Britain’s Home Secretary, Theresa May, announced on 10 November that an extremist Islamist group called Muslims Against Crusades will be banned, starting at midnight (GMT). The parliamentary order, handed down in London, will make membership in the group a criminal offense.

The group had planned to stage in London on 11 November a demonstration called Hell for Heroes on the day millions of Britons honor the dead of two world wars and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“I am satisfied Muslims Against Crusades is simply another name for an organization already proscribed under a number of names including Al-Ghurabaa, The Saved Sect, Al-Muhajiroum and Islam4UK. The organization was proscribed in 2006 for glorifying terrorism and we are clear it should not be able to continue these activities by simply changing its name,” May told members of Parliament.

The Terrorism Act of 2000 gives the home secretary power to ban any group continuing the activities of a proscribed organization but working under a different name.

A statement on the Muslim group’s website said, “the planned Hell for Heroes demonstration has undoubtedly struck a raw nerve in Parliament by exposing the blunt truth behind the poppy. The poppy, Armistice Day and Remembrance [Day] are the fig leaves behind which war crimes committed by serving British soldiers are covered and justified.”

Poppies, a symbol found in the 1915 poem “In Flanders Fields,” are worn by millions of Britons on 11 November, the day World War I ended in 1918.

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The beleaguered Christian community in Iraq may see a ray of hope as Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court approved recently the results of the March election, which include five Christian seats in the Iraqi parliament, Persecution.org said.

The five Christian seats comprise part of 14 seats in the Iraqi parliament that are held by non-Muslims.  The legislature has a total of 325 seats.  Last term, Christians only held two seats, Persecution.org said.

According to the United Nations Human Rights Council , before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 there were about 1.4 million Christians in this Muslim-dominated nation of nearly 30 million, USA Today reported.

Since then, about 50 percent of Iraq’s Christians have fled the country, taking refuge in neighboring Jordan, Syria, Europe and the USA, according to USA Today.  Regional manager Aidan Clay of the International Christian Concern  Middle East said, “If they fail to increase security [for Iraqi Christians], we may soon see the extinction of Christianity in Iraq.”

Sister Maria Hanna, who has lived in the Immaculate Virgin convent in Mosul for 52 years, said the convent has been attacked by extremists some 20 times since 2003, USA Today said.

They used to have 55 Assyrian Catholic nuns, but now there are only four.  Recently a bomb exploded in the courtyard just moments after Sister Hanna received an anonymous phone call warning her and the nuns to leave, USA Today said.

Other attacks were a rocket-propelled grenade, a car bomb and a propane can that was set on fire in front of the convent gate, USA Today reported.

Most Iraqi Christians are Chaldeans, Eastern-right Catholics who are autonomous from the Vatican but still recognize the pope’s authority. In many of the Chaldean churches in Iraq, services are recited in ancient Aramaic, the language of Jesus, USA Today said.

The other major group of Christians in Iraq is made up of Assyrians, like Sister Hanna.  She has written letters to the Iraqi Christian Diaspora to chronicle the experiences of the remaining Christians in Mosul, and recently visited Washington to meet with several members of Congress to lobby for more pressure on the Iraqi government to protect Christians.

Yonadam Kanna, one of the five Christian Iraqi Parliament members and secretary general of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, said that with larger representation in the legislature, Christians in parliament will push for security, more job opportunities, the end of discrimination policies and compensation for Christians who fled Iraq, to return what was stolen and what was lost, Persecution.org said.

Kanna is hopeful that if Christians are safer in Iraq, many who fled will return.

He said, “We will now be in a much better legal condition, and much more respected than we were under the persecution and discrimination policies of Saddam times.  We are full with hope that all together we will be able to do much more than we had achieved in the last seven years,” Persecution.org said.

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Belgium’s recent decision to ban the burka has stirred the interest of some similarly inclined European countries, even as it has wreaked the ire of the human rights group Amnesty international, The Vancouver Sun reported.

On Thursday night Belgium’s parliament voted to prohibit the burka, which covers  a woman’s entire face and body, and leaves just slits for the eyes.  The face veil niqab is also banned.  The measure, which was approved by a 136 to zero votes with two abstentions, is intended to help fight terrorism.

In passing the measure, it was noted that the burka and niqab permit full concealment of one’s identity.  It was also hoped that the ban will help to exercise equal rights for men and women, ABC News reported.

The Vancouver Sun said that some members of Belgium’s parliament noted that the veils are a symbol of the oppression of women in some Islamic societies.  There are half a million Muslims in Belgium, most of who do not wear the burka or the niqab.  OneIndia reported that the ban is expected to affect perhaps 100 women.

It will be imposed primarily in areas intended for public use such as streets, parks, sport arenas and buildings.  Women who do not follow the ban may be charged 22 pounds and be jailed for a week, OneIndia reported.

Belgium is the first country to ban the burka and the niqab.  However this may start a domino effect as France President Nicolas Sarkozy introduced a similar ban to start in September.  Legislation is also being introduced and/or considered to ban the burka in Italy, Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland, according to the Vancouver Sun.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International has expressed displeasure at Belgium’s new legislation saying that it is a discriminatory and dangerous precedent because it obstructs women’s rights to freedom of expression and religion.

Another group, Human Rights Watch expressed doubt that banning the burka and niqab would protect public safety, much less the rights of Muslim women, OneIndia reported.

The law must now be ratified by Belgium’s senate, but it is possible that such may not go through before mid-June, when parliament dissolves for elections.  Meanwhile, some cities are already imposing a ban on the burka through their local councils.  In the capital city Brussels, 29 women were fined for wearing the burka.

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The Canadian Parliament turned down recently a bill to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide.

In a landslide vote, the House of Commons rejected Bill C-384 by a vote of 228 to 59.

Immediately after the vote, two members said they mistakenly voted for the bill, instead of against it.

Conservative Member and Parliamentary Secretary for Health Stephen Fletcher abstained, stressing that he believed “the individual is ultimately responsible” for his fate.

Fletcher, a quadriplegic MP, is confined to a motorized wheel chair.

The bill, which was proposed by parliament member Francine Lalonde (La Pointe-de-l’Île, BQ) also irked Congress of Families Managing Director Larry Jacobs who said it might be used to hasten the deaths of the mentally ill, chronically depressed, elderly (who could be put to death for financial gain), bedridden and handicapped.

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told LifeSiteNews that the defeat of Lalonde’s bill means that Canada should now move on to finding better ways of offering true health care to Canada’s vulnerable patients.

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