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Last Updated: 14 March 2017

CWN - The Russian Orthodox Church has added St. Patrick to its liturgical calendar.

The patron saint of Ireland was one of 15 saints newly added to the Russian Orthodox calendar. All of these newly recognized saints lived in Europe before the Great Schism; Orthodox scholars cited substantial evidence that the saints had been venerated by the Orthodox faithful living in western Europe.

References:

• Russian Orthodox Church adds St Patrick to its calendar (Catholic Herald)

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Last Updated: 10 March 2017

CWN - The head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Holy See, called for the construction of “a modern national, constitutional and democratic Iraq.”

Speaking at the American University of Iraq Sulaimani, Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako said that “we need to redraft the constitution and laws in a way that the hearts and minds should be open to ‘a full citizenship for all’ that guarantees the freedom of expression and belief and assures a complete respect for the dignity of all citizens.” The present Iraqi constitution was drafted in 2005, two years after the US invasion.

References:

• Mapping the Settlement or Settlement of the Map (Chaldean Patriarchate of Babylon)

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Last Updated: 10 March 2017

CWN - At a March 9 Vatican press conference, Cardinal Roger Mahony and Archbishop Silvano Tomasi called upon the US and Europe to be “far more generous” to migrants and refugees.

Cardinal Mahony is the retired archbishop of Los Angeles; Archbishop Tomasi is the retired permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva. The two prelates had visited refugee camps in four nations.

“The invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the United States in a sense created the earthquake that upset the Middle East,” said Cardinal Mahony. “Then 2008 and [200]9, when the US administration abruptly abandoned Iraq and let everything disintegrate into chaos only gave birth to ISIS, so we all have a responsibility.”

References:

• U.S. and Europe must be "far more generous" towards migrants (Vatican Radio)

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Last Updated: 09 March 2017

Ismailia, Egypt (CNN)"Are you a Christian?"

These were the last words 45-year-old Medhat Saad Hakim heard before he was shot in the head on his doorstep last month.

The gunmen dragged Hakim's screaming mother outside the house before going back inside and shooting his father dead. The attackers then looted the house before torching it. His mother, Nabila Halim, survived the attack.

Medhat Saad and Saad Hakim are the sixth and seventh Christians killed in the North Sinai town of Al-Arish in just over a month --- all targeted by Al Wilayat Sinai, a local affiliate of ISIS waging a low-level insurgency on the peninsula.

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Last Updated: 09 March 2017

risu.org.ua - Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Office and other International Organizations in Geneva Yuri Klymenko urged the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief Ahmed Shaheed to find a way to get access to the territory occupied by Russia in the Crimea and to assess the situation there with freedom of religion and belief.

Mr. President,

We welcome conducting this dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief and Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence; may I turn to the report of Mr. Ahmed Shaheed.

We fully agree that the individuals, not religions, convictions, belief systems or truth claims, are the right-holders of the right to freedom of religion or belief.

The individuals belonging to minority Christian communities on the territories controlled by the Russian-backed illegal armed groups in eastern Ukraine continuously face restrictions and threats based on their beliefs by those groups.

The members of Crimean Tatars are individuals, whose rights to many freedoms including the freedom of religion are being violated by the Russian occupying authorities of the Crimean peninsula. They are subjected to abuse, discrimination, harassment, intimidation in particular based on their religion.

Having in mind that constant presence of the international monitoring organizations including the UN human rights mechanisms in the peninsula will help to make the occupying authorities respect their obligations under international law, and sharing your view, Mr.  Shaheed, that HRC special procedures are most effective when they operate as a cohesive system, we call on you to seek ways and means to ensure access to Crimea – either individual or collective – in order to estimate the situation.

Thank you.

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Last Updated: 09 March 2017

risu.org.ua - Yesterday, on the first day of hearings into its case against Russia at the International Court of Justice, Ukraine presented a weight of arguments and examples to back its accusations against Russia over its annexation of Crimea and gross violations of human rights under occupation, and over its financing of terrorism in Donbas.  While Russia denies all charges, Ukraine’s case is backed by documents from the UN, OSCE, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, international human rights organizations, as well as NATO satellite imagery.   

Russia is likely to argue that the court does not have jurisdiction, hoping that the ICJ will agree to this, as it did in 2011 over the war between Georgia and Russia.  It is, of course, for the Court to decide, but the situation this time seems quite different for a number of reasons.  One of the key focuses in Ukraine's suit is on the compelling evidence of grave erosion of fundamental rights and liberties in Crimea under Russian occupation.  It is no accident that human rights activists played a considerable part in compiling evidence for the court.

If the Court does agree that there is a case to answer, examination of all the evidence could take several years, and both the military conflict in Donbas, and the discrimination and political persecution in Crimea are ongoing. For this reason, Ukraine’s lawyers on Monday stressed the need for specific provisional measures now to prevent still further irreparable damage.

In a 45-page document, Ukraine presents its reasons for accusing Russia of violating two UN conventions, namely the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. 

Although the International Court of Justice has no instruments to enforce its judgements, the very fact of it finding against Russia would have enormous weight.  ICJ is the official judicial organ of the United Nations, which Russia has been a member of from 1945.  It cannot now turn around and say that it won’t accept its authority. This was precisely what Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to do with the International Criminal Court a day after its Chief Prosecutor published her preliminary conclusion that Russia’s  annexation of Crimea constituted an international military conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine.  Putin’s instruction made headlines, but in fact had little legal meaning.  Neither Russia nor Ukraine have yet ratified the Rome Statute, which would make them members of the International Criminal Court, however Ukraine has accepted its full jurisdiction over the events in Donbas and Crimea.  Russia can petulantly refuse to ‘play’, but this does not remove its accountability.

A judgement against Russia may not force the latter to stop its aggression and its rights violations, but it would be another strong argument against those politicians in other countries who have expressed willingness to make deals with Russia involving at least Ukraine’s tacit acceptance of Russian rule in Crimea.  Just the outline of repression and terror tactics in Crimea given on March 6 make it clear why that cannot be accepted.Denying it supplied and continues to supply weapons to Donbas militants, the Russian representative at the trial in Hague Ilya Rogachov said today the rebels found the weapons stored in mines or left by the Ukrainian army withdrawing from eastern Donbas.

 “The main source of weapons for Donbas militants were the ones left over from the Soviet times, he said.

Rogachov did not elaborate on Ukraine’s evidence of supplying to the rebels the newest weapons used only by the Russian army.

It is worth recalling that the main warehouse of the old Soviet weapons is located in Bahmut. In 2014, the militants made several attempts to seize it – without any success.

Pres. Putin also denies the presence of Russian regulars in Donbas, numbering 5,000, according to experts.