Government Puts Christianity on Trial, Calls the Bible ‘Hate Speech’

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Two Christian leaders in Finland stood trial in Helsinki on Jan. 24 for publicly stating the Bible’s teachings on sex and marriage. Longtime Member of Parliament Paivi Rasanen and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola defended in court their decision to write and publish, respectively, a pamphlet explaining Christian teachings about sex and marriage.

In the trial’s opening arguments, which will resume on Feb. 14, Finnish prosecutors described quotations from the Bible as “hate speech.” Finland’s top prosecutor’s office essentially put the Bible on trial, an unprecedented move for a secular court, said Paul Coleman, a human rights lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom International who is assisting in the Finns’ legal defense and was present during Monday’s trial.

“The prosecutor began the day by trying to explain that this case was not about beliefs and the Bible. She then, and I’m not kidding, she then proceeded to quote Old Testament Bible verses,” Coleman said in a phone interview with The Federalist after the trial concluded for the day. “Trial attorneys, Finnish trial attorneys who have been in and out of court every day for years, said they didn’t think the Bible had ever been read out like that in a prosecution.”

Never before has a Finnish court had to decide whether quoting the Bible is a crime. Human rights observers consider this case an important marker for whether Western governments’ persecution of citizens for their speech and beliefs increases.

Coleman said “it was very surreal” to watch Rasanen, a medical doctor and pastor’s wife, and Pohjola, whom The Federalist interviewed in person in November, be grilled by secular prosecutors about details of Christian theology in a secular court. The two Christians had the opportunity to essentially preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in court. (Read more from “Government Puts Christianity on Trial, Calls the Bible ‘Hate Speech’” HERE)

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Another Country to End Nearly All COVID Restrictions

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Almost all CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus restrictions in Ireland will end on Saturday, including domestic COVID-19 Certificates, curfews, social distancing, and capacity limits.

Addressing the nation following the recommendation to lift the restrictions from the National Public Health Emergency Team, Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Micheál Martin declared it’s time for the Irish to “be ourselves again.”

This makes Ireland the second country following England to remove mandatory vaccine passports after they were implemented.

But the mask mandate, self-isolation rules, and protective measures in schools will remain, and Martin “strongly encourage[d]” people to get themselves and their children vaccinated.

After a Cabinet meeting on Friday afternoon, Martin said the Coalition government agreed to lift most of the restrictions the next day. (Read more from “Another Country to End Nearly All COVID Restrictions” HERE)

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REVEALED: Hunter Biden, Former Biden Aide Invested in Chinese Company Tied to Communist Party, NBA China

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As recently as March 2017, Hunter Biden’s private equity firm held a stake in a company run by a Chinese executive with ties to officials at some of the highest levels of the Communist Party of China, according to emails reviewed by FOX Business.

Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner, Eric Schwerin, sent him an email in March 2017 breaking down the ownership interests of Rosemont Seneca Advisors, which included a 5% stake in Harves Amusement Parks and ownership in Harves Sports and Entertainment.

Biden’s introduction to the Harves Group came about two years earlier, when Francis Person, who served as an adviser to then-Vice President Biden from 2009 to 2014 and was a “special assistant” to Biden in the Senate, sent an email to Hunter Biden in July 2015 inviting him to China the following month to meet his business partner, Bo Zhang, and his family.

“Bo Zhang and his family would host us. They are a great family with great respect and relationships in China. Bo graduated from American Univ and is in his late 20’s, and his parents own Harves Century Group of Shenyang – which is a top tier private chinese real estate development firm,” Person wrote. “His mom is actually the Chairman of the company, which is unique in China. They are very private, and wouldn’t tell anyone about you coming. Bo’s father-in-law is actually the Governor of Hainan (Chinese Hawaii), which he doesn’t advertise at all.”

Harves Century Group, which has backing from the state-owned China Development Bank, is headquartered in Shenyang, China, and is the parent company of multiple U.S.-based Harves affiliates, including Harves Investment Group (HIG), Harves Global Entertainment, and Harves Sports. Harves Century’s website says the chairwoman is Jenglan Shao, which is revealed to be Zhang’s mother according to Person’s 2015 email to Hunter Biden. It is unclear what her background is or whether she is an American citizen, but her name comes up on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) website as a maxed-out donor to Person’s failed 2016 campaign against then-Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C. Zhang also was a maxed-out donor to Person’s campaign. Schwerin and Hunter Biden both donated $2,700. (Read more from “Hunter Biden, Former Biden Aide Invested in Chinese Company Tied to Communist Party, NBA China” HERE)

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Afghanistan Replaces North Korea as Worst Country for Christian Persecution After Biden’s Disastrous Withdrawal

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Afghanistan sits at the top of a new ranking of the world’s worst countries for Christian persecution after President Joe Biden’s disastrous military withdrawal and the Taliban’s subsequent takeover of the nation.

Open Doors USA, an organization that tracks global religious persecution, has published its 2022 World Watch List ranking the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.

In what Open Doors USA CEO David Curry called the “biggest seismic shift” in decades, Afghanistan replaced North Korea as the most repressive and hostile country towards followers of Jesus. The communist North Korean regime had ranked as the worst country for Christian persecution for 20 years.

“This year’s 2022 World Watch List, we think, is the biggest seismic shift in over 20 years because Afghanistan is now the No. 1 country on the World Watch List, supplanting North Korea,” Curry told Faithwire in an interview.

In a bid to finally end the American war in Afghanistan, Biden set a deadline to withdraw U.S. combat forces from the country by the end of August 2020. But his pullout from the country was a colossal failure of planning and execution. (Read more from “Afghanistan Replaces North Korea as Worst Country for Christian Persecution After Biden’s Disastrous Withdrawal” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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Doctor Has Medical License Suspended After Writing COVID Vaccines Are Associated With Reproductive Harm

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A doctor in Maine saw her license to practice medicine suspended Tuesday after she was accused of spreading medical misinformation regarding COVID-19.

Dr. Meryl Nass’s license was temporarily suspended after Maine’s Board of Licensure in Medicine voted to investigate the claims against her and suspend her ability to practice medicine for 30 days, according to a report.

She has been given the opportunity to have the suspension lifted if she transitions to inactive status, the report noted.

Nass is an internist and reportedly affiliated with Children’s Health Defense.

The group is outspoken in its opposition to vaccines and mandates. (Read more from “Doctor Has Medical License Suspended After Writing COVID Vaccines Are Associated With Reproductive Harm” HERE)

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Report: China’s True COVID-19 Death Toll 366 Times Higher Than Official Figure

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The Chinese regime has likely understated the COVID-19 death rate by as much as 17,000 percent in a systematic data suppression campaign to sustain its political image, according to a U.S. analyst.

That would put the number of COVID-19 deaths in China at around 1.7 million rather than 4,636, the two-year cumulative death figure that the Chinese authorities have maintained on the books. That’s 366 times the official figure.

Those findings made by George Calhoun, director of the quantitative finance program at Stevens Institute of Technology, were based on data as of January generated by a model developed by The Economist.

A vast majority of China’s officially recorded deaths came from Wuhan during the first three months of the pandemic, with only hundreds more reported in the rest of the country.

The Chinese regime only reported two additional deaths since April 1, 2020, ranking China as having the world’s lowest COVID-19 death rate, which Zhong Nanshan, the Chinese epidemiologist overseeing China’s outbreak response, boasted about just last week. (Read more from “Report: China’s True COVID-19 Death Toll 366 Times Higher Than Official Figure” HERE)

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Shin Bet Arrests 5 Jewish Israelis Suspected of Spying for Iran

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The Shin Bet security service has arrested five Jewish Israelis accused of assisting an Iranian operative, who often pretended to be a Jewish man, in gathering intelligence and making connections in Israel, the Shin Bet said Wednesday.

In some cases, the suspects told investigators they were aware that Namdar may have been an Iranian intelligence operative, but continued their communications with him anyway, according to the security service. The five suspects — four women and one man — are all Jewish immigrants from Iran or the descendants of Iranian immigrants. Their names were barred from publication under a court-issued gag order requested by their attorneys.

According to the Shin Bet, the suspects took photographs of strategically significant sites in Israel, including the US Consulate in Tel Aviv; attempted to form relationships with politicians; provided information about security arrangements at different sites; and committed other offenses — all at the direction of the Iranian operative, who went by the name Rambod Namdar, in exchange for thousands of dollars. . .

The investigation and resulting indictments shed light on the rare and little-discussed phenomenon of Jews from Iran traveling to Israel to visit family. In one case, such a trip — by one of the suspects’ nieces — was used to transport funds from Iran to Israel in order to pay the Israelis working for Namdar, according to the charge sheet. (Read more from “Shin Bet Arrests 5 Jewish Israelis Suspected of Spying for Iran” HERE)

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US Wants Russia to Pull Back Troops From Ukraine’s Border

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The American envoy to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) said on Tuesday that the U.S. and its allies want Russia to take concrete actions to de-escalate tensions on Ukraine’s border, amid fears that Moscow is prepared to launch a large-scale invasion of the former Soviet state.

The U.S. ambassador to NATO, Julianne Smith, said the U.S. expects Russia to pull back the forces it has massed on Ukraine’s border and commit to engaging with the Minsk agreements, the 2014 diplomatic protocol intended to end fighting in eastern Ukraine.

“We want to see the full implementation of the Minsk agreements with Russia pulling back its forces. But if Russia pursues confrontation, there will be serious consequences,” Smith told reporters during a briefing from Brussels, ahead of a meeting of the NATO-Russia council and set for Wednesday.

The Minsk agreements are a step-by-step guide written between 2014 and 2015 aimed at resolving war in Ukraine’s east, where Ukrainian government forces are battling Russian-backed separatists.

Kyiv and Moscow recommitted to a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine in December, in what was viewed as a welcome confidence-building measure amid Russia’s massing of more than 100,000 troops on the Ukraine’s border and ahead of the diplomatic meetings in Europe. (Read more from “US Wants Russia to Pull Back Troops From Ukraine’s Border” HERE)

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Intel Removes Mention of Xinjiang After Pressure From China

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U.S. semiconductor chip company Intel has scrubbed all references to Xinjiang from an open letter on its website that created a backlash from China late last year.

Last month, Intel sent an open letter to its suppliers urging them to avoid sourcing materials from the Chinese province of Xinjiang, where the Communist Chinese government forces religious minorities into labor camps.

The Wall Street Journal at the time reported that Intel sent the letter to its global suppliers calling on them to avoid the region, stating that “multiple governments have imposed restrictions on products sourced from the Xinjiang region. Therefore, Intel is required to ensure our supply chain does not use any labor or source goods or services from the Xinjiang region.”

China took offense to the letter, financial news website Benzinga reported.

“Chinese state-run media and the nation’s social media channels — which consist almost entirely of pro-government messaging — took aim at Intel. The Global Times newspaper ran an editorial accusing Intel of being subservient to U.S. government demands while insisting that China’s leadership should make it ‘increasingly expensive for companies to offend China,’” the outlet noted. (Read more from “Intel Removes Mention of Xinjiang After Pressure From China” HERE)

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Vaccinated Can Volunteer to Wear Colored Identity Mark to Prove Jab Status

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Vaccinated and recovered people in one German city will soon be able to wear a special wristband in order to convey their status as obviously as possible.

The city of Saarbrücken in Germany is to introduce a system of coloured wristband wearing for vaccinated and recovered individuals in order to make the process of shopping under the strict lockdown rules easier for those who are allowed to do so under the nation’s COVID restrictions.

Those in the country who are neither vaccinated nor recovered from Chinese Coronavirus are currently banned from most shops, along with events and leisure facilities, as part of Germany’s effort to combat the disease.

However, according to a report by Bild, for those whose status allows them to avail of these services in Germany, it can be “quite annoying” to produce papers and ID for verification every time you wish to enter a shop.

(Read more from “Vaccinated Can Volunteer to Wear Colored Identity Mark to Prove Jab Status” HERE)

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