DUTCH DOCTOR WHO FORCIBLY EUTHANIZED DEMENTIA PATIENT TO BE PROSECUTED
from: Live Action News

(13 Nov.) Last year, a Dutch doctor made international headlines after she euthanized an elderly woman against her will. The patient, a 74-year-old woman with dementia, had previously expressed a desire to be euthanized "when the time is right," but in the days leading to her death, the woman had repeatedly said that she did not want to die.

Regardless, the doctors at her nursing home declared her to be "suffering intolerably," and despite the fact that she was no longer capable of giving her consent, a doctor was called in to euthanize the woman. She was at first given coffee with a sedative in it, but refused to drink it, and then fought the procedure so fiercely that the doctor ordered her family to physically hold her down while she killed her — which they did.

At first, a Dutch panel cleared the doctor of any wrongdoing — but this year, steps were finally taken to hold the doctor accountable. The Regional Euthanasia Review Committee said that the doctor’s actions were unethical, and that the living will expressing her supposed desire to be euthanized was unclear and contradictory. Even more disturbingly, the committee found five other cases with similar ethical missteps, but this case marked the first time a doctor had been formally censured.

Friday, Dutch prosecutors launched a criminal case against the doctor. "In her living will, the woman wrote that she wanted to be euthanized 'whenever I think the time is right.' But after being asked several times in the nursing home whether she wanted to die, she said, 'Not just now, it's not so bad yet,'" the committee wrote about the case. "Even if the patient had said at that moment: 'I don't want to die,' the physician would have continued," citing the doctor's testimony.

Doctors who commit euthanasia, however, seem to be unhappy about the direction this case is going. "At last there is clarity," Bert Keizer, a doctor who works for a euthanasia facility in the Netherlands, said. "But for people with a living will who want to die if they have advanced dementia, this is a negative ruling. If they can no longer indicate that they still want to die, they will have to drink the cup [of sedative] otherwise they will not receive euthanasia." [read more...]

AZERBAIJAN: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM SURVEY, NOVEMBER 2018
by Felix Corley and John Kinahan: Forum 18 News Service

(7 Nov.) Azerbaijan restricts freedom of religion and belief, with interlinked freedoms of expression, association, and assembly. Forum 18's survey analyses violations including prisoners of conscience jailed and tortured for exercising freedom of religion and belief, strict state literature censorship, and regime claims of its "tolerance."

Forum 18's survey analysis documents Azerbaijan's violations of freedom of religion and belief, with interlinked freedoms of expression, association, and assembly. Serious violations include but are not limited to:

- a complex labyrinth of "legal" restrictions to prevent the exercise of freedom of religion and belief and other fundamental freedoms;

- total state control of all religious communities;

- a ban on all exercise of freedom of religion and belief by groups of people without state permission;

- raids on people exercising freedom of religion and belief without state permission;

- forcible closure of places of worship and a ban on praying outside state-registered religious buildings;

- jailing prisoners of conscience for exercising human rights, including freedom of religion and belief;

- torture of people who exercise freedom of religion and belief;

- prosecutions and punishments of conscientious objectors to the compulsory military service;

- a highly restrictive censorship regime, including pre-publication, bookshop, photocopy shop and postal censorship... [read more...]

PATRIARCH BARTHOLOMEW APPEALED TO UKRAINIANS ON THE 85TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE HOLODOMOR
from: Religious Information Service of Ukraine

(14 Nov.) Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew made an appeal to the Ukrainian people on the eve of the 85th anniversary of the Holodomor in Ukraine. Bartholomew also confirmed his decision to grant an autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church.

MESSAGE By His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew
On the 85th Anniversary of the Holodomor

Beloved children in the Lord: May God's grace and peace be with you.

As every year, we are communicating with all of you with a heavy heart from the historic and martyric Mother Church of Constantinople while prayerfully commemorating the Holodomor of the Ukrainian People, the tragic and inhumane events of the years 1932-1933, when countless human beings lost their lives through deliberate and brutal famine. This tragedy inscribes itself among other atrocities against humanity and God's creation committed over the twentieth century, the most violent in history thus far.

As we pray for the repose of the victims' souls and for the healing of this painful wound in the conscience of your blessed Nation, we remind all people of goodwill that the Church does not tolerate injustice or any type of force that undermines social cohesion. Rather, it underscores the social teaching of the Christian Gospel and promotes diakonia and philanthropy. Orthodoxy's responsibility is to serve as a positive challenge for contemporary humankind, a God-inspired perspective of life and an expression of authentic freedom.

For this reason, it is inconceivable that the Ecumenical Throne – which according to the Holy Canons is responsible for the unity and stability of Orthodoxy – would remain indifferent when an Orthodox people, such as the Ukrainian people, suffer and seek a solution to the ecclesiastical problems that have tormented them for centuries. Therefore, we intervene by obligation – always on the basis of authentically ecclesiastical, truly universal and purely supra-national criteria – for the truth and tradition of the Church, the defense of canonical order and the identity of Orthodoxy, all for the purpose of building up the body of Christ, not for ourselves and not for demonstrating worldly strength and power. By remaining indifferent, we would be left with no excuse before God and history. [read more...]

UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH (MP)'S METROPOLITAN SIMEON TO ATTEND "UNIFICATION" COUNCIL - MEDIA
from: Interfax-Religion

(15 Nov.) Metropolitan Simeon of Vinnitsa and Bary is the only member of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (MP) Bishops' Council who did not sign its final document and is going to take part in the creation of the "autocephalous church."

"Since we turned to the Ecumenical patriarch, it means the authority to conduct the gathering belongs to him. They should give us a roadmap that would spell out what we must do for this process to take place within the canonical field. And after that you can choose yourselves what your job will be and who will be responsible for what," the priest said in an interview with the Glavkom media outlet on Thursday.

There will be some transition provisions to rule out disputes "like the one currently between the [schismatic] leaders [Filaret and Makary] over which charter the church should live by, who will lead it, and so on. I think the Ecumenical Patriarchate exarch who will attend the gathering should make clear how this process will take place."

It was reported that at the UOC (MP) Bishops' Council meeting on Tuesday Metropolitan Simeon disagreed with its decisions, such as the severance of Eucharistic Communion with Constantinople and the call on Ukrainian schismatics to repent, being the essential precondition for resolving the church's split. On the same day, he and two other UOC hierarchs attended a private meeting with Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko. [read more...]

IN UKRAINE, IS CONSTANTINOPLE RUSHING IN "WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD"?
by Prof. Nicolai N. Petro, University of Rhode Island: Public Orthodoxy

On the eve of national elections in 2019, the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, has set himself the ambitious task of dismantling the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, an autonomous and self-administered part of the Russian Orthodox Church, and creating a new, single national church out of the many Christian denominations in his country. His controversial initiative has re-opened old confessional wounds in Ukraine and threatens to divide the Christian world.

It is no secret that the cardinal sin of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, in the eyes of the government, has been its refusal to support the war in Eastern Ukraine. Its head, Metropolitan Onufry, calls it a "fratricidal conflict" and a "civil war." To critics who complain of his lack of patriotism, Onufry replies: "If I serve God and fulfill his commandments, then I am in fact a true patriot. But if a person disdains the word of God, then no matter how much he may beat his breast, he is no patriot... Our church is and has always been patriotic. Its patriotism consists in calling upon people to live with God."

With the establishment of a new national Orthodox church around the self-proclaimed Kyivan Patriarchate, however, Ukraine will have a de facto state church. Should president Poroshenko have his way, the fate of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, once the nation’s largest, will serve as a poignant lesson to others about the dire consequences of contravening the political establishment. Other denominations will be tolerated, but all pretense of a separation between church and state, as mandated by the Ukrainian Constitution, will be stripped away.

How will the average communicant respond to these political intrigues? The Ukrainian government seems to be counting on the fact that most Orthodox Christians perceive little or no distinction among the various Orthodox churches. But if Ukrainian Orthodox believers were indeed yearning for autocephaly, then surely such a migration would have already taken place in the 26 years since the creation of the Kyivan Patriarchate. [read more...]

KYRGYZSTAN: "THE ATTACKERS ARE IN FREEDOM"
by Mushfig Bayram: Forum 18 News Service

(12 Nov.) After an attack on a young Protestant leaving him seriously hospitalised, members of many religious communities have anonymously expressed concern at attacks and the impunity the authorities appear to give attackers. "Eldos is in hospital, and the attackers are in freedom," his lawyer commented.

Members of a wide variety of religious communities of different faiths in Kyrgyzstan, who did not want their names or communities to be identified for fear of state reprisals, have told Forum 18 of their concern at continuing attacks on people because of their beliefs. They have also expressed concern at the impunity the authorities appear to give such attackers.

In the most recent publicly-known attack to cause concern, a young Protestant - Eldos Sattar uuly - has been attacked and hospitalised, leaving him unable to speak or move his jaws. His known attackers have not yet been punished, have been left free to threaten him in hospital, and it remains unclear whether they will ever be punished.

On the night of 15-16 October three young men broke into a house to attack the householder because he is a Protestant. He was away but the attackers found Sattar uuly in the house instead. "They began hitting him and kicking him until he fell on the floor. They shouted at him that he is a 'Kafir' [Arabic for infidel], and that he had betrayed Islam. Then they kicked his head while on the floor, breaking several of his front teeth and his jaw-bone," a villager told Forum 18. "When the attackers realised Sattar uuly was half-conscious and could not move, they put him on a table and washed the blood off his face. They threatened that they would come back to kill him if he had not left the village by the morning." [read more...]