship of opposition groups since 2009.

---

Read more:
How the aid community responds in Syria will dictate its role in future crises

---

Robert Kennedy Jr. traced the history of US intervention in Syria from the first CIA involvement in 1949. He argues that this is another oil war, and says of broader interventionism in the Middle East:

The only winners have been the military contractors and oil companies that have pocketed historic profits, the intelligence agencies that have grown exponentially in power and influence to the detriment of our freedoms and the jihadists who invariably used our interventions as their most effective recruiting tool.

Central to US strategic thinking is the relationship between Syria and Iran. US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, seemed to say that a condition for US withdrawal is that Iran cease to function as an ally of Syria.

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

With the US gaze so firmly fixed on Iran and Russia, the rationale for “humanitarian intervention” can and should be more firmly critiqued.

Amy Maguire, Senior Lecturer in International Law and Human Rights, University of Newcastle and Jason von Meding, Senior Lecturer in Disaster Risk Reduction, University of Newcastle

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Has Venezuela become a totalitarian regime?

Miguel Angel Latouche, Universidad Central de Venezuela

So far, the new year has not gone well for Venezuela. Neither did 2017 or 2016, of course, but it turns out a bad crisis can always get worse.

January 2018 began with riots and looting of grocery stores across the country, a sign of pervasive hunger. Then, on Jan. 12, a crowd stormed a cattle ranch in rural Mérida and stoned a cow to death for its meat.

For a political scientist like myself, Venezuela today recalls Russia’s Great Famine, with its bread lines, empty shelves, food riots and acts of wild desperation.

Despite overseeing this plunge into poverty and hunger, President Nicolás Maduro has said he’ll run for a second term this year. Election Day has yet to be scheduled but already the prospect of Maduro’s re-election has raised furious debate about the country’s future: Can this president-turned-dictator be toppled?

A country in shambles

In theory, Maduro should go down easily at the polls. His approval rating is a dismal 20 percent, and his regime has proven unable or unwilling to ease Venezuela’s suffering.

The creation of the “petro,” a cryptocurrency introduced by the president in December to “liberate” Venezuela from dependence on the U.S. dollar, has not stemmed hyperinflation. At 2,616 percent and rising, inflation in Venezuela is now the highest in the world.

The worthless currency worsens ongoing food shortages. Last February it was reported that Venezuelans had lost, on average, 19 pounds since the crisis began in 2015.

Poverty is a stunning 82 percent. To be sure, people with connections can still spend millions of bolivares on dinner in five-star restaurants in the Las Mercedes neighborhood. But university professors like myself can no longer even dream of meals out in a Caracas of expensive cars, well-lit streets and teeming nightclubs.

Still, urban professionals are better off than many. By late 2017, the first Venezuelan children had begun to die of malnutrition.

When institutions deteriorate

Despite this humanitarian crisis, Maduro retains a near-total grip on power. That’s because Venezuela is no longer a democracy.

The president’s Socialist Party holds complete control over electoral institutions. Late last year, they used it to sweep two key elections late last year, putting regime-friendly mayors and governors into office nationwide. These wins were essentially rigged, but they still crushed the once-powerful opposition and emboldened President Maduro to seek a second term.

Caricature of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president turned dictator.
DonkeyHotey/flickr, CC BY-SA

In some ways, hunger has also benefited the regime. Doling out favors like food and health care to shore up loyalty, Socialists continue to dominate in the poor and working-class areas where “El Chavismo” – as the regime founded by Hugo Chávez is known – has for 20 years derived its power. When people depend on government subsidies to survive, bad economics can be good politics.

Meanwhile, the government has also persecuted and prosecuted the opposition. In April 2017, the longtime resistance leader Henrique Capriles was banned for life from politics, though he says he’d still try to run against Maduro if his party asked him to.

More recently, Julio Borges, former National Assembly president, was accused of “conspiracy against the homeland.” He will likely stand trial within the next few months.

And Leopoldo López, once a star of the Venezuelan resistance, is now under house arrest.

The National Assembly, Venezuela’s opposition-led parliament, was also dismantled last year, its duties usurped by a new legislative body, the so-called Constituent Assembly, created by Maduro and stacked with his supporters.

There have also been subtler attacks. Regime-friendly newspapers question Capriles’ sexual preference, damaging his reputation in this Catholic country. Officials dismiss Ramos Allup, former president of the National Assembly and head of the opposition Democratic Action Party, as a “crazy old man.”

With its strongest leaders discredited, the Venezuelan resistance has now been all but destroyed. Gone are the days when Venezuelans marched in the streets daily to call for President Maduro’s overthrow. Most people are now too hungry, or too disheartened, to protest.

They’re also just generally afraid to go out into the streets. Venezuela’s murder rate is perhaps the highest in Latin America, though without government data it’s hard to know for sure. The government has tacitly embraced the violence: fear as social control.

Fight or flight

This untenable situation has driven tens of thousands of Venezuelans out of the country in recent years. Last October, I made the difficult decision to join them, leaving my ailing country.

I confess that this self-imposed exile is driven in part by fear. From hunger and scarcity to rampant violence and the constant military presence, Venezuela is basically a war zone right now.

More than danger, though, I fear imprisonment. Until my departure for Germany, I was director of the School of Social Communication at the Central University of Venezuela, in Caracas. The school has frequently offended the Maduro regime by criticizing government attacks on the media – as have I, in loudly defending freedom of expression.

Seemingly in response, the university’s funding was cut. The president even publicly accused Provost Cecilia Garcia Arocha of lying, meddling in politics and “using [her position] to harm students.”

Hundreds of dissidents have been jailed for criticizing the regime. In early January, two protesters who shouted “Damn Maduro!” were arrested for “instigating hatred,” according to new “anti-hate” legislation passed by the regime-appointed National Constituent Assembly. They face a sentence of up to 20 years.

As a citizen I cannot stay silent about this dictatorship. So I left, and I took my 10-year-old son with me. Maybe we’ll go back in March as planned, but I doubt it.

Once a place for immigrants, Venezuela has become a place for no one.

The future is now

According to Omar Barboza, the recently inaugurated head of Venezuela’s opposition-dominated National Assembly, the legislature’s top priority this year should be ensuring that this year’s presidential election is free and fair.

But defeating Maduro at the ballot box may be impossible at this point. A single-party monopoly on power, lack of competitive opposition and debilitated political institutions are symptoms of a dangerous illness in a democracy.

Some opposition members are now calling for a military coup, saying it’s the only way out.

I don’t believe that’s a viable option, either. Venezuela’s armed forces have been bought, their generals offered lucrative contracts in mining and oil exploration. Despite some signs of unease last year when soldiers were deployed daily to beat down protesters, there is every indication that the military brass remains squarely behind Maduro.

Maduro, I fear, is not going anywhere. 2018 will go down in history as the year Venezuela became a totalitarian regime.

Miguel Angel Latouche, Associate professor, Universidad Central de Venezuela

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Australian Politics: 21 July 2013

The new hardline regime concerning asylum seekers has been implemented with the first boat arriving since the announcement of the changes by Kevin Rudd and Labor. The Coalition is supporting some of the changes, which for Labor should be an alarm bell, meaning it has gone too far to the right.

For more visit:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/first-asylum-boat-arrives-under-rudds-hardline-png-solution/story-fn59niix-1226682406568

The link below is to an article that looks at some of the divergent interest parties contesting this year’s federal election.

For more visit:
http://www.easternriverinachronicle.com.au/story/1650949/something-for-everyone-how-niche-parties-are-taking-over-australias-political-landscape/

Syria: Is the Regime Crumbling?

1. Witnesses: Syrian capital largely cut off by tanks, checkpoints – CNN.com

   (CNN) — After a week of intense clashes, the Syrian capital of Damascus is now largely isolated by checkpoints and tanks, witnesses said…

   • Share on Facebook
   • Share on Twitter
   • Share on Google
   • Share on Linkedin
   • Share by email

   

   Cnn

   0
   likes

    · 

   0
   comments
2. Syrian intelligence chief dead

   Syria’s intelligence chief, Hisham Bekhtyar, has died of wounds suffered in a bombing on Wednesday that killed three other senior securit…

   • Share on Facebook
   • Share on Twitter
   • Share on Google
   • Share on Linkedin
   • Share by email

   

   Guardian

   0
   likes

    · 

   0
   comments
3. Bashar al-Assad: fight or flight?

   Bashar al-Assad has neither been seen nor heard in public since the bomb attack that killed four of his top security advisers, despite ap…

   • Share on Facebook
   • Share on Twitter
   • Share on Google
   • Share on Linkedin
   • Share by email

   

   Guardian

   0
   likes

    · 

   0
   comments
4. Syria: Assad regime starts to unravel

   President Bashar al-Assad’s forces were fighting to regain control of key suburbs of Damascus after Syrian rebels seized border crossings…

   • Share on Facebook
   • Share on Twitter
   • Share on Google
   • Share on Linkedin
   • Share by email

   

   Guardian

   0
   likes

    · 

   0
   comments
5. U.K. Navy Readies Ships for Syria Evacuation, Telegraph Says

   The U.K. navy is drawing up a plan for an eventual mass evacuation of Britons from Syria and neighboring countries as violence in the Mid…

   • Share on Facebook
   • Share on Twitter
   • Share on Google
   • Share on Linkedin
   • Share by email

   

   Businessweek

   0
   likes

    · 

   0
   comments
6. Violence rages across Syria

   Violence is raging in several locations across Syria, with activists reporting some of the heaviest clashes to date in the country’s comm…

   • Share on Facebook
   • Share on Twitter
   • Share on Google
   • Share on Linkedin
   • Share by email

   

   Aljazeera

   0
   likes

    · 

   0
   comments
7. Two more Syrian generals flee to Turkey, official says – AlertNet

   Source: reuters // Reuters ISTANBUL, July 21 (Reuters) – Two Syrian brigadier-generals fled to Turkey overnight, part of a group of about…

   • Share on Facebook
   • Share on Twitter
   • Share on Google
   • Share on Linkedin
   • Share by email

   

   Trust

   0
   likes

    · 

   0
   comments

Article: Latest Persecution News from Iran

The following link is to an article conerning the experience of one Christian pastor in Iran, who has suffered at the hands of the Iranian regime.

For more visit:
http://www.christiantelegraph.com/issue16276.html

Convert from Islam Escapes Egypt with Daughter

After painful effort to change ID card, Christians flee – to similar fate.

CAIRO, Egypt, March 21 (CDN) — When the plane carrying Maher El-Gohary and his daughter, Dina Mo’otahssem, took off from Cairo International Airport last month, they both wept with joy. After spending two-and-a-half years in hiding for leaving Islam to become Christians, they were elated by their newfound freedom.

They also felt secure that once they arrived in Syria, they would quickly obtain visas to the United States and start a new life. That hope soon proved unfounded.

After spending more than a week and a half unable to obtain a visa to the United States or to any country in Europe, they realized they may have traded in the reality of being prisoners in their own country for being refugees in another. And as El-Gohary watches the weeks pass and his resources dwindle, he said the stress is almost unbearable.

“I feel like we’ve stepped out of a prison cell and into a fire,” he said. “We are in very, very bad conditions … My daughter and I divide the bottles of water to live, because there is no income.”

Maher Ahmad El-Mo’otahssem Bellah El-Gohary, 58, gained notoriety in Egypt after he sued the government in August 2008 to gain the right to change the religion listed on his state-issued ID card from Islam to Christianity. In Egypt, ID cards play a critical role in a person’s life, being used for everything from opening a bank account and renting an apartment to receiving medical care.

The listed religious affiliation, whether a card-holder subscribes to it or not, also determines whether the person is subject to Islamic civil law. The listed religious designation determines what state-mandated religion classes minors are required to take in school. El-Gohary said he filed the suit so his daughter, then 15, could opt out of the religious classes and would not be subject to the persecution he suffered when he became a Christian in his 20s.

It is a crime punishable by imprisonment to have no ID card in Egypt.

The suit sparked outrage throughout Egypt. Both El-Gohary and his daughter were publicly branded apostates in a country where 84 percent of Muslims think those who leave Islam should be executed, according to a study released by the Pew Research Center in December. The same month the suit was filed in 2008, El-Gohary and his daughter were forced into hiding.

For two-and-a-half years, El-Gohary shifted back and forth among several apartments in Cairo and Alexandria, usually once every month. Even in hiding, the two were harassed regularly by Egypt’s dreaded State Security Intelligence service (SSI) and assaulted repeatedly by others, including someone pouring acid on Dina, El-Gohary said.

While in hiding, El-Gohary tried repeatedly to leave Egypt, but officials at the Ministry of the Interior blocked him at every attempt. On at least one occasion, they seized his passport. In December 2010, after a long legal battle, El-Gohary got a court decision ordering the Ministry of the Interior to allow him to travel, but he said it still took several weeks for the government to comply with the order; the Jan. 25-Feb. 11 revolution didn’t hurt, El-Gohary said.

 

Out of Egypt

After the national demonstrations that led to the removal of both President Hosni Mubarak and Minister of Interior Habib Al-Adly, El-Gohary and his daughter went to Cairo International Airport on Feb. 22 to leave the county. They came prepared with their newly issued passports, the court order and myriad documents to prove they had the right to leave the country. Even so, authorities took the two aside for interrogation at the airport.

“My daughter and I went to the counter of the airport to the manager, then they took us to the SSI,” El-Gohary said. “We spent an hour talking to an officer trying to tell him, ‘We spent ages during Habib Al-Adly’s time, and even now after the revolution, we don’t have the right to leave?’”

According to El-Gohary, the guard asked him if he really wanted to leave the country.

“Yes,” El-Gohary replied. “I have a court order against Al-Adly, and I have the right to leave and the freedom to travel outside the country.” As if to add insult to more than two years of injury, the SSI officers told El-Gohary that Egypt was “their country” and to “come back anytime you want to.”

El-Gohary credits the revolution as the reason he was allowed to leave Egypt, saying it was a miracle “from God.”

They chose to go to Syria because Egyptian citizens are not required to have visas to visit there. After contact with a U.S. organization that concentrates on religious freedom, El-Gohary expected it would be easy to get a visa to the United States, where his wife lives. But he said he has been unable to obtain an entry visa there or to any country where he will feel safe. He went to a U.N. office in Syria seeking assistance; he was given an appointment to come back on April 20.

“I wasn’t expecting, after all this suffering and all these years, that…” El-Gohary said, cutting himself off. “The series of persecution is not finished.”

Although they don’t live under the same type of threats as they did in Egypt, El-Gohary and Dina now live in an apartment where they still watch everything they say and everyone with whom they talk. They still spend much of their time trapped between the four walls of their apartment because Syria, El-Gohary said, is a country where converts to Christianity from Islam are persecuted.

“The danger is still there,” El-Gohary said. “We don’t get out of the house. We don’t meet people. We don’t tell people what we are doing or talk to them about our situation. Because we don’t want someone to say, ‘Why are you applying to the U.N.?’ There are still a lot of enemies.”

Dina, now 17, said that although leaving Egypt was “like a miracle,” she is devastated by the prospect of having to spend more time with her life on hold. She said she is just as scared in Syria as she was in Egypt.

“We’re really, really tired of all this suffering,” she said. “I’ve lost two years of my life. I want to finish school.”

Muslim converts to Christianity in Syria were sometimes forced to leave their place of residence due to societal pressure last year, according to the U.S. Department of State’s 2010 International Religious Freedom Report. While there is no official state religion in Syria, the constitution requires that the president be Muslim and stipulates that Islamic law is a principal source of legislation.

With strict monitoring and curtailing of militant Islam, the government in Syria has long been considered a moderate regime. The government’s fear of violent responses by Islamic extremists to increasing conversions to Christianity, however, was at least partially responsible for the closing of six buildings where Christians were meeting last year, according to Christian support organization Open Doors. Noting that several Christians were arrested and interrogated in 2010, the organization’s World Watch List bumped Syria’s ranking up to 38th place among nations in which persecution of Christians takes place, from position 41 the previous year.

Syria is 90 percent Muslim, and 6.34 percent of its 22.5 million population is Christian, according to Operation World.

Though El-Gohary and his daughter have a dark outlook on their current situation, they are still grateful.

“Without God’s love, we would have been dead by now,” El-Gohary said. “Getting out of Egypt itself was a victory from God.”

Dina said she also is thankful, but that as she gets older she is becoming increasingly preoccupied by one wish.

“I want to get out so I can finish my studies,” she said. “I want to go into a church and out of a church without being scared of being killed.”

Report from Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org

Plinky Prompt: What does your Fitness Routine Consist of?

Dumbbell

My fitness routine – ha ha ha. Actually, I do have one, or at least will soon have one again. It has been difficult to get back into that following my car accident 3 years ago.

Currently it consists of a lot of ‘cardio’ via my job. I also cycle to and from work each day (5 days a week) and the bike is also my means of transport about town (I don’t have a car).

I’m about to get back into the weights with my home gym set up. I have a regime that I’ll be following 4 nights a week.

Burmese Officials Order Closure of Chin Church

Government punishes pastor for refusing to wear campaign T-shirt, amid other election abuses.

DUBLIN, November 18 (CDN) — Officials in Mergui Region, Burma, ordered a Baptist church to cease holding worship services after the pastor refused to wear an election campaign T-shirt supporting the military government’s Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

The election commission summoned 47-year-old Pastor Mang Tling of Dawdin village, Gangaw township, Mergui Region on Nov. 9, two days after the election and ordered him to stop holding services and discontinue the church nursery program, the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) reported yesterday.

The CHRO works against human rights abuses, including religious discrimination, for the Chin people, a minority group in Burma’s northwest estimated to be 90 percent Christian.

Village headman U Than Chaung had given the pastor a campaign T-shirt to wear in support of the USDP, and when he refused to wear it, the headman filed a report with local authorities accusing him of persuading Christian voters to vote in favor of an opposing party.

Under Burmese law, religious leaders can be penalized for “engaging in politics,” giving the pastor a solid legal reason to decline the T-shirt. The law also bans leaders of religious groups from voting in national elections, according to the CHRO, although lay members of those groups are able to vote.

“The election law is quite vague,” a CHRO spokesman told Compass today. “One of the things we were watching out for during the election was to see if church elders or council members might be excluded from voting. But these people were able to vote. The law seems to apply only to pastors, monks and imams.”

Officials interrogated Mang Tling in Gangaw until Sunday (Nov. 14), when he was allowed to return home.

Meantime, the USDP won the election amid widespread evidence of “advance” voting and other forms of voter manipulation throughout Burma.

Previously known as the Union Solidarity and Development Association, and before that the State Peace and Development Council, the USDP was formed by a ruling junta composed largely of army generals. The junta has ruled Burma without a constitution or parliament since 1998, although in 2008 they pushed through support for a new constitution that will take effect following this month’s elections, according to the 2010 International Religious Freedom report released yesterday by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

The new constitution forbids “abuse of religion for political purposes,” the report stated. Election laws published in March also banned members of religious orders from voting for or joining political parties and reserved 25 percent of seats in the new parliament for members of the military.

The 2008 constitution “technically guarantees a degree of religious freedom. But then, it’s Burma,” a CHRO spokesman told Compass.

 

Voter Intimidation

The Chin National Party defeated the USDP in three electorates in Chin state despite reports of widespread voting anomalies, some of which were outlined in a CHRO press release on Nov. 7.

In Tedim township northern Chin state, for example, USDP agent Go Lun Mang went to the home of a local resident at 5 p.m. the day before the election and told the family that he had already voted on their behalf in favor of the USDP. He added that soldiers in a nearby camp were ready to arrest them if they complained.

On Nov. 5, the local government had already ordered village officials to instruct residents to vote for the USDP. On Nov. 7, the day of the election, USDP agents in campaign uniforms stood at the gate of the polling station in Tedim and asked voters if they intended to vote for the USDP. Those who said yes were allowed into the station, while those who said no were refused entrance.

USDP agents also warned Chin voters in Thantlang town that they should vote for the USDP “while the door was open” or they would regret it, Burma News International reported on Nov. 5.

David Mathieson, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW), said the intimidation indicated that the junta and the USDP knew how unpopular they were.

Reports by the CHRO show a long history of discrimination against the majority Christian Chin, including the destruction of crosses and other Christian monuments, state-sponsored efforts to expand Buddhism, forced contributions of finance and labor to Buddhist construction projects, arrest and detention, torture and particularly harsh treatment of pastors. In addition, officials have refused construction for all new church building projects since 2003.

A report issued by HRW in January confirmed serious and ongoing abuses against Chin Christians.

One Chin pastor interviewed by HRW described how soldiers held him at gunpoint, forced him to pray in a Buddhist pagoda and told him that Burma was a Buddhist country where Christianity should not be practiced. (See “Report Documents Abuse of Chin Christians,” Feb. 20.)

 

SIDEBAR

Suu Kyi’s Release Stirs Guarded Hope among Burma’s Christians

NEW DELHI, November 18 (Compass Direct News) – The release of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest in Burma on Saturday (Nov. 13) has sparked cautious optimism about human rights among Christians and the country’s ethnic minorities even as the junta does battle with armed resistance groups.

Freeing her six days after elections, the military regime of Burma (also known as Myanmar) kept 1991 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Suu Kyi from running in the country’s first election in 20 years, but ethnic minorities are still “very happy” and “enthused with hope and anticipation,” said Plato Van Rung Mang, who heads the India chapter of Chin Human Rights Organization.

Suu Kyi is the only leader from the majority Burmese community – predominantly Buddhist – who is trusted by the ethnic minorities, said Mang, an India-based Christian originally from Burma’s Chin state, which borders India.

“We have faith in Suu Kyi’s honesty and leadership, and she has been our hope,” he added.

The ethnic Chin, Kachin, Karen and Karenni people – many of whom are Christian – as well as mostly Buddhist ethnic Shan, Mon and Arakanese (some of them Muslim) people have been fighting for self-determination in their respective states and opposing the military junta’s policy of centralized control and Burmese dominion.

“We trust that Suu Kyi can fulfill her father’s ideal and political principles which have been subverted by the Burmese military junta’s Burmanization policy,” said Mang. Suu Kyi’s father, Aung San, was the nation’s leader at the time of independence and favored autonomy for ethnic minorities.

“Just as her father was trusted and held in high esteem by the ethnic people, Aung San Suu Kyi also has the ability to work together with the minorities to build a better, peaceful Burma where the human rights of all citizens are respected and protected,” said Garrett Kostin, a U.S. citizen who runs the Best Friend Library, built by a Buddhist monk in support of Suu Kyi, in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

While sections of the ethnic communities have been involved in armed resistance against the junta’s rule, many local residents in the region remain unarmed but are also at risk of being killed in the post-election conflict.

In the wake of the Nov. 7 election, as expected (See “Burma’s Ethnic Christians Fear Bleak Future after Election, Oct. 22), clashes between armed ethnic groups and the Burmese army erupted in three of the seven ethnic states – Karen, Shan and Mon – mainly along Thailand and China border, reported Thailand-based Burma News International. The violence has resulted in an influx of over 20,000 people into Thailand – the largest flow in the last five years.

According to US-based Refugees International, the Thai government forced many of the asylum seekers back.

There are also tensions in Kachin and Karenni states, which could erupt at any time, between the Burmese army and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, the Karen National Union, the Kachin Independence Army, the Shan State Army-North, and the Karenni National Progressive Party.

Rights advocates, however, were still heartened by Suu Kyi’s release.

It’s “a wonderful opportunity for the ethnic minorities of Burma to unify in support of each other’s rights and desires,” said Kostin.

In September 2007, many Buddhist monks joined democracy activists in street protests against the military regime’s decision to cut fuel subsidies, leading to a sharp rise in gas and diesel prices. Known as the Saffron Revolution, the protests resulted in hundreds of deaths as government security personnel resisted it militarily.

In numerous clashes between the repressive military regime and political opponents and ethnic minorities, over 3.5 million Burmese have been displaced and thousands killed over the years.

Suu Kyi will continue to enjoy the trust of ethnic minorities because “she has been working so hard since the beginning [of her political career] to speak out about the plight of ethnic people with an honest and sincere commitment,” said Bangkok-based Soe Aung, deputy secretary for Foreign Affairs of the Forum for Democracy in Burma.

Chiang Mai-based Christian relief group Free Burma Rangers (FBR) recalled that Suu Kyi, the general secretary of the National League for Democracy, along with allies won more than 80 percent of the seats in parliament “in Burma’s only truly democratic election” in 1990. “The military regime, however, did not recognize the results and continued to hold power,” it said in a statement.

Last week’s election was “neither free nor fair,” FBR said, adding that “thousands of political prisoners [estimated at 2,200] are still in jail, ethnic minorities are attacked [on a regular basis], and the people of Burma remain under oppression.

“Still, we are grateful for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi as she is a leader who gives real hope to the people of Burma.”

An FBR team leader who spoke on condition of anonymity recalled Suu Kyi requesting his prayers when he met with her during a brief period when she was not under house arrest in 1996.

“The Global Day of Prayer for Burma and the ethnic unity efforts we are involved in are a direct result of that meeting,” the leader said. “As she told me then, one of her favorite quotes is, ‘You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’”

Some Christians, however, remained cautious.

“Although San Suu Kyi wants Burma to be a true federal country, there is no certainty in the hearts of the Karen people because they have suffered for very long, and the so-called Burmese have turned their backs on them several times,” said a Karen Christian from Chiang Mai who identified himself only as Pastor Joseph.

La Rip, a Burmese activist in China, also said that while Suu Kyi deserved to enjoy freedom, she and her party “do not seem to have a clear idea on how to solve the long-standing issues” related to ethnic minorities.

For her part, Suu Kyi spelled out a plan to hold a nationwide, multi-ethnic conference soon after she was freed. Her father held a similar meeting, known as the Panglong Conference, in 1947. Aung San, then representing the Burmese government, reached an agreement with leaders from the Shan, Kachin and Chin states to accept full autonomy in internal administration for the ethnic controlled frontier areas after independence from Britain.

Suu Kyi’s planned conference is seen as the second Panglong Conference, but it remains uncertain if the new Burmese regime, which is likely to be as opposed to ethnic minorities as the junta, will allow her plan to succeed.

In the awaited election results, the junta’s proxy party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), is likely to have majority in parliament to form the next government. Suu Kyi’s party had been disbanded by the military regime, and only a small splinter group ran in the election.

It is also feared that Suu Kyi, who was under house arrest for nearly 15 years since 1990 until her release last weekend, could face assassination attempts or fresh charges followed by another term under arrest.

Burma has a population of around 50 million, out of which around 2.1 million are estimated to be Christian.

Report from Compass Direct News

Christian Jailed in Afghanistan to Face Judge on Sunday

Imprisoned since May, father of six has yet to learn charges against him.

ISTANBUL, November 16 (CDN) — An Afghani amputee in prison for his Christian faith since May will face a judge this Sunday (Nov. 21) without legal representation or knowledge of the charges against him, according to local sources.

Authorities arrested Said Musa, 45, on May 31, days after the local Noorin TV station broadcast images of Afghan Christians being baptized and worshiping. Though there were other arrests in May and June during the ensuing man-hunt against Christians, Musa is the only known Christian facing a court case.

Turning from Islam is a capital offence under strict Islamic laws still in place in Afghanistan, which was wrested from the Taliban regime’s hard-line Islamist control in 2001.

The subject of Afghans leaving Islam for Christianity became national news following the Noorin TV broadcast and ignited a heated debate in the country’s parliament and senate. In early June, the deputy secretary of the Afghan parliament, Abdul Sattar Khawasi, called for the execution of converts.

“Those Afghans that appeared on this video film should be executed in public,” he said, according to news sources. “The house should order the attorney general and the NDS [National Directorate of Security] to arrest these Afghans and execute them.”

In June authorities forced Musa to renounce Christianity publicly on television but have continued to hold him in prison without revealing accusations against him. In prison, Musa has openly said he is a follower of Jesus.

In a hand-delivered letter penned last month to the church worldwide, U.S. President  Barack Obama and the heads of NATO’s International Security Assistance Forces, Musa wrote that he was physically and verbally abused by his captors and other prisoners at Ouliat Prison in Kabul.

In broken English, he wrote: “I am very and very in a bad condition in the jail,” and elsewhere in the letter, “I am alone between 400 of terrible wolves in the jail, like a sheep.”  

In the two-page letter, a copy of which Compass received in late October, Musa addressed Obama as “brother” and pleaded with the international community: “For [the] sake [of the] Lord Jesus Christ please pray for me and rescue me from this jail otherwise they will kill me because I know they [have] very very very cruel and hard hearts.”

Musa wrote of being sexually abused, beaten, mocked, spat on and deprived of sleep because of his faith in Jesus. He wrote that he would be willing to suffer for his faith in order to encourage and strengthen other Christians in their faith.

Musa also described how he had repented for denying his faith publicly: “I acknowledge my sin before [the] Lord Jesus Christ: ‘Don’t refuse me before your holy angels and before your father because I am a very very weak and [sinful] man.’”

In his letter, Musa alluded to the lack of justice he faced in prison, saying that the prosecutor had given the judge a false report about him and demanded a bribe from the Christian.

Integrity Watch Afghanistan, an anti-corruption monitor, recently reported that corruption in Afghanistan is rampant and has doubled since 2007. Most Afghans polled in its 2010 report said that state corruption was fueling the Taliban’s growth. Bribes are frequently required for everything from health care to dealing with state bureaucracy.

 

Prison Transfer

Days after the letter was circulated, quiet diplomacy resulted in authorities transferring Musa to a different prison, to keep him separate from prisoners who would likely abuse him for his faith. He is now held at the Kabul Detention Center in the Governor’s Compound.

A state-assigned lawyer has refused to represent him because of his faith. No other lawyer has been willing to represent him, though he has sought legal help.

Musa, known as Dr. Musa, has worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Kabul for 15 years fitting people for prosthetic limbs. He also has a prosthetic leg. Married and the father of six young children, he has been a Christian for eight years. His name is also phonetically spelled Sayed Mossa.

For the first two months of his detainment, sources said, Musa’s employer and family could not find out where authorities were holding him. During that time his wife received threats that she must leave Musa. Authorities have so far denied his family access to his file, which includes the charges against him. It is believed that the charges could include apostasy and possibly espionage.

Local Christians and religious freedom monitors have expressed concern that Musa may be made an example.

“The court case against Said Musa is unique,” said one religious freedom advocate, a Christian, under condition of anonymity. “Authorities usually don’t want court cases against Christians. This is high profile, as Musa has been on TV and was put under pressure to deny his faith publicly. This is a kind of a test case to see which law prevails in the country: sharia [Islamic law] or international agreements.”

Afghanistan’s population is estimated at 29 million, with very few Christians among them. Afghan converts from Islam are not accepted or recognized by the predominantly Muslim society. In recent months experts have expressed concern over political threats against local Christians, and many, including those exposed by Noorin TV’s broadcast, have fled the country. Christians who remain are afraid, according to sources.

“Dozens of Afghan Christians left their homes, as the authorities were actively looking for Christians after the television programs,” said the religious freedom monitor.

In the face of societal stigmatization, Christians who dare to meet do so in small groups at homes. Sources report that since the hostilities in May and June, Afghan Christians are very intimidated.

Afghanistan ranks sixth on Christian support oganization Open Doors’ World Watch List of countries where Christians are persecuted.

The country has signed the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulating religious freedom, and the nation’s constitution also provides a measure of religious liberties under Article 2. Article 3 limits the application of all laws if they are contrary to the “beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.”

“It seems that this measure of religious freedom does not apply to those who have turned away from Islam,” said the religious freedoms monitor. “They are seen as apostates, traitors of their faith and country.”

Report from Compass Direct News