Welcome to H&C,,, where I aggregate news of interest. Primary topics include abuse with "the church", LGBTQI+ issues, cults - including anti-vaxxers, and the Dominionist and Theocratic movements. Also of concern is the anti-science movement with interest in those that promote garbage like homeopathy, chiropractic and the like. I am an atheist and anti-theist who believes religious mythos must be die and a strong supporter of SOCAS.
Many fortune tellers rely on tea leaves but Jemima Packington uses asparagus to predict the future.
Jemima,
who claims to be the world’s only “Asparamancer”, tosses spears of the
vegetable into the air and interprets how they land.
And her
predictions for 2012 include two royal pregnancies and British glory at
the London Olympics – but a dismal performance for the England football
team at Euro 2012.
Jemima, 56, from Bath, has made dozens of
accurate forecasts, including the credit crunch and predicting a second
royal baby for Peter Phillips and his wife Autumn.
Carly Ann Harris, 38, was suffering from psychosis when she drowned four-year-old Amelia before burning her body on 8 June.
After being cleared of murder on the grounds of insanity, Ms Harris was made the subject of a hospital order.
Her mother said Ms Harris was "not a monster" and the family was devastated.
Jaqui Harris added: "I've gone beyond tears. She is my daughter and I am devastated and I have lost my daughter.
Carly Ann Harris believed she had to "sacrifice" Amelia on 8 June to prove her own faith to God.
The facts are not disputed and jurors were told to consider the defendant's "profound" mental health issues.
Ms Harris, 38, from Tonypandy, Rhondda Cynon Taff, denies murder and manslaughter at Newport Crown Court.
Jurors
were told they must decide if she is not guilty of murder by reason of
insanity or guilty of manslaughter by reason of diminished
responsibility.
The court heard Ms Harris described herself in
police interviews as "a fallen angel and had to prove her strength",
adding that Amelia would have to be "cold-washed and burned".
Jurors heard she told Amelia: "You're going to see the angels. See you in heaven."
Tariq Ramadan, a renowned scholar of Islam, has taken a leave of absence from his teaching post at Oxford University after two women filed complaints that he sexually assaulted them in France.
The university said the decision was mutual. “Professor Ramadan’s teaching, supervising and examining duties will be reassigned,” it said in a statement, “and he will not be present at the University or College.”
The statement added: “The University has consistently acknowledged the gravity of the allegations against Professor Ramadan, while emphasizing the importance of fairness and the principles of justice and due process,” the statement added.
Mr. Ramadan, 55, a Swiss-born theologian and philosopher, is a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at the university and a senior research fellow at St. Antony’s, an Oxford college that focuses on international affairs.
Two men notorious for preaching and haranguing women on London
streets are followers of a dead U.S. evangelist whose sermons continue
to inspire a disparate group of followers, including one group a former
member describes as a "destructive cult."
Last
week CBC London reported that local women, church leaders and the mayor
are growing tired of the actions Matthew Carapella and Steven Ravbar.
The duo frequently preach on London's streets using a loudspeaker.
They've also been barred from at least two London churches for
confronting congregates and church leaders during services.
CBC's stories about the men came to the attention of John Collins,
who lives in Jeffersonville, Indiana. He immediately recognized the
men's preaching as almost identical to the sermons of evangelist William
Branham, a U.S. preacher who died in 1965.
Collins was born into a Branham-inspired group called "The Message" which he describes as a "destructive cult."
"He is basically regurgitating what William Branham said," Collins
said after watching videos on CBC.ca of Carapella preaching at the
corner of Dundas and Richmond streets.
Collins has written extensively about Branham on his website and in books he's published.
John Collins was born into a William Branham-inspired group that he says was a cult. (Seek Ye The Truth.com)
But Morgan-Davies says she has forgiven her father and would like to
be reconciled with him some day. “Nelson Mandela said: ‘If you leave the
prison with hatred and anger and bitterness, then you are still in
prison,’” she said.
Her comments came as Judge Deborah Taylor told the India-born
communist he was guilty of “grave and serious crimes committed over a
long period and you have no remorse whatsoever”.
She revealed he had been diagnosed by a psychiatrist as having a
narcissistic personality disorder and had caused significant
psychological harm to his daughter.
The judge told Balakrishnan that he had evolved into “a largely
housebound demagogue or dictator” who beat and humiliated his followers.
“You were ruthless in your exploitation of them,” Taylor said.
His sexual abuse and rape of two women had had profound effects on
their lives, Taylor said, praising his rape victims for their great
courage in confronting the past by testifying against him.
She said he told his daughter that if she left the collective “she
would be killed by fascist death squads or would spontaneously combust”,
while in her adulthood “you deprived her of friendship and love”.
A violent Maoist cult leader sexually abused his brainwashed female
followers and imprisoned his own daughter in homes across south London
for over 30 years, British prosecutors said on Thursday.
Aravindan Balakrishnan, 75, used fear, sexual degradation and physical
and mental violence to keep the women under his control, turning his
commune based on Communist teachings into his own personal cult,
London's Southwark Crown Court was told.
Even his own daughter, who was born to one of the women in the
collective, was bullied and beaten, barely allowed to leave the house,
never permitted to go to school, play with friends or see a doctor, said
prosecutor Rosina Cottage.
,,,
"Each woman lived a life of violence, fear, isolation and confinement.
They were forced into sexual acts over which they had no choice and were
deliberately degrading and humiliating. He seemed to exult in his power
over them."
Balakrishnan was the head of a Communist group in the 1970s called the
Worker's League in south London, a charismatic and energetic speaker who
attracted students and followers with his plan for world revolution and
to overthrow what he saw as Britain's fascist state.
Cottage said he made himself its Party Secretary and the collective's
members were only allowed to recognise the authority of Balakrishnan, or
Bala as he was known, and Chairman Mao Zedong, the founder of modern
China.
U.S. immigration officials have deported a former British Baptist
minister and convicted sexual predator wanted for additional alleged sex
crimes in the United Kingdom.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced
Aug. 16 that upon his release from a Virginia prison, 53-year-old
Robert John Dando was accompanied by deportation officers on a
commercial flight from Washington Dulles International Airport to
Heathrow Airport in London and turned over to authorities there.
Dando, one-time unpaid traveling assistant to British Baptist leader
David Coffey when Coffey served as president of the Baptist World
Alliance, appeared at Banbury Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday. He is charged
with 15 counts of sexual abuse relating to nine victims over 23 years.
Charges include rape and sexual assault of boys in the south of England
and Wales between 1986 and 2009.
At the time senior minister at Worcester Park Baptist Church in
suburban London, Dando entered the United States in July 2010 under a
program that allows citizens of certain countries into the country for
tourism, business or while in transit up to 90 days without having to
obtain a visa.
He was arrested in Oakton, Va., on July 24, 2010, and eventually
pleaded guilty to four counts of sexually molesting the young sons of
family friends while on visits to their Northern Virginia home over a
period of several years. He was sentenced to eight years in prison in
Fairfax County Circuit Court in 2011.
US national Roger Giese, 42, is wanted for trial in California,
charged with sexually abusing a boy under the age of 14 between 1998 and
2002.
His counsel had argued conditions in US prisons and an extended custody threat meant he should not be sent back.
The Secretary of State will now make a final decision on the case.
District
judge Margot Coleman said she had thought a "great deal" about the case
before ruling against Mr Giese at Westminster Magistrates' Court.
Mr Giese emptied his bank account and fled to the UK on the eve of his trial in 2007, leaving his family behind.
He
is wanted in Orange County after allegedly befriending the child when
working as a voice coach for the All-American Boys Chorus in 1998.
A bogus faith healer who conned three women into giving him £150,000
by falsely claiming he had “black magic” powers to cure personal
problems has been jailed for seven-and-half years.
Abdoulie Gassama said he needed extra money for expensive rituals - including sacrificing crocodiles and cows.
The
“desperate” victims, who feared something terrible would happen if they
did not pay up, were “bled dry” with two of them giving the fraudster
their life savings.
Gassama then ploughed a large amount of the cash he had extorted into “lavish” property developments in the Gambia.
Gassama, 34, of Offenhan Covert, Kings Norton, had previously pleaded guilty to 19 charges of fraud and one of money laundering,
Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders are fighting on multiple fronts to hide what they know about child sexual abusers in their religion.
Facing more than a dozen civil lawsuits in the United States and a
government investigation in the United Kingdom, the Witnesses are
continuing to withhold court-ordered documents from authorities. In
England this month, the religious organization went to court for a
fourth time attempting to block investigators from looking at their
child abuse records.
It’s been just over a year since
Reveal began publishing and broadcasting stories about Jehovah’s
Witnesses covering up child sexual abuse. Since our first story aired, hundreds of Witnesses and ex-Witnesses have contacted us, mostly to share their stories.
We’re continuing to report on the issue, but in the meantime, here’s a quick rundown of nine major findings so far,,,
THE minister of a Coulsdon church ran a cult to brainwash women in
his congregation into accepting bare bottom spankings as 'God's will' to
satisfy his sexual desires, a court has heard.
Howard Curtis, a
married 73-year-old father of three, is said to have treated Coulsdon
Christian Fellowship (CCF), of which he was the leader for decades,
"more like his personal cult than a church".
He denies at least seven sex attacks on three different women said to have taken place between 1991 and 2013.
Curtis,
who became a minister of the Elim Pentecostal movement in the 1980s,
but broke from the church when he was pastor of the CCF in Chipstead
Valley Road, further denies child cruelty charges relating to three
different youngsters, and a charge of causing actual bodily harm by
spanking a babysitter.
Opening
the case against Curtis at Croydon Crown Court on Tuesday, Toby
Fitzgerald, prosecuting, said the minister had interpreted the wording
of the bible "to suit his own desires".
"He would conduct what he would refer to as a deliverance ministry," said Mr Fitzgerald.
"This would involve the defendant saying that he was going to cast out evil spirits from a person.
"He
would tell his congregation that discipline needed to be administered
and this was best done by spanking bare flesh with the bare hand.
An
'emaciated' baby died after her parents left her in the care of a
churchgoer with 'supernatural healing powers' because their extreme
religious beliefs banned modern medicine.
Brian
Kandare, 29, and Precious Kandare, 37, have been jailed after
admitting the manslaughter of eight-month-old Rebecca, who died from
pneumonia in January last year.
She
stopped breathing at her parents' Apostolic Church of God, where a
20-strong congregation held prayers in a converted garage in the back
garden of a house.
At
the time of her death Rebecca weighed just 11lb 9oz, there was no trace
of food or milk in her stomach and she was suffering from the worst
case of rickets an expert has seen in his 33-year career, Nottingham
Crown Court heard.
,,,
The stark
reality of this case is that the defendants placed a higher value on
adherence to the church's teachings than their daughter's welfare.'
Their
church, the Apostolic Church of God in Wolverhampton, had strict views
on modern healthcare with members of the congregation encouraged to
speak to the church's 'midwife', who had no formal qualifications,
before seeking further help for medical problems.
Members could also be excluded from certain church activities if they went to a doctor without permission, the court heard.
But Mr Hankin said it was 'difficult to ascertain' why neither parent did more to maintain their daughter's health.
He
added: 'Rebecca's death was a direct consequence of a prolonged course
of wilful neglect, which involved a failure to provide an adequate
supply of sufficiently nutritious food and denial of access to medical
aid.
'The symptoms of wasting and malnutrition developed over time.
Child abuse linked to exorcism and witchcraft accusations is on the rise, figures obtained by the BBC suggest.
The
Metropolitan Police said there had been 60 crimes linked to faith in
London so far this year. It saw reports double from 23 in 2013 to 46 in
2014.
Half of UK police forces do not record such cases and many local authorities are also unable to provide figures.
The NSPCC said authorities "need to ensure they are able to spot the signs of this particular brand of abuse".
London is unique in having a police team, Project Violet, dedicated to this type of abuse.
Its
figures relate to crime reports where officers have flagged a case as
involving abuse linked to faith or belief. Many of the cases involve
children.
,,,
Debbie Ariyo, founder of Africans Unite Against Child Abuse, said
accusations were often made when families experienced problems:
"Children are blamed - especially stepchildren."
She added that within churches there was often a financial motivation behind accusations.
"The pastor says there's a witch in this church today; looks around and points to a child.
"That means public humiliation for the family. The next step is exorcism which is not done for free. It's a money-making scam."
A BBC investigation into faith-based crime, broadcast yesterday on Radio 5,
claimed that a special Metropolitan Police team – Operation Violet –
has seen a significant increase in reports of crimes related to
witchcraft in London.
But other areas don’t have such specialist expertise and half of
police forces in the UK are failing to record cases. Campaigners say
children remain at risk in the absence of a coordinated national
response to the problem.
The BBC reported here
that the Metropolitan Police said there had been 60 crimes linked to
faith in London so far this year. It saw reports double from 23 in 2013
to 46 in 2014.
The NSPCC said authorities:
Need to ensure they are able to spot the signs of this particular brand of abuse.
Terry Sharpe, from the Project Violet team, said cases remained small
in number, but there had been a significant increase, covering a
spectrum of seriousness.
The Information
Policy group may not have started the rumors, but they fed them in order
to
smear paramilitary organizations. It was only one aspect of a broader
black propaganda strategy, which also relied on more "classic"
defamatory
rumors involving misappropriated money, communism, and drug trafficking.
Their
aim was to establish a link in the public opinion between the rise of
paramilitary groups' violence and things that both the protestant and
catholic communities would find objectionable. Ireland's strong
religious
culture and supernatural folklore gave the military the idea of this new
kind
of threat which could also encourage people—especially children and
teenagers—to stay home at night.
I called Richard Jenkins up for
a chat about this weird phenomenon.
Over the last six months, we have been investigating ‘faith healer’
Peter Popoff and his highly-lucrative current business of promising to
heal sickness and cancel debts in exchange for ‘seed faith’, in other
words: cash donations. In May of this year we attended Popoff’s event at
The Troxy Theatre, London, to covertly record his miraculous claims and
supposed acts of faith healing, and to witness thousands of people
donating large amounts of cash to his ministry.
It’s been almost three years since the world came to know Malala Yousafzai.
On Oct. 9, 2012, the 15-year-old Pakistani girl was shot in the head by
Taliban men for standing up for her right to go to school.
After
months in a hospital bed, Malala picked up right where she left off in
her fight to give every girl the chance to get an education. She has
become an activist and symbol for girls’ and women’s rights around the
world. In December 2014, she became the youngest person ever to be
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Oscar-winning
documentary director Davis Guggenheim spent 18 months with Malala and
her family, capturing her travels to schools across the world as well as
her quite normal family life in Birmingham, England. Yahoo Global News
Anchor Katie Couric sat down with Guggenheim to talk about his new film,
“He Named Me Malala,” which will be released tomorrow.
“I
realized that there was this very complex relationship between her and
her father,” says Guggenheim about setting out to make the film, adding,
“I wanted to unpack the mystery between this man and this girl.”
The Australian man who leads the Exclusive Brethren has said a
mentally tormented young member of his flock would be better to "get a
shot of poison" and "finish yourself off" than talk to members of his
own family.
Bruce D. Hales is the wealthy Sydney-based global
leader of the controversial, 45,000-strong Christian sect, whose word is
regarded by his followers as infallible gospel.
Members do not vote, but were at one point meeting regularly with former prime minister John Howard.
At
a recent meeting in the United Kingdom, Mr Hales was asked about how a
25-year-old man with "mind trouble" should be dealt with, because he
was in contact with "opposers" – people who have left the Brethren. The
"opposers" in question are understood to be members of the man's own
family who have already left the Brethren.
Mr Hales said "having links" with them was "rotten poison", and that
the poison had got into the young man, who is from New Zealand.
Despite
having been told that the man was "in what would appear to be torment
at times," Mr Hales told the meeting it would be better for him to kill
himself.
"He might as well get a shot of – what's the best thing
to kill you quickly? ... What's the stuff? Cyanide? No, not cyanide," Mr
Hales says.
"Arsenic. How do you get arsenic into you? ... He'd
be better to take arsenic, or go and get some rat poison or something,
take a bottle of it."
,,,
"Mr Hales makes it very clear he is not advocating any
person taking poison or committing suicide. He is using a common,
everyday metaphor ... It is hardly unusual for a preacher or minister in
any religion to warn a congregation to avoid people who extol certain
beliefs and that those beliefs are 'poison'."
Whether this man's "profession" had any impetus on the crime remains to be determined. But what is at issue, an unlicensed practitioner who was treating people who believe themselves possessed by ‘jinns’. Just as with "christianized" so-calleddemonologists or scam artists like Bob Larson and their deliverance ministries, one of the primary problems is
that there is a serious chance that those "possessed" they are suffering from some mental
instability.
A faith “healer” was stabbed to death at a spiritual centre for treating black magic and demonic possession in East London.
Father-of-three Zakariyya Islam was killed at the Ruqya Therapy Centre’s base in Whitechapel.
,,,
Mr Islam was a co-founder of the Ruqya centre, based in a complex of
small business offices in Greatorex Street, and had been treating people
who believe themselves possessed by ‘jinns’, or spirit, and black magic
for more than a decade.
The centre, which was sealed off by police who were carrying out
forensic searches, also offers advice on sorcery, witchcraft and “evil
eye”.
,,,
Last year he hosted a conference on “The World of Jinns” at the East London Mosque which he visited regularly.
Visibly emotional, she spoke of the morning she was told it was "time to become a woman".
She
said: "I wanted to run away but I was scared of being alone. The pain I
felt was something I can never describe. The experience was horrific. I
can still remember the face of the cutter, the clothes she was
wearing."
Since that day, Valentine has gone on to campaign
against the practice, which is still viewed as a religious tradition in
some cultures.
She set up the Nottingham-based Mojatu Foundation
last year to raise awareness, and organised Thursday's conference for
about 250 health experts, academics and fellow survivors.
Even in
the 21st century it is still an issue here in Nottingham. Last year,
specialist clinics in the city dealt with more than 200 cases of FGM,
nine of which involved girls under 18.
Chris Few, chairman of the Nottinghamshire Safeguarding Children Board,
said: "Until we get the whole of the community engaged in dealing with
this we are never going to see the end to it. FGM is perhaps unlike
other forms of child abuse – it's something we can eradicate. With the
right will and commitment we can get rid of it completely."
