Showing posts with label Communism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Communism. Show all posts

Friday, March 4, 2011

Polish Church Gets Back its Property Stolen by the Communists


Poland: The Polish State will return property stolen from the Church by the Communists. The current State Commission ruled on this after a twenty year study. The final ruling was made on Wednesday. The Church will receive 65,000 Hectares [160,615 Acres] of Land and 36 Million Euros back.

It's about 251 square miles, or about 20 Percent of the land area of Luxembourg.






Link to kreuz.net...

Image from, here. It's in the comments section in a discussion about the meaning of Communism.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Still More Spies in the Vatican

The sister was in the apartment of the Cardinal tidying up.  Then she pushed against the statue of the Mother of God of Fatima, which then fell to the floor.

Cardinal Casaroli's Coat of Arms


(kreuz.net)Pope John Paul II. was not the only one in the Vatican who pursued spies.  The Italian news agency, 'Adnekronos' reported on the 29th of December.


Even the former Secretary of State, Agostino Cardinal Casaroli († 1998), found a bug in his home.

It was for that reason that the Cardinal is said to have been shadowed by the Soviet Secret Service, KGB throughout the 80s.

Cardinal Casaroli was  in office from 1979 to 1990.

According to reports from 'Adnkronis' the Cardinal had a little statue of Our Lady of Fatima in his dining room.

One morning  a sister, who was a servant  in the residence, bumped into the statue.  The statue fell to the floor whereupon a bug was suddenly visible.

The Italian Secret Service had determined in the  90er that the bug had been placed by Irina Trollevera in the residence of the Secretary of State.

Mrs Trollerova was a Czech citizen and was married to the Cardinal's nephew.

Already since the election of John Paul II († 2005) in  1978, the KGB had planned to wiretap the Pope.

The goal of the exercise was, "to discredit the Church and the Pope himself with disinformation-actions and provocations."

Actually Pope John Paul II. had already had his experience with Secret Services.

He was already being investigated by the Communist Secret Police of his own country.

Link to the original at kreuz.net...

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Communists Ban Christmas Mass in Vietnam

Editor: too bad our Bishops don't make our Communists this angry and fearful.

Vietnam...[kreuz/AsiaNews] Bishop Michel Hoang Ðúc Oahn (72) from Kontum in the central highlands of Vietnam may not celebrate Christmas Mass.  This was reported by the Old Liberal news agency 'AsiaNews'.  The ban came from the district's Communist authority.  That mountain people from the Diocese wanted to participate at that Mass, alerted the comrades to the celebration. Initially, there was no opposition: the ban came first on Christmas day when 'AsiaNews" mentioned that  Msgr Hoang Ðúc Oanh is famous for many conversions.  In 2008 and 2009 alone, he was responsible for the baptism of 50.000 of his Dioceses' people.

Original German at kreuz.net, here...

Inflation Hitting China May Cause Regime's Fall: He who Eats Pope, Dies

Inflation in China will cause the collapse of the regime
by Wei Jingsheng
To make a few people wealthy, the communist government keeps most of the population in poverty. If they really have the welfare of their people at heart, Beijing must allow the revaluation of the Yuan and should open the market to the West.

Washington (AsiaNews) - The inflation that is hitting China recently, the cause of many social protests, is different from any other to have ever occurred in the country: it continues to grow and can be simply explained by the greed of a minority of people, exploiting the cheap labour and authoritarianism of the regime to get rich.
Wei Jingsheng, pro-democracy activist and author of Democracy Wall, explains why the Chinese government is playing with fire at this critical stage of development: only democratic governments, he says, "can successfully manage an economic transformation similar to the one taking place in contemporary China”.
China's economy often has excessive inflation.  But each inflation is not exactly the same.  The inflation during the Mao Zedong era was due to the shortage of goods caused by the planned economy.  Academics call it a shortage economy.  After the economic reform of the 1980's, inflation is still emerging consistently.  At present the recently rising currency inflation has such intensity that it has made many people puzzled: "Since China has been reformed to a market economy, why is it still short of commodities, and has this inflation?"

Asia News, remainder of article...

Saturday, December 18, 2010

China Completes Military Highway to India

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – A new highway now links Metok County, in southern Tibet, to the rest of China. Although of limited economic significance since it has a small population of some 11,000 people, the area is crucial from a military standpoint because it bolsters Chinese claims to the wider region, currently disputed with India.

The People’s Liberation Army did most of the work. On Wednesday, its construction crews broke through the last obstacle in the 3.3-kilometre Galongla Tunnel at 3,750 metres above sea level, thus completing the 117-kilometre Metok highway.

At present, the “PLA's fighting capability in southern Tibet is very weak because we failed to overcome countless fatal natural barriers there over the past near five decades," Shanghai-based military expert Ni Lexiong told the South China Morning Post.

Read further at Asia News...

Friday, December 10, 2010

China: Communist Named to Vice Regent: 100 Seminarians in a Hunger Strike

Hard Core
Editor: This article appeared about two weeks ago, this situation is still ongoing, will check for more information and join these brave souls in their resistance to Communism.

(Peking)All 100 Seminarians of the seminary in the Chinese province of Hebei are protesting against the Official of the State Commission for Ethnic and Religious Affairs in the Province.  For 19 Days the Priests are in a hunger strike with which they are protesting the appointment of a Communist to the Vice Regency of the Seminary.   The Seminarians fear that the Communist regime is going to interfere with the religious education and spiritual values by subordinating and making it docile to outside political influence.

The Seminarians are protesting in choir robes and have displayed on signs that they wish the cancellation of the appointment of Tang Zhaojun as Vice Regent.

"We protest are protesting before the Government Administration because this situation is no longer acceptable.  The demonstration is an initiative exclusively of the students.  This decision was not instigated by any priest or bishop,"  explained Asia News of the Seminarians.

During the "silence protest" there were two discussions between State Functionaries and the Seminarians.  An agreement cant in any case hasn't been reached.  The students have stuck to a written document, with which they demand the cancellation of the appointment of a Communist Political Commissar.

Tang Zhaojun was  named Vice Regent on 11. November. It was then that the decision was made by the students to protest.  Because the government was not prepared to reject the appointment, this  prompted the Seminarians to begin their hunger strike after  19 Days.

After the first days of the hunger strike the standing Administrative Director of the Seminary gave the Seminarians a verbal directive, to consent to the appointment.  On this point a delegation of the Prelates of the Diocese came to an agreement with the authorities.  The delegation however didn't come to an agreue.

ement because the prelates were abducted by the secret police and forced to participate in the illicit episcopal consecration of Chengde on the 20th of November.  So the question is still unclear.  "Till today we haven't received any news that the appointment has been withdrawn",  said a Seminarian to Asianews.  For that reason, the hunger strike will continue.

(Asianews/Giuseppe Nardi, Bild. Asianews)

Link to original from German, katholisches.info...

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Chinese bishops deported to attend Patriotic Assembly

CHINA – VATICAN

by W. Zhicheng - Z. Yuan
The gathering, incompatible with the faith of Catholics, aims to elect the Presidents of the Patriotic Association and the Council of Bishops. Some bishops have gone into hiding to avoid having to participate, while others have been taken against their will. The bishop of Hengshui, seized and torn from the safe cover of the faithful, dragged to Beijing.

Beijing (AsiaNews) - AsiaNews sources say that dozens of bishops of the official Church have been forcibly deported to the capital to ensure their participation at the Assembly of representatives of Chinese Catholics, which the pope considers incompatible with Catholic faith.

The Assembly opened today in Beijing on a low profileand is being shrouded in secrecy: it is impossible to contact anyone and not even Xinhua is reporting on the event. The meeting should lead to the election of the national president of the Patriotic Association and president of the council of Chinese bishops, two bodies that are unacceptable to the Catholic Church because they aim to build a separate Church, detached from the pope. "It's just an election of a new round of leadership," said Liu Bainian, vice president and chairman of the PA Assembly. In fact, the gathering is the "sovereign body" of the official Chinese church in which bishops are a minority among Catholics and government representatives. Ecclesial decisions are made on the basis of rigged elections. Ahead of today's meeting, Liu Bainian had sent all participants clear indications of what to do and what to vote.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Cardinal Puljic Must Vacate Residence-- Sarajevo Court Upholds Communist Decision: Croatia in an Uproar

(Sarajevo)  In the past 17th of November there was a final judgement by the Bosnian-Herzegovinan Federal Government in Sarajevo, has ordered the vacation of the residence of the Archbishop of Vrhbosna-sarajevo, Vinko Cardinal Puljuic, from the Episcopal Palace.  The residence, the property of the Curia, was confiscated in the past by the Communist regime, to house there Communist or Muslim spies, according to Corrispenza Romana.

During the Bosnian war the Cardinal was again in occupation of the residence.  Not just the residence, but the entire Palace was bugged with listening devices, including the bedroom of the Cardinal.  The widow and the other relatives of the last, Communist spy, who had continued to live in the residence and has died, complained to the court and demanded the return of the residence.  15 years after the reinstatement to the rightful owner, the Archdiocese of Vrhbosna-Sarajevo, the Federal Government of Sarajevo unexpectedly ruled in favor of the widow which was in transgression of every fundamental law.  On the 17th of November the court decided that the Archdiocese, which which had been stolen by the Communist regime and given to a Communist Agent, must now deliver it to his widow.  At the same time, the court has ordered Cardinal Puljic to leave the residence.  The Cardinal has stoutly replied that he will not leave the residence.

The Croatian Press in Bosnia, the Herzegovina and Croatians have been in an uproar since the judgment.  A wave of protest has gripped Croatia.  There are voices, who are speaking in preparation of a Croatian mass demonstration in Sarajevo, to which Croatians will come from all of their accustomed areas to gather in the Bosnian Capital.

This renewed attack on the Catholics of Croatia in Bosnia-Herzegovina are met with general silence by the  international community of nations, which holds Bosnia-Herzegovina in a protective status.  Cardinal Puljic protests to the high representatives of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko, against the judgment.  The  Kärntner Slovene explained simply that it can do nothing.  A witness to the Cardinal's consequent discussion with a Slovenian Bishop along with Inzko has encouraged heavy condemnations to the UN-delegation and EU-special agent against this act of piracy.

Inzko works as the higher representative with plenary powers in Bosnia-Herzegovina.  Against every form of open rights violations or discriminating judgments he can intervene directly and immediately, and officially remove those responsible from their offices, be they civil servants, mayors, judges or even ministers.

These plenary powers are in any case never invoked in the case of decisions related to political questions, behind them the Muslim party of the Democratic Alliance (SDA) stands, as they are permitted by corresponding directives from the American Government.  The SDA is the strongest party in Bosnia since 1990 and has formed all of the governments.  The Catholic Croatians with some 17 percent are not only the smallest of the three Bosnia-Herzegovina populations and religious communities united by force, but they are certainly the most discriminated against.

(Corrispondenza Romana/Giuseppe Nardi, Bild: de.academic.ru)

Also reported on,  here. 

Translated from katholisces...

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Patriarch Kirill compares situation with religion in Europe with period of atheism in USSR

Moscow, October 13, Interfax – Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said the situation with religion in some countries, including Europe, reminds him of the times of militant atheism in the Soviet Union.

"I am deeply convinced that modern civilization is making the same mistake as the Soviet Union. It doesn't matter very much why you are removing faith from pubic life. The final result, as engineers say, is the same: you get dismantling of religious consciousness," the Patriarch said while meeting with German President Christian Wulff in Moscow on Wednesday.

The Russian Church has lived for decades in a country where the official ideology was the ideology of atheism, "where churches were destroyed, crosses were removed from churches to be used for some secular purposes, where religious life was squeezed out of public life and could only be manifested in private, intimate life."

The people who made such policies "have very good intentions and acted on the basis of their convictions, and their convictions were very humanistic: to build a just prospering society, good future, where people would be happy and would have everything they wanted to have, but religion, those crosses on churches were getting in the way," the Patriarch said.

"It scares me that something illogical is now taking place in some countries, including in Western Europe. No one is saying that the Christian presence should be removed for the sake of a good future, but they are using a different philosophy: they want to remove crosses from schools and religion from public life in the name of human rights," Patriarch Kirill said.

He thanked Germany for "defending the legality of the presence of traditional Christian values in societal life on many issues."

Patriarch Kirill said philosophies come and go and Christian faith has existed for 2,000 years and it "formed the spiritual and cultural foundation of Europe."

"For this reason, we believe we now need to speak loudly about it, because we have a right to do that, we have lived for many years in a country that drove God from public life and we know the consequences of that," the Patriarch said.

Patriarch Kirill said the current "phenomenal revival of religious life in Russia and the other former Soviet republics is largely a reaction to that past."


Link to Interfax...

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Cardinal: Vatican Names Dogs in Place of Bishops


The Vatican has recognized men who've been the Communist regime's Bishops for years. In public, the supposed warming of relations to fat cats was bought in Peking. The faithful will pay the bill.

[kreuz.net, Hong Kong] The Emeritus Bishop of Hong Kong, Joseph Cardinal Zen, has openly criticized the communist-friendly China-politic of the Vatican's Congregation of Missions on 'AsiaNews'.

The text is a copy of an article by a Father Jeroom Heyndrickx, where the Cardinal draws a question mark about the middleman between the Communists and the Congregation of Missions.

The Vatican in the Service of the Church's Enemies

Cardinal Zen said that he was a sinner at the beginning of his article: "But I would add to my many sins -- if I were like a dog who did not bark when the time was right for it."

The Prince of the Church insists that he will speak out against the aims of the Vatican and the Chinese Communists.

But for all that will awake the impression, that it is not so and their purpose has been discovered.

Then the Cardinal demystified the mythos of the Chinese communists' mutually recognized Bishops.

These proceedings will serve the aims of the Communist party.


A Dog on the Leash


Cardinal Zen says that the Bishops of the official state "Patriotic Union" are "slaves, or, even worse; as dogs on a leash".

The Bishops of the regime named by the Vatican are according to him "modern false prophets". They travel -- says Cardinal Zen -- happily on the imperial caravan of the independent church and call out from time to time, "Long live the Pope".

Then the Communist government supervises the state Bishops. These will only hear and obey.

They must depart from meetings, without knowing, where the journey begins.

They were invited to meetings, without knowing the subject.

They must hold speeches, without having seen the text beforehand.

The methods of persecution have improved.

Today the victims are invited to dinner, city tours and awards.

One is certain, however, to respect their freedom of conscience.

But Cardinal Zen knows, that the promises of Communists mean nothing.

For according to the left, "Lies are a legitimate means, to reach your goal".

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Chinese Government Frees Catholic Bishop: Still Refuses to Accept Government's Authority

[Earth Times] Beijing - China has released a non-state-authorized Catholic bishop from detention after 15 months despite his refusal to accept Beijing's supervision of his religious practice, a US-based Catholic group said Thursday.

Police, religious affairs and local government officials summoned an aide of Jia Zhiguo, the bishop of the unregistered or "underground" Roman Catholic diocese of Zhengding in the northern province of Hebei, to escort Jia home Wednesday, the Cardinal Kung Foundation said.

But before leaving a government office in Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital, Jia told the police and officials that he still did not accept the state's authority over his church and remained loyal to the Vatican, Joseph Kung, the head of the foundation, said in a statement.

Read further...

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Chavez Says, "Let them Eat Cake" Bishops Protest

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's Roman Catholic Church is blaming the government of President Hugo Chavez for the decomposition of more than 22,000 tons (20,000 metric tons) of food inside a port.

Church leaders condemn what they call the irresponsibility of officials at the state-run company that imported the food, calling the scandal "a sin that Heaven is crying over."

Chavez has urged prosecutors to bring all those responsible to justice. Authorities have arrested the ex-president of the company and two other officials.

The Venezuelan Bishops' Conference said Tuesday the decomposed food is an example of government mismanagement. It complained of what it calls "the moral deterioration of public institutions."

Link to original at FOX News...

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Communist Government Denies Blowing Up Crucifix in Vietnam, Blocks News Sites

Hanoi, Vietnam, Jan 19, 2010 / 03:59 am (CNA).- Following reports that it destroyed a crucifix and brutalized parishioners, the Vietnamese government has blocked various Catholic news sites from its citizens and claimed that it dismantled the crucifix, rather than blowing it up.

On Jan. 6, an estimated 600-1,000 armed police officers entered the Dong Chiem parish cemetery to protect an engineering unit assigned to destroy the stone crucifix under the pretense that the fixture violated a state mandate that all religious symbols be inside a religious premise. Parishioners begged the police to stop the destruction of the crucifix but were met with tear gas and batons.

Read further...

Friday, January 15, 2010

Democratic Candidate for Senate in Massachusetts says No Catholics in ER

BOSTON, Massachusetts, January 15, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a local radio interview Thursday, the Democrat candidate for Massachusetts' special U.S. senate election, Martha Coakley, said that those who object to participating in abortion and contraception, "probably shouldn’t work in the emergency room."

Coakley was responding to WBSM radio host Ken Pittman as he questioned her on her views about the role of conscience rights for health care workers.

Pittman asked, "Would you pass a health care bill that had [provisions protecting] conscientious objector[s] towards certain procedures including abortion?"

Coakley said she opposed an amendment filed by Republican candidate and state senator Scott Brown in a Massachusetts measure to protect the right of health care workers' not to distribute emergency contraception against their religious beliefs.

Read article at Lifesite...

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Vietnamese Police Attack Priest, Journalist

Catholic Culture

Vietnamese police, joined by pro-government thugs, attacked a priest and a Catholic journalist in the village of Dong Hoi, about 40 miles south of Hanoi, on January 11. The priest, Father Nguyen Van Lien, was escorting Nguyen Huu Vinh on a tour of the village when the police stopped them, pulling the priest aside an clubbing the journalist into unconsciousness. The beating ended when the police took the journalist’s camera, leaving him bleeding on the road; he was diagnosed with a concussion.

Police in the region have accused Catholic priests of stirring up anti-government sentiments, and several Catholic residents have reported been roughed up by police officers and pro-government forces.

Link to original...

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Vietnamese Communists Threaten Redemptorists

Remember when we were told by George Weigel and Francis Fukuyama that Communism was dead and that we were entering into a new golden age? Don't you believe it.

Ho Chi Minh City (AsiaNews) – The People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City issued a statement in which it slammed the city's Redemptorist community for going against "the Party's policies and the nation's laws". Catholics now fear more anti-priest violence. Signed by the Committee's chairman Pham Ngoc Huu, the statement was released on 28 December and published by all state media.

The statement accused the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, which is located on the south side of the city, of organising mass prayer vigils "with the participation of many priests, religious and lay people from other regions of the country without the permission of local authorities in order to distort, falsely accuse and criticise the government."

The press release also said that the Redemptorists used the church bulletin board to "post articles and images leading believers to misunderstand the Party's policies and the nation's laws".

In the last two years, the Redemptorists' church has indeed held a number of prayer vigils in support of its sister church in Thai Ha (Hanoi), which has been fighting to regain its land, unfairly seized by the city.

Since then the Church and the faithful of Our Lady of Perpetual Help have been under close surveillance by uniformed and plain clothes police, who tape and take picture of those who take part in their activities.

Local authorities have also installed loudspeakers on buildings surrounding the church to disrupt the church's services, including the vigils.

The statement singled out the vigil of 27 July, which was held for two priests brutally beaten up in Dong Hoi (cf J.B. An Dang, "Priest beaten into a coma by police. Catholics Protest throughout Vietnam," in AsiaNews.it, 28 July 2009).

Similarly, People's Committee Chairman Huu singled out Fr Joseph Le Quang Uy, a well-known local pro-life activist, for giving "a hand to hostile forces, and reactionaries to conduct propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam "

Father Le Quang was equally accused of “taking advantage of his role in leading prayer vigils to distort the social, political and economic situation of Vietnam," which in turn gave him an opportunity to "denounce the government for human rights violations” and thus "undermine national unity.”

In the last few months, the clergyman also criticised the government for allowing bauxite mining in areas in central Vietnam inhabited by Montagnards. For this reason, he was attacked by state media, which called for his conviction on charges punishable by up to 20 years in prison (see J.B. An Dang, "Redemptorist priest could be accused of plotting to overthrow Vietnam’s Communist regime," in AsiaNews.it, 2 July 2009).

More broadly, Huu has accused the Redemptorists of failing to heed the Pope's instructions. During an ad limina visit by Vietnamese bishops, Benedict XVI had in fact said that "a good Catholic is a good citizen."

A Redemptorist spokesman, Fr Peter Nguyen Van Khai, responded by accusing the authorities of distorting the sense of the Pope's words, because the Holy Father had also called for "a healthy collaboration between the Church and the State through dialogue.” Unfortunately, the government seems unwilling to accept such collaboration.

For many Catholics, the authorities seem more likely to resort to violence and the campaign against the Redemptorists appears to be but the start of a new anti-priest campaign.

Link to original...

h/t: Pewsitter

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Vatican Sends Anti-Communist Message with Canonizations

Lifesite

By Hilary White

ROME, December 21, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Vatican has sent the world a message of Catholicism's fundamental opposition to communism with the announcement this weekend from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Three of the greatest twentieth century opponents to the communist and socialist ideologies, Pope John Paul II, Pope Pius XII and the Polish Solidarity priest Jerzy Popieluszko, all moved a step closer to canonisation. The two popes were declared "venerable" for their heroic virtues and the Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI had approved the decree of beatification for Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko, the "Solidarity chaplain" murdered by the communist secret police.

In his lengthy biography, "Witness to Hope", American author George Weigel credits Pope John Paul with instrumental behind-the-scenes work in bringing down the communist regime in Eastern Europe. According to Weigel, John Paul, a Polish nationalist, was the third leg of an international triumvirate of world leaders - with US President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - who gave moral authority to the economic and political pressure that finally led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Following the shooting of Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Piazza in May 1981, it was widely speculated that the assassination attempt had been ordered by Moscow in retaliation for the pope's support for the Polish Solidarity movement. In March 2006 an Italian parliamentary commission concluded "beyond any reasonable doubt that the leaders of the Soviet Union took the initiative to eliminate the pope Karol Wojtyla."

Pius XII, from the beginning of his pontificate in 1939 to his death in 1958, was implacably opposed to communism which was brutally persecuting Catholics throughout Eastern Europe. In July 1949, he formally excommunicated all members of the communist party and anyone who aided or abetted it. He forbade Catholics, on pain of excommunication, to write, publish, distribute or read books, periodicals, paper or pamphlets promoting communist doctrines. His 1951 letter to the Catholic Church of Czechoslovakia denounced the Communist regime for its vicious persecution.

Link to original...

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Cardinal Schönborn Allows Communist Burial Service at Vienna Cathedral

This Sunday an Austrian state-artist, Stalinist, blasphemer and pornographer Alfred Hrdlicka was buried in Vienna.

The media hungry vienese Cathedral Priest Anton Faber provided a Catholic burial for the blasphemous artist.

What followed was a cabaret act where many of Vienna's leftist politicians came to mourn in the presence of unappealing bronze statues where Father Faber in his solemn black cope read the blessing for the unrepentant Communist and blessed him with holy water as his red lacquered casket was lowered into the ground with a hammer and chisel atop it in place of the traditional crucifix; meanwhile a gypsy choir sang Communist songs predicting the victory of the Red Revolution, which had cost the lives of so many Christiains.

It should go without saying that canon law forbids the burial of non-Catholics (Hrdlika was Old Catholic) and unrepentant sinners.

The following video shows some of his hideous "artworks" which adorn the Barbara Chapel in the St. Stephens Cathedral in which his funeral service was held, where Fr. Faber announced that "we are hopeful of his eternal life". Perhaps he meant something about posterity? We want to be charitable and not take things out of context after all...

Source article from Kreuz.net...


video: http://www.gloria.tv/?media=42849

Hrdlika had previously displayed a blasphemous Last Supper in the St. Stephen's Cathedral which eventually, under some duress, Cardinal Schönborn removed it at Cathcon.

Monday, December 7, 2009

South African Government's Oppressive Tactics: Civil War Brewing

Bishop calls for immediate release of ‘Kennedy 13’
Monday, 7th December 2009. 12:05pm

By: George Conger .

The Bishop of Natal has issued a plea for the immediate release of the “Kennedy 13”, claiming the men are political prisoners jailed for “speaking the truth to the power” of the ANC government in KwaZulu-Natal.

On Nov 16, Bishop Rubin Phillip and 40 other Natal clergy gathered outside of the magistrate’s court in Durban to protest the arrest of 13 members of homeless movement Abahlali baseMjondolo.

The accused have been “in prison for two months without trial - two months in prison without any evidence being presented to a court and without a decision on bail. This is a moral and legal outrage that amounts to detention without trial by means of delay,” the bishop said and “borders on unlawful detention.”

In September an armed mob allegedly led by ANC militants attacked the Kennedy Road shanty town, killing four, seizing property and driving many residents from their homes --- while police allegedly watched. After the attack the police arrested 13 of the victims of the violence, arraigning them for attacking themselves.

The attack and the response to the attack by the police and government leaders in KwaZulu-Natal make it “patently clear that there was a political dimension to the attack and that the response of the police has been to pursue that political agenda rather than justice,” the bishop charged.

The “days of the political prisoner” did not end with the apartheid era, Bishop Phillip warned. The detention of the Kennedy 13 and the magistrate’s refusal to hold a bail hearing shows “that this is quite clearly a political trial in which the rules that govern the practice of justice are not being followed.”

He called for “people of conscience outside of the state to join us as we set up an independent inquiry into the attack on Kennedy Road on September 26; the subsequent demolition of the houses of Abahlali baseMjondolo members, the ongoing threats to Abahlali baseMjondolo members, the role of the police, politicians and courts in this matter.”

On Nov 17 Archbishop Thabo Makgoba endorsed Bishop Phillip’s call for justice for the Kennedy 13, calling on the ANC and the government to “take practical steps to reassure us of their commitment to the democratic rights of shack dwellers."

Democracy in South Africa was “being lacerated by the attacks” on the people of the Kennedy Road, the Archbishop said. “Like the Psalmist, I lament with you and pray that you will not lose hope, and that justice with mercy will be possible in your lifetimes.

“I plead with both Minister Jeff Radebe and President Zuma to usher in democracy for all in South Africa, including these displaced, hurting people of God, who are experiencing neither the freedoms nor the fruits of our democracy,” Archbishop Makgoba said.

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Link to original...