c. 1996 Religion News Service

Canadian churches threaten Florida boycott over anti-Cuba law

(RNS) A coalition of Canadian churches, humanitarian agencies, labor unions and activist organizations say they will launch a boycott of tourism to Florida this fall in an effort to persuade President Clinton to waive provisions of recently passed anti-Cuba legislation.

The groups object to provisions of the so-called Helms-Burton law that tightens the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba. The law is aimed at punishing foreign firms that benefit from property claimed by U.S. companies or citizens that has been confiscated by the Cuban government. It denies visas to officers, shareholders and families of those companies.

It also allows U.S. citizens to sue any foreign company that profits from expropriated property, but allows Clinton to waive the provision by July 16 if he believes it is in the national interest.”The Helms-Burton law is hurting ordinary Cubans,”said Anne Squire, former moderator of the United Church of Canada, one of the church bodies that have joined the coalition.”Our church partners in Cuba are very concerned about the direct effect on health care, housing and food,”Squire said.”We must speak out against this injustice.” Nearly 2 million of Canada’s 30 million people visit Florida every year to escape Canada’s harsh winter, spending nearly $1.3 billion, according to Oxfam Canada, the boycott’s chief organizer.

Chris Ferguson, the United Church of Canada’s area secretary for the Caribbean and Latin America, said the new U.S. law had already affected the church’s humanitarian work in Cuba.”A Mexican company providing cement and concrete for a housing rehabilitation project has pulled out because of their fears (of the law),”he said.

Ferguson stressed the boycott is”not vindictive. But for us this is an ethical issue. The center of moral gravity for us is very deep _ this (law) hurts the Cuban people.” Even as the coalition announced the boycott threat, the U.S. government said it had notified nine top officers and shareholders of a Canadian mining firm that they will be denied entry into the U.S. because of their company’s Cuban investment _ the first such action under the Helms-Burton law.

Other members of the coalition are the Anglican Church of Canada, the Canadian Council of Churches, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice and the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace.

The groups want Clinton to waive the provision of the law allowing lawsuits against foreign companies in the United States. If he fails to do so, the coalition will launch its boycott this fall.”Many Canadians love Florida, but unless Clinton reconsiders this law, we’ll be reconsidering our vacation plans this year,”said Marion Dewar, chairwoman of the aid agency Oxfam Canada.

Barry Kenney, acting president and chief executive officer of the Florida Tourism Industry Marketing Corporation said he was disappointed by the boycott threat.”Florida’s tourism industry has no control over national law,”he said.”Florida and Canada have a strong bond and we would miss our Canadian neighbors if they chose not join us in the sunshine this year.”

Update: Kuwait says Christian convert has nothing to fear

(RNS) The Kuwaiti government says Robert Hussein, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity and was convicted of apostasy by a religious court, need not fear for his life even though the court noted the penalty for apostasy is execution.”There is no evidence that he was being persecuted or ill treated, since the government guarantees his personal safety and his right to live,”government legal advisers told the English-language Kuwait Times newspaper Thursday (July 11), Reuters said.

Hussein is in hiding.

The verdict finding Hussein guilty of apostasy was issued by a Shi’ite Family Court ruling on a private civil suit brought by three Islamist lawyers after a dispute between Hussein and his estranged wife over custody of their children.

The Kuwaiti newspaper said Hussein’s safety guarantee was outlined in a letter to the foreign ministry dated July 3 from the government’s department of legal advice and legislation.”It (the government) protects the freedom of practicing the rituals of the three heavenly religions, Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and does not prevent individuals from practicing other religions, including Christianity,”the letter said.

The Kuwaiti government has been under pressure from Christian groups in the United States and Britain to protect Hussein but Reuters said that lawyers and diplomats in Kuwait say Hussein and his supporters are grossly exaggerating the risk to his life and fanning misunderstanding and prejudice.

They note there are several Christian churches in Kuwait that are packed daily with worshipers from Kuwait’s large Asian community.

Bible-carrying Christian attacks Hindu shrine in Fiji

(RNS) A Bible-carrying Christian entered a Hindu temple in Fiji on July 4 and used a mallet to smash the statue of a Hindu god and a glass wall, claiming that God had told him to do so.

The unidentified 35-year-old man was arrested and sentenced to two year’s imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency reported.

It was the sixth such attack on a Hindu temple since 1987. Hindus make up 38.1 percent of the population of the Pacific island country.

The attack drew protests from Hindus and Christians alike. ENI said the Hindus are outraged at the lenient sentence handed down and that the attacker was charged only with damage to property and not trespassing or sacrilege.

A Christian organization, Interfaith Search Fiji, which represents Anglicans, Roman Catholics and Protestants, said in a July 5 statement that the incident was not only an attack on a building but an insult to religious beliefs.”Respect and understanding should govern all actions with regard to inter-religious activities,”the group said.

Religious groups work to influence climate change conference

(RNS) As representatives of the world’s governments debate ways to reduce global warning and human-induced climate change, religious groups in the United States and Europe are seeking to influence the deliberations.

In the United States, the National Council of Churches announced Thursday (July 11) a petition campaign aimed at pressuring the U.S. government to reduce greenhouse gas emission to 1990 levels by the year 2000 and then adopt”firm policy measures”to reduce them even further after 2000.”These are profound issues of global justice,”said the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches.”The potential impacts of climate change on poor nations and poor people in the United States are enormous.” She said that industrialized nations, including the United States, are the main source of carbon monoxide, flourocarbons and other other pollutants that cause global warming, and these governments have been slow to act to reduce the production these gases.”After meeting with the administration and members of Congress on this issue, we have concluded that our government is just not hearing enough from people who care about the future of God’s good creation,”she said.

In Geneva, meanwhile, church groups attending the U.N.-sponsored session on global warning planned a worship service Sunday (July 14) using music from the Pacific and from Switzerland to sound a warning about the dangers of climate change.

The service will begin with a call to worship played on a musical instrument fashioned from a sea shell from the Pacific. A response will come from a Swiss alp horn.

On Friday (July 12), three U.N. agencies are expected to release a report warning of”serious threats to public health”if the international community does not move fast enough to deal with global climate change.

The report, to be issued by the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Environmental Program, warns that major cities could see additional deaths each year due to heat waves; millions of people could also face malaria in parts of the world where the disease does not now occur.

Turkish city bans Coke, Fanta over advertising photo

(RNS) The Islamist town council of Kayseri, Turkey, an important tourist center in the central part of the country, has announced a ban on Coca-Cola and its sister soft-drink, Fanta, to protest an advertising photograph in an American magazine, Reuters reported Thursday (July 11).

The photograph, which appeared in Life magazine in June, shows a Muslim man praying before a Coca-Cola logo.”Muslims’ passivity for the past few centuries, their inability to have their voice heard and to seek their rights have unfortunately given such firms and media organs the necessary courage,”the council said in its statement.

The council decreed that Coke and Fanta would no longer be sold in stores owned by the city.

Life magazine has apologized for the photo, and Coca-Cola said the photo was published without its knowledge, Reuters said.

The Kayseri council said the magazine and bottling company should become more sensitive toward Muslims and people of other faiths.

Quote of the day: The Rev. Renita Weems of Vanderbilt University’s divinity school on the language of the African-American church.

(RNS) The Rev. Renita Weems, professor of Old Testament studies at the divinity school at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., was interviewed by Essence magazine about the legacy of the rhetoric of the black church:”One of the beautiful things that the African-American church bequeaths us is language _ such sayings as `In this life there will be storms’ and `Nobody ever told me that the road would be easy, but I don’t believe the Lord has brought me this far to leave me.’ That kind of language has stood the test of time.”

MJP END RNS