Outrage has erupted in Samoa after a newspaper published a photograph of a dead trans-gender woman. The suspected cause of death is suicide. The 20-year-old computer student was a regular at the Catholic Church of Taufusi. She was discovered in a church hall on Friday morning local time. A photograph on the front page of Read more
The Nauru government has announced that the island’s Parliament this month passed a number of laws to bring the nation up to international human rights standards. A new act replaces a former criminal code that dated back to 1899 and was based on old Queensland laws. The law reforms come after a number of incidents at the Read more
Just before a visit from President Obama, Vietnam released a political dissident priest who had spent much of the last two decades in jail or house arrest. Catholic Church officials announced that Fr Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly was released from jail on Friday morning, AFP reported. President Obama started a three-day visit to Vietnam on Read more
In 1989, while serving in Guatemala as a missionary in a Mayan community, Ursuline Sr. Dianna Ortiz was abducted and tortured by Guatemalan security forces. This trauma fuelled her passion for human rights work. Ortiz now serves as the editor of Education for Justice, a project of the Center of Concern. She also founded the Read more
The Pacific Island nations often cited as the most likely to disappear because of rising sea levels include Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu. Kiribati has a population of just over 100,000. The Marshall Islands about 52,000. And Tuvalu close to 10,000. The problem for small Pacific Island nations is that on a world scale Read more
Last week 9 Australian Christian leaders were arrested after they protested against the deportation of asylum seekers. The nine leaders from different Church traditions were protesting the deportation of 267 men, women and children to detention camps on the Pacific island of Nauru. The majority of them are asylum seekers who were brought from the Read more
It is largely an accident that the case of my autistic stepson Peter – refused residency in New Zealand on health grounds by the country’s immigration authorities – has become a cause celebre. We never planned it that way, and for personal reasons we do not intend to fight what we see as an invidious Read more
Broadspectrum operates detention centres, under contract to the Australian government, in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. The company that used to be called Transfield Services, has revealed a profit of Au$25.1 million for the six months to the end of December. The jump in group earnings was mostly driven by a 6.5 per cent rise Read more
Christianity is in danger of ceasing to be a truly global faith as increasing numbers of its followers flee violence and persecution across swaths of the Middle East and Africa, according to a new report. “Christians are fast disappearing from entire regions – most notably a huge chunk of the Middle East but also whole Read more
Police in West Papua arrested eight seminarians, six Franciscans and two Augustinians, who were participating in a peaceful rally in front of Abepura‘s Good Shepherd Catholic Church on 8 October. They were released after being held and interrogated for 90 minutes. The demonstrators were calling on Indonesian President Joko Widodo to investigate the unresolved December Read more