In this mailing: Malcolm Lowe: World Council of Churches Struggles with the Truth - Again Dawid Bunikowski: Finland's Immigration Crisis World Council of Churches Struggles with the Truth - Again by Malcolm Lowe  •  March 6, 2016 at 5:00 am The open letter from the World Council of Churches (WCC) should have first quoted the three points from my article, then answered them one by one. Such a letter, however, was impossible, because all three points are simply and obviously correct. Instead, the WCC wrote a letter that completely ignored Tveit's mistakes and falsely claimed that he was using only UN sources, apparently trusting that nobody would read my article. If the WCC is truly thirsty for Palestinian water justice, why has it not rushed to the defense of Najat Abu Bakr? Suppose, however, that the WCC wants to start a dialogue based on truth rather than "narratives." Then there is a way for it to do so. The World Council of Churches (WCC) published an open letter to Gatestone Institute last week, concerning a pseudo-Christian political "sermon" given by WCC General Secretary Olav Fykse Tveit (pictured left) at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem (right). Two recent Gatestone Institute articles were addressed to the current campaign of the World Council of Churches (WCC) called "Seven Weeks of Water 2016." In response, the WCC has issued an open letter to Gatestone. This author is responsible only for what his article stated. Conversely, we can examine the WCC's response exclusively as referring to that article. The article concerned the "sermon" preached by the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Olav Fykse Tveit, when he launched the campaign in a Jerusalem church. The sermon can be downloaded from the WCC's website. From this viewpoint, the WCC's open letter contains a plainly false statement. It says: "The information and statistics we employ in the campaign are derived from United Nations sources. None are from the Palestinian Water Authority." Continue Reading Article Finland's Immigration Crisis by Dawid Bunikowski  •  March 6, 2016 at 4:00 am The Tapanila gang-rape shocked the quiet Helsinki suburb, and all of Finland. Many wondered why these second-generation Somalis, citizens of Finland, would carry out such a savage attack. The rapists were eventually brought to trial. One was sentenced to a year and four months imprisonment, two were given one-year prison sentences and two others were acquitted. Penalties were softened due to the age of the rapists. "1,010 rapes were reported to the police in 2014, according to the Official Statistics of Finland. The number of suspected immigrants in these cases is about three times higher than of the suspected natives in relation to the population." – Finland Today. The criminal law prohibiting blasphemy seem archaic in the eyes of many Finns, especially after the attack on the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. Unsuccessful attempts to decriminalize blasphemy took place between the 1910s until the 1990s. For many critics the concept of prohibited hate speech is problematic: there is no clear definition, a lapse that leads to confusion and acrimony. Members of the paramilitary movement known as the Soldiers of Odin view themselves as Finnish patriots, roaming the streets of Finland, protecting against Muslim immigrant offenders. Critics accuse them of being far-right, and they may de facto be related to previous skinhead movements from the 1990s. Finland -- an open country that prides itself on respecting different ways of life, cultures and religions -- is being greatly tested by the wave of Middle Eastern asylum seekers. Finland is a homogenous country that has roughly 5.5 million inhabitants, about 4% of which are foreign[1]. Twenty years ago, thousands of Somalis immigrated to Finland. In the last decade or so, more international students came to study, and more foreigners came to live and work. Finnish universities and the academia are of a high level, and most Finns speak some English. But it is not easy for foreigners to find jobs. The barrier is the language: Finnish, like Hungarian, is a part of the Finno-Ugric languages, and difficult to learn. Continue Reading Article

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