World Events

• Islamic slaughter of Alawite Syrians. Over the course of 3 days last week, more than 1,300 people in Syria were killed — the vast majority civilians, most of them from the Alawite religious minority – following a crackdown by forces associated with Syria's new government on supporters of former President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. A government commander is on camera telling jihadis ‘do not leave alive any Alawite, male or female’. Witnesses recount horrifying scenes in broad daylight, bodies strewn on the streets, the parading and killing of naked young women, perpetrators laughing and boasting about their brutality. Read also here and here.
• Syrian believers now fear the worst. While GB News aired unverified claims that Christians had been executed in the streets, and forced to crawl on their hands and knees, Syrian Church leaders refute claims that armed groups deliberately targeted Christians in the recent attacks. “Christians were killed, not because they were Christians, but because they lived in Alawite neighbourhoods. Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Homs, J MouradThey were collateral victims,” said the Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Homs. It is believed that around 10-12 Christians were killed, several of them by pro-Assad fighters. “Saying that the government is specifically targeting Christians is inaccurate and could put them at further risk,” the archbishop warned. Syrian Christians, estimated at around one million before the war began in 2011, have shrunk to around 300,000. Christians, especially those living in coastal communities, are now living in fear. Many have fled their homes, some seeking refuge at the Russian military base in the coastal town of Latakia.
• Recent Syrian persecution of Christians. That fear is not without justification. The persecution of non-Muslims by the new Islamic regime had been much predicted. On 14 February, around 10 Christian men were abducted by Muslims from a village in Syria’s Wadi al-Nasara ('Valley of the Christians'), overwhelmingly inhabited by Greeks originally from Antioch, although reportedly, they were later released. Two days later, a number of Christians were abducted from another village in the area – with reports of them being tortured. Within a few days, armed Islamists violated a cemetery in the Christian town of Zaydal, east of the city of Homs, where they toppled and broke a stone cross and desecrated graves. On 17 February, smoke bombs were thrown by masked men at the Church of Our Lady of the Annunciation in the Christian village al-Masmiyah, in Daraa.

Gay Wars

• Hampstead Heath at war over gay cruising. A gay cruising spot on London’s Hampstead Heath has been at the centre of a row after residents and dog-walkers put up signs to deter gay men meeting for sex at locations that could be near playing children. The row has divided the public. Gay men meet on the West Heath at all times of the day for sexual encounters – but it is usually busier at night. The posters state that homosexuality is now legal and encourage gay men to use gay apps and to rent a room.
• 'Sodomites Walk' organised. But opponents of the posters have been hitting back, insisting that anonymous open-air sex is a 'cultural right' and claiming this is “yet another attack on queer culture”. A 'Sodomites Walk' was organised for Sun 2nd March, where, said one, "we will be walking all over our queer ground in solidarity. We ain’t going nowhere!" Dog walkers insist they are not homophobic but, aware that Hampstead Heath has been a popular cruising spot since Victorian times, wonder why the practice has continued long after homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967. Read also here.

Church Issues

• Britain's vanishing churches. With church attendance in institutional denominations having plummeted over the past few decades, over 3,500 churches have shut across the UK over the past ten years. Many are simply locked up and unused. Some are crumbling wrecks which now face demolition. But many are being transformed into homes, offices, community centres, libraries, museums, theatres, pubs or even nightclubs. Perhaps more tellingly, some are being turned into mosques – such as the derelict church in Watford that was recently bought by a Muslim organisation for £3.5million, or the former St Chad's Church in Blackburn, Lancashire, which was transformed into a mosque following a major renovation in 2023. The Church of England owns more than 16,000 church buildings, 12,500 of which are listed – accounting for nearly half of the Grade I-listed buildings in the country.
• Jewish writer and TV presenter turns to Christianity. Times columnist and food writer, Giles Coren – who was recently diagnosed with prostrate cancer – has announced that while still culturally Jewish, he has turned from the atheism of his youth and embraced Christianity. He says he had a non-religious childhood, being the son of Punch editor, Alan Coren. But Giles has testified that his son - now a committed Christian - invited him to go to the local Anglican church with him one Sunday – and they’ve been going every week since. He says, “I am not without faith. …Judaism does not require faith, only observance. Christianity is the other way round. So I observe, like a Jew, the Christian service. And I have a sense that God is there — in the tradition, the words, the 2,000 years of conviction, the imagination of all the people who came before me …”. Read also.

Russia-Ukraine War

• Persecution of Ukrainian Christians. A report claims that, in its war with Ukraine, Russian forces specifically targeted Christians not affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church. These included Baptist and other evangelical congregations, Ukrainian Orthodox and Catholics. Thousands have fled the Russian-occupied territories since Putin’s invasion. Hundreds of churches have been closed, destroyed, or expropriated. Many pastors and priests have been kidnapped, tortured, illegally deported, or murdered by the Russian National Guard and Russian Police. One report states that up to 70 have disappeared or been murdered, and that the level of brutality is horrific. Tragically, many Ukrainian Christians also face persecution from their own government, specifically if they are considered to have ties with Russia, such as the Russian Orthodox Church, and by default, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Antisemitism

• Jews protest launch of Hamas ‘propaganda’ book at LSE. Hamas is “misunderstood” and calling them terrorists is “dehumanising”, an academic claimed at the launch of a controversial new book, Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters, which the Campaign Against Antisemitism claims is “an outrageous attempt to whitewash Hamas’ barbaric acts of horror”. Despite a stark warning from the Home Office that anyone praising Hamas could face the full force of the law under the Terrorism Act, and despite Israel's ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, demanding the launch event be cancelled, the London School of Economics refused, claiming it was defending “free speech” by hosting it. Over one hundred, mainly Jews, demonstrated outside the LSE in protest at the event.
• MP calls BBC ‘a national embarrassment’ over anti-Israel stance. Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne are among Ozzy & Sharon Osbournemore than 200 entertainment industry figures who have signed an open letter calling for a full investigation into alleged anti-Israel bias at the BBC. While the broadcaster is struggling to deal with the fallout from its controversial Gaza documentary, this is seen as the “tip of the iceberg”. In particular, the BBC’s Arabic channel has been accused of allowing presenters with anti-Semitic views free rein. MPs have criticised the BBC Arabic’s “repeated failings” in its reporting of the Gaza conflict – disturbed that it is being paid for by UK taxpayers’ money. As an example, BBC Arabic has given frequent airtime to a retired Egyptian army general who hailed the Oct 7 attacks as a “month of victory”.

Shoplifting Epidemic

• UK shoplifting surge rockets to 17,000 thefts a day. Britain’s shoplifting epidemic has surged to a record high as crime rates at corner shops rose to hit almost 17,000 incidents a day. Shoplifting incidents cost corner shops £316m last year, with 6.2m thefts recorded, up from 5.6m the prior year. Stores also faced more than 59,000 incidents of violence and 1.2m incidents of verbal abuse. Shoplifters are carrying out increasingly brazen and violent acts of theft because they do not fear any consequences. In some cases, they openly clear shelves of items in full view of customers and shop workers – "kamikaze" shoplifting. Nottingham is the worst city in the UK affected by shoplifting, followed by London and Southampton. A recent study shows that nearly one in four Britons have witnessed shoplifting.
• Mobile phone theft reaches highest recorded level in London. Mobile https://www.whatmobile.net/phone theft rose to a record level in London last year as the number of handsets being snatched more than tripled in four years, with one being stolen every seven-and-a-half minutes. Figures show criminals took 70,137 devices last year – 192 a day. Phone thefts are now a £50million underworld industry, with most flogged or disassembled for parts in China. Most are snatched by gang members on mopeds or electric bikes who grab devices out of owners’ hands and speed away before anything can be done. Sadiq Khan has been accused of ignoring London’s phone theft crime wave.

World Events

• Christianity takes a 'pause' in decline in the US. The US Pew Research Centre’s Religious Landscape Survey is considered a highly important source for ascertaining trends in American religion. Its most recent report reveals that the share of Americans who identify as Christian has stopped declining the last several years, and the percentage of adults with no religious affiliation has plateaued around 30%. However, the survey suggests it's likely to be a brief pause in decline, rather than sign of a Christian awakening. Indeed, for every one person who converted to Christianity in the US over the last few years, about six have left a Christian tradition; while, for every one person who left the secular world, another six have joined the ranks of the non-religious. Despite this, and the fact that nearly 60% of the UK and over 70% of the Dutch claim no religious affiliation, it is seen as highly unlikely that the US will reach such a level of secularisation.