Ecumenical News International News Highlights 08 May 2003

Philippines to probe missionary charges against military in kidnapping

Manila (ENI). Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has ordered a government investigation into allegations published by US missionary Gracia Burnham that the country’s military had colluded with her abductors, the Abu Sayyaf separatist group, who had kidnapped Burnham and 100 others in 2001. Almost a year after Burnham was rescued from a 377-day ordeal at the hands of the southern Philippines kidnapping group, her book, titled “In the Presence of my Enemies”, was released on Sunday in the United States. The book created a ruckus in the Philippines even before its distribution there. [608 words, ENI-0207]

Pakistani church leaders bemoan blasphemy sentence on Christian

New Delhi (ENI). Senior Pakistani church leaders have expressed exasperation after another Christian was sentenced under Pakistan’s harsh blasphemy laws. “We have to live with that,” the Rev. Sardar Feroze Khan, moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan, told ENI when asked for his reaction to the verdict pronounced on Ranjha Masih, a Roman Catholic in his 50s. Masih was given a sentence of life imprisonment and a fine of 50 000 Pakistani rupees (US$900) by the district court in Faisalabad on 26 April. [415 words, ENI-03-0204]

Red Cross campaign against AIDS stigma boosts ecumenical competition

Geneva (ENI). The World Red Cross Red Crescent Day was marked this year with the launch of the second phase of its “The Truth about AIDS” anti-stigma campaign, adding a major boost to a similar campaign launched in April by the Geneva-based Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance. “Each year, more and more people die from the disease and it is the stigma and misinformation around HIV that is killing people,” said Juan Manuel Suarez del Toro, president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

“People place themselves at high risk from infection or refuse to access treatment rather than face the consequences of social stigma, such as losing their homes, businesses and even their families,” he said. [308 words, ENI-03-0206]

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