Chibok girls ‘forced to kill’ for Boko Haram

Some of the kidnapped Chibok girls have been forced to join Boko Haram and carry out killings, the BBC has been told.

Witnesses who escaped from the same camps that were holding some of
the Chibok girls said they have been brainwashed and are being used to
terrorise other captives and even carry out killings themselves.

Seventeen-year-old Miriam (not her real name), who fled one of the
camps after six months, said the girls were kept in separate houses to
the other captives. Sixty-year-old Anna said she had seen Chibok girls
with guns, and, like Miriam, seen them commit murder.

In April 2014 shortly after the girls were taken, WWM reviewed detailed research
compiled from the testimonies of hundreds of women that attempts to
explain why Boko Haram strategically targets Christian women and
children. This research went back to 1999 and shows that, while the
Chibok incident was the one which hit global headlines, it was far from
unique. This research has since been submitted by the New York-based
Global Justice Center to the Chief Prosecutor of the International
Criminal Court in the Hague as part of the submission to examine whether
Boko Haram’s abduction of Christian children may constitute genocide,
as the “forcible transfer of children.”

US must elevate status of religious freedom

The
chairman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom has
urged US policymakers to lift religious freedom out of being a “second
or third-class concern”.

Asked by Aleteia
if he thought the US administration didn’t care enough
about persecution of Christians in the Middle East, new chair Robert
George said “I believe that our government does care …[but] I’d like
to see religious freedom and the need to come to the aid of persecuted
people and prisoners of conscience be elevated to a higher status in the
minds of our policy makers”.

George cited Pew Research, which says 74 per cent of the world’s
population is living under regimes that violate or turn a blind eye to
religious persecution or violation of religious rights. “Even in
European nations” problems exist, he says. In the interview he mentioned
rising anti-Semitism, aggressive secularism as well as the “horrible
violations” in the Middle East.

Date set for judge to question S Sudan pastors

The
prosecution in the trial of South Sudanese pastors Yat Michael and
Peter Yen closed its case on 25 June after presenting its final witness,
an officer of the National Intelligence and Security Service, but no
new evidence.

The two men will next appear in court on 2 July, when the judge will
question them. Afterwards he will decide whether to drop the case
against them or allow it to continue, in which case the two men will face the possibility of the death penalty or life imprisonment in the event of a guilty verdict.

Both men are still being detained at the high security Kober Prison,
but are no longer chained or in solitary confinement. They are still
allowed no visitors and can only meet with their families and legal team
when attending hearings.

The online campaigning organisation for human rights, CitizenGo,
emboldened by the success of people power in helping free Meriam
Ibrahim when she was detained by the Sudan government, has so far
collected more than 81,000 signatures to be sent the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights and the Sudanese president.

Sources: MEC, CSW