c. 1998 Religion News Service

Church of England set to debate Britain’s drug policies

(RNS) For the first time, the general synod of the Church of England is set to publicly debate Britain’s drug problem and the government policies used to tackle it, including the volatile issue of easing laws prohibiting drug use.

The synod, the Anglican body’s key decision-making group, will meet July 4-7 in York, England, and high on its agenda will be discussion of a paper prepared by the Rev. Kenneth Leech, a church expert in the field of drug policy.

Leech’s paper argues the Labor government of Prime Minister Tony Blair needs to recognize _ as its predecessors did not _ that drug treatment costs less and works better than does prohibition.”The most disappointing aspect of the present government’s strategy,”Leech said in his report,”is the failure to see how drug policy has helped to produce the present appalling situation”of drug abuse.

He said both”criminal syndicates”and the widespread availability of powdered heroin only came on the British illicit drug scene with the passage of the 1967 Dangerous Drug Act.

The act restricted prescribing heroin and cocaine for addicts to specially licensed doctors. Previously any doctor was able to prescribe the drugs for registered addicts.

Leech argued there is a correlation between heroin and cocaine use and chronic unemployment, which he termed a post-1980s phenomenon in Britain.

Britain, he said, has adopted U.S. urban policies, including its anti-drug stance, and, as in the United States, they have all conspicuously failed.

Last year, the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland’s general assembly urged the setting up of a royal commission to consider issues involved in the legalization of marijuana, though it said it was not advocating any change in the law.

Whether the Church of England’s general synod supports such a proposal remains uncertain.

Justice Department sues Operation Rescue over clinic protests

(RNS) The Justice Department announced Wednesday (June 10) it is suing a top Operation Rescue official and 16 other anti-abortion protesters in connection with demonstrations at a Washington, D.C., women’s health clinic in January.

The suit was filed under the Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrances Act, or FACE, a 1994 law passed in the aftermath of militant blockades of abortion facilities.

Philip”Flip”Benham, national director of Operation Rescue, led the protest at the clinic on Jan. 24, in a protest marking the 25th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling making most abortions legal.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks to bar protesters from blocking the clinic’s entrance in the future.

Neither Benham nor other Operation Rescue officials were immediately available for comment.”By sitting and standing in front of the entrances, the defendants effectively rendered them impassable,”the Justice Department said.

The suit is the 17th filed by the department under FACE, which bars anyone from using force, threats or physical obstruction to interfere with patients or reproductive health care workers, the Associated Press reported.

Bill to preserve Underground Railroad sites passes House

(RNS) The House has passed legislation, sponsored by a biracial and bipartisan group of lawmakers, aimed at preserving historic sites along the Underground Railroad _ the routes escaped and fugitive slave used in wending their way to freedom prior to the Civil War.”This legislation can really foster a sense of racial harmony,”the key sponsors _ Reps. Ron Portman, R-Ohio, who is white, and Louis Stokes, D-Ohio, who is black _ said in a joint statement following the Tuesday (June 9) action by the House.

The bill, if it passes the Senate and is signed by the president, would give the National Park Service power to spend $500,000 a year to link sites, oversee production of educational material and create partnerships honoring the Underground Railroad.

The National Park Service has recorded 400 sites related to the Underground Railroad in 29 states, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean Islands. The survey also found many sites faced destruction or the possibility of being lost.

A spokeswoman for the National Parks Service said the bill will bolster programs already in place.

Sens. Carol Moseley-Braun, D-Ill., and Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, are key sponsors of the Senate version of the bill.

Portman said he had a personal tie to the Underground Railroad because his great-great-grandparents were Quakers who helped slaves seeking freedom.

The Underground Railroad was a kind of backroad trail through and over swamps and rivers that used churches, barns, tunnels and other sites as temporary hiding places.

Only two lawmakers _ GOP Reps. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Ron Paul of Texas _ voted against the bill.

Church killers receive amnesty in South Africa

(RNS) Three militant black nationalists involved in a church massacre during the last months of South Africa’s apartheid era Thursday (June 11) were granted amnesty by the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The commission freed Gcinikhaya Makoma, who was serving a 23-year term for his role in the killings, and granted amnesty to his two partners, Bassie Mzukisi Mkhumbuzio and Tobela Mlambisi, Reuters reported.

The men, who murdered 11 worshippers using machine guns and a hand grenade,received amnesty because their actions were politically motivated. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has power to grant amnesty to people who committed crimes under the racist apartheid regime if they give complete confessions and the crimes were politically motivated.

The commission’s five-member amnesty panel said they believed the attack was political and the three men acted on orders from the black nationalist Pan Africanist Congress.

The men were members of the group and its military wing, the Azanian People’s Liberation Army. “We accept they believed … they were advancing the struggle which the Pan Africanist Congress was waging against the government for the return of the land to the African people,”the panel said.

The men attacked an evening worship service at St. James Anglican Church in Cape Town, a mainly white congregation, although that evening other races also were in attendance.

World Council of Church warns of”new conflagration”in Africa

(RNS) The burgeoning border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea could lead to a new expanded conflict in Africa, the head of the World Council of Churches has told the governments of both country.

In a letter to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and President Issias Afwerki of Eritrea, the Rev. Konrad Raiser expressing his concern over the fighting in the Horn of Africa region. “Yours is a part of the world that has suffered greatly from armed conflict,”he wrote Thursday (June 11).”This particular conflict now threatens to spark a new spreading conflagration. We therefore appeal urgently to you to call an immediate cease-fire, to withdraw all armed forces from the immediate zone of conflict and to return to the negotiating table.” Eritrea won it’s independence from Ethiopia in 1993, two years after helping the Ethiopians uproot a military dictatorship. The current fighting began on May 6 and involves a territorial dispute.

Quote of the day: The American Jewish Committee

(RNS)”This heinous crime is a brutal reminder as to how far we have yet to travel as a nation in fostering mutual respect and civility among all people. The community of Jasper (Texas) will need time to heal, but healing can only take place if all Americans, black and white, will commit themselves to the fight against the too-often fatal pathology of racism and bigotry. It is a fight we cannot afford to lose.” _ The American Jewish Committee, responding to the apparently racially motivated murder by three white men of James Byrd Jr., a black man, who was dragged to his death behind a pickup truck on Sunday (June 7).

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