A Finnish Member of Parliament faces a police investigation because of a tweet she posted in June 2019. Critics say the move is a direct attack on free speech.
Päivi Räsänen directed the tweet at the leadership of her Church and questioned its official sponsorship of the LGBT event “Pride 2019”, accompanied by an image of a bible text. After attending a lengthy police interview in November 2019, she now faces a second interrogation on March 2 regarding a pamphlet she wrote over 16 years ago on human sexuality for a Christian foundation.
The leader of a confessional Lutheran denomination in Finland was also questioned by the police about his responsibility in the distribution of the same pamphlet, “Male and Female He Created Them”, a 24-page booklet published in 2004.
The booklet gives a traditional Christian understanding of human anthropology and sexuality.
Commenting on the case, Paul Coleman of Alliance Defending Freedom said: “In a free society, everyone should be allowed to share their beliefs without fear of censorship. This is the foundation of every free and democratic society. Criminalising speech through so-called ‘hate-speech’ laws shuts down important public debates and poses a grave threat to our democracies. These sorts of cases create a culture of fear and censorship and are becoming all too common throughout Europe.”
In Finland, there are a number of laws that regulate speech, including the “ethnic agitation” law – an offence that carries a prison sentence of up to two years.
The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) will continue to oppose a change in law on assisted suicide, following a consultation of its members.
The RCGP’s consultation, conducted independently by Savanta ComRes, was sent to almost 50,000 members, who were asked whether RCGP should change its current position of opposing a change in the law on assisted dying.
Just under half (47%) of those surveyed said the College should not change its position, while 40% said it should support a law change providing there is a regulatory framework and appropriate safeguarding processes in place.
11% of respondents said the RCGPs should be neutral, while 2% abstained.
The RCGP Council agreed that the survey results did not support a change in the RCGP’s existing position on assisted suicide.
Professor Martin Marshall, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “Assisted dying is a controversial topic and this was reflected in the responses to our consultation. However, the highest proportion of respondents said that the College should continue to oppose a change in the law on assisted dying…
“The role of the College now is to ensure that patients receive the best possible palliative and end of life care, and to this end we are working with Marie Curie and others to support this.”
A religious community prohibited from importing religious literature by officials in Azerbaijan received backing this week from the highest Human Rights authority in Europe.
The community had sought official approval to import religious materials but select texts were rejected as they were deemed by the authorities as ‘detrimental’ to fostering respect between religious communities. The community complained that these restrictions constituted unlawful interference with its members’ freedom of religion and freedom of expression, and violated the prohibition of discrimination. This week, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in their favour.
“Freedom of religion is a fundamental right with which the State authorities should not interfere. It is not the proper role of government agencies to determine whether religious beliefs or the means used to express them are legitimate. It is encouraging to see that the Court has upheld the right to access religious literature and highlighted the effect of this kind of violation on religious minorities,” said Jennifer Lea, Legal Counsel for ADF International.
Ireland has the highest rate of families with three or more children in the EU, a report has found. Despite this, our fertility rate is now below replacement level.
The study found that in 2017, 7 per cent of Irish households had three or more children. This was more than twice the average across the 28 member states, which was 3 per cent.
The report from Eurofound, a European Commission research agency, said that Belgium had the second highest rate, at 5 per cent, while Portugal had the lowest, 1.5 per cent. Belgium has a large immigrant population which may explain the figure there.
The rate of larger families in Ireland is dropping, having been almost 9 per cent of households in 2007. The rate of the decrease was the fastest in the EU over the ten year period.
The decriminalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide is a step closer to becoming a reality in Portugal after lawmakers approved a set of bills last week. Moves are also underway in neighbouring Spain to permit assisted suicide.
Lawmakers in the 230-seat parliament cast their votes on five proposals made by five political parties, including the ruling Socialists, to legalise the practices in certain cases and under strict rules.
All five proposals were approved, with the Socialists receiving 127 votes in favor and the Left Bloc’s bill getting the green light from 124 lawmakers.
The votes came two years after parliament rejected a bill to legalise voluntary euthanasia for terminal patients by a narrow margin.
Outside parliament, hundreds of Portuguese, old and young, protested against the bills.
“I think life is an inviolable asset, human life has an inviolable value, consecrated by our Portuguese constitution – thank God,” 21-year-old protester Francisco Guimaraes told Reuters.
“We must care for life until it comes to its natural end.”
58% of Sinn Fein voters and 54% of DUP voters want the North’s new abortion regime to allow the procedure only when a mother’s life is at risk. That’s according to a new poll organised by the University of Liverpool and Britain’s Economic and Social Research Council. The results indicate a clear rejection of the abortion framework the UK Government wants to impose on the North.
A spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said the polling demonstrates that the Conservative Government has no mandate from the people of Northern Ireland to go any further than what is legally required by the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019.
The poll of 2,000 people also showed that only 5% of all voters support introducing abortion through to 24-weeks – which is what the Conservative Government has proposed.
An event with Australian philosopher Peter Singer has been cancelled in New Zealand after an outcry over his public stance on the morality of killing some disabled newborns.
Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, Singer, has previously written that parents should be allowed to euthanise disabled babies if they wish to.
In his 1979 book Practical Ethics, Singer included conditions like Down syndrome, spina bifida and haemophilia among disabilities that make “the child’s life prospects significantly less promising than those of a normal child”. He has argued that parents of children with these conditions should be allowed to end their child’s life.
Singer has argued his views do not apply to adults living with disabilities, but only to newborn infants, who lack “rationality, autonomy and self-consciousness”.
On Wednesday, the venue for his upcoming Auckland event announced they had cancelled their venue hire agreement after “concerns raised by the public and local media”.
“Whilst SkyCity supports the right of free speech, some of the themes promoted by this speaker do not reflect our values of diversity and inclusivity,” the venue told The Guardian.
Prisoners will be allowed to request assisted suicide in Switzerland, prison system officials announced earlier this month.
This follows a request made in 2018 by a convict behind bars for life, which exposed a legal vacuum in a country that has long been at the forefront of pushing euthanasia.
Switzerland’s cantons, which implement prison sentences, have agreed “on the principle that assisted suicide should be possible inside prisons,” the Conference of Cantonal Departments of Justice and Police said.
Euthanasia is generally legal in Switzerland, with the only laws prohibiting assisted suicide being those performed with “selfish motives”. In the year 2014, a total of 752 assisted suicides (330 men, 422 women), compared to 1,029 non-assisted suicides (754 men, 275 women); most of the assisted suicides were of elderly people suffering from a terminal disease.[2]
Euthanasia organisations have been widely used by foreigners, in what critics have termed ‘suicide tourism’. As of 2008, 60% of the total number of suicides assisted by the organisation Dignitas had been Germans.
A Catholic priest was kidnapped in Nigeria last Friday.
Fr. Nicholas Oboh of the Diocese of Uromi was abducted by gunmen in the state of Edo in the southwest region of the country.
Local news outlets have also reported that several children were kidnapped at the same time.
The kidnapping is the latest in a series of abductions and killings in Nigeria which have involved Catholics and other Christians; clergy, seminarians, and lay people.
Earlier in the week, suspected Islamist militants in Borno state staged an arson attack which killed 30 people, including a pregnant mother and her baby. The attack also destroyed 18 vehicles filled with food supplies for the region.
Gunmen have killed 24 people and wounded 18 in an attack on a Protestant church in a village in northern Burkina Faso, the regional governor has said.
A group of “armed terrorists” entered Pansi in Yagha province and “attacked the peaceful local population, after having identified them and separated them from non-residents”, Col Salfo Kaboré said.
The incident took place on Sunday during a weekly service, security officials said. “The provisional toll is 24 killed, including the pastor … 18 wounded and individuals who were kidnapped,” Kaboré added.
Burkina Faso is on the frontline of a jihadist insurgency advancing in the Sahel. Since 2015, about 750 people have been killed and about 600,000 people have been forced from their homes.
Christians have become frequent targets in the north of the country.
