Category Archives: Freedom

NEW DELHI: Amid a raging controversy over free speech, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today said he supports freedom of expression, but within the legal framework.

"I believe in freedom of expression but it has to be within reasonable legal framework," he said.

On the sidelines of a DRDO event, Parrikar was asked to comment on the controversy surrounding Delhi University student Gurmehar Kaur who had launched a campaign against RSS-backed ABVP.

The defence minister, however, clarified that his comments were not related to any particular incident.

The 20-year-old Kaur became the centre of a controversy after she launched a social media campaign against the ABVP which has been under attack after some of its members were allegedly involved in violence at Ramjas College on February 22.

She allegedly received rape threats following the campaign and drew criticism from a Union minister and a BJP MP.

On the issue of the alleged leak of question papers of an army recruitment examination, Parrikar said the defence ministry has recommended a CBI inquiry as the case has inter-state ramifications.

On Monday, the army had ordered a high-level court of inquiry (CoI) into the alleged question paper leak.

Referring to the Kabul blasts and possible use of chemical weapons, he said that the army should be well-prepared to tackle any challenge.

"As per the reports which are coming from the southern and northern parts of Afghanistan, I have seen photographs of the local population having suffered from blisters.... (due to possible use of some chemical weapons). At this moment, I don't have a confirmation on this matter but the photos are quite distressing," he said.

The minister said India will have to be prepared for any kind of nuclear or chemical attack, adding the armed forces must remain alert and prepared for any challenge.

More than a dozen people were killed in two terror attacks in Kabul yesterday.

The near-simultaneous attacks struck the Afghan capital around noon on Wednesday. First, a suicide car bomber targeted a police station in western Kabul. The explosion was followed by a gun battle between the police and several attackers.

In the second attack, a bomber detonated explosives outside offices of the intelligence service in eastern Kabul.

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I believe in freedom of expression within legal limits: Manohar Parrikar - Economic Times

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Like the people of Israel freed from the bondage of slavery, Christians are called to experience the path toward hope and new life during the Lenten season, Pope Francis said.

Through his passion, death and resurrection, Jesus "has opened up for us a way that leads to a full, eternal and blessed life," the pope said at his weekly general audience March 1, Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent for Latin-rite Catholics.

"Lent lives within this dynamic: Christ precedes us with his exodus and we cross the desert, thanks to him and behind him," he said.

On a warm and sunny morning, the pope held his audience in St. Peter's Square. Arriving in the popemobile, he immediately spotted a group of children and signaled several of them to come aboard for a ride. One by one, the three girls and one boy climbed into the popemobile and warmly embraced the pope.

In his main audience talk, the pope said that while Lent is a time of "penance and even mortification," it is also "a time of hope" for Christians awaiting Christ's resurrection to "renew our baptismal identity."

The story of the Israelites' journey toward the Promised Land and God's faithfulness during times of trial and suffering helps Christians "better understand" the Lenten experience, he said.

"This whole path is fulfilled in hope, the hope of reaching the (Promised) Land and precisely in this sense it is an 'exodus,' a way out from slavery to freedom," the pope said. "Every step, every effort, every trial, every fall and every renewal has meaning only within the saving plan of God, who wants for his people life and not death, joy and not sorrow."

To open this path toward the freedom of eternal life, he continued, Jesus gave up the trappings of his glory, choosing humility and obedience.

However, the pope said that Christ's sacrifice on the cross doesn't mean "he has done everything" and "we go to heaven in a carriage."

"It isn't like that. Our salvation is surely his gift, but because it is a love story, it requires our 'yes' and our participation, as shown to us by our mother Mary and after her, all the saints," he said.

Lent, he added, is lived through the dynamic that "Christ precedes us through his exodus," and that through his victory Christians are called to "nourish this small flame that was entrusted to us on the day of our baptism."

"It is certainly a challenging path as it should be, because love is challenging, but it is a path full of hope," Pope Francis said.

- - -

Follow Arocho on Twitter: @arochoju.

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Lent is time to relive exodus from slavery to freedom, pope says - Catholic News Service

Ona Judge, a runaway slave who evaded George Washington himself, lived most of her on New Hampshires Seacoast after gaining her freedom. Her story isn't well known, but there are many who are working to keep Judges history and the history of the black community in Portsmouth alive.

While Judge isnt a household name, in 18th-century Portsmouth, she was infamous. She was a slave of Martha Washingtons the first ladys personal handmaid. So when Judge escaped from Philadelphia one May night, it didnt take long for word to reach her masters. The presidents slave had been spotted in New Hampshire.

Ona Judge gave a couple of interviews, and left some correspondences behind, but theres a lot of conjecture in her story. Historian Erica Dunbar spent years researching the runaway for her book, Never Caught. She says that Judges decision provides insight into her conviction.

"When she made the decision to flee to New England," explains Dunbar, "she gave up the knowledge that she would ever see her family again. That was a huge thing to let go of as a 22 year-old woman. And what she traded that in for was a life of uncertainty."

Click here to listen to the broadcast version of this story.

New Hampshire was a strategic choice, but it wasnt Judges choice. Once she decided to flee, she put her life in the hands of a well-connected black community. They would have known that Boston and New York City were out of the question for a slave from the most prominent household in the country. But Portsmouth was small and easily accessible Judge could take a ship straight from Philadelphia. And the port city had abolitionist leanings and a large free black community. There, Judge could be protected.

"We can find in correspondence that she lodged and stayed with free blacks who helped her find employment, who gave her a roof over her head, and allowed her to try and put together a life for herself in Portsmouth," Dunbar says.

That life wasnt easy. Judge was a fugitive slave. Local newspapers ran daily ads for runaways and bounty hunters were always on the lookout. That, and the President himself was searching for her. She spent most of her self-emancipation looking over her shoulder. She did domestic work for white families in Portsmouth, and eked out a living. It was in stark contrast to the life she would have lived in Martha Washingtons company, according to JerriAnne Boggis, director of the Black Heritage Trail in Portsmouth.

"She would rather die a free woman than live in the lap of luxury. And thats the other thing, its the presidents house!" Boggis emphasizes, "She didnt leave Mr. Who-Knows-What in Who-Knows-Where, she left the house of the presidency. The prestige of that."

Driving around the city one cold February morning, JerriAnne imagines the Portsmouth of 200 years ago.

Pulling up to the Strawberry Banke museum, Boggis gestures to the frozen, gravelly ground. Buried a few feet below us is the original dock, where Judge would have disembarked after a five day journey from Philly. From there, she would have been secretly welcomed into Portsmouths black community.

"They had slave auctions, actually, right on docks sometimes," Boggis says, "So its part of this uncovering of the black history here."

We drive past buildings that were once the homes of free blacks, and on to the massive John Langdon House. Langdon was Governor when Judge lived in Portsmouth and hes often credited with warning her of Washingtons hot pursuit. But Boggis has another idea.

"You just cant imagine that he would run out to find Ona wherever she is to say, Hey, theyre coming from you. Its more likely," Boggisguesses, "that the servants are hearing this and saying, Well, weve got to go and warn Ona that, Hey, hes in town. Better keep a low profile.

At the end of the day, standing by the African Burial Ground Memorial, Boggis says that stories like Judges are a window into an unseen Portsmouth history.

"Mostly what I do," says Boggis, "is really connect the history to whats going on now and how this information really changes how we see New Hampshire, how we see New England, how we see America."

Valerie Cunningham - the founder of the Black Heritage Trail and author of Black Portsmouth explains that their goal is to incorporate the black perspective into the history of Portsmouth.

"Its not true to say that there is so little documentation of the black past," Cunningham explains, "Its just been overlooked because it has not been considered relevant, or important. Once you start looking, you find little clues and big clues all around - as they say, hidden in plain sight."

Being hidden in plain sight is a metaphor for Ona Judges own life maintaining her anonymity while trying to lead a normal existence. But that life is getting a different treatment in modern Portsmouth. On March 5th the Temple Israel Social Hall, the Black Heritage Trail will be hosting an Ona Judge living history event and talk with author Erica Dunbar.

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The President's Slave Who Found Freedom on the N.H. Seacoast ... - New Hampshire Public Radio

However well-intentioned, NPRs latest foray into religious freedom falls victim to several false equivalencies and ends up leaving the reader/listener vulnerable to the problematic arguments of those pushing for the right to discriminate againstLGBTQ people.

CorrespondentTom Gjeltenmakes what appears to be an honest, good-faith effort to offer a general backgrounder on the state of religious liberty, but several key omissions and questionable language undercut his effort to providebalance.

First, the good. Gjelten does include a dissenting religious voice, Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry,which challengesthepreferred conservative framing that this issue is being waged betweenreligious individuals andnon-religious individuals.Its true that its almost solelyreligiousinstitutions that have taken up the mantle of opposing LGBTQ equality or womens access to contraception, but there aremany otherswhodisagree.

AndGjelten is, of course, correct in framing both freedom of religion and the pursuit of equality as central tenets of American culture. But as we have documented here atRD, todays religious freedom fighters are waging a very different battle than did this nations Founders when theyconsidered the concept of freedom of religion important enough tobe included in the very first amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

But the confusion begins to mount when Gjelten begins to discuss real-world examples. He writes:

If a football coach is not allowed to lead his team in a public prayer, or a high school valedictorian is not given permission to read a Bible passage for her graduation speech, or the owner of a private chapel is told he cannot refuse to accommodate a same-sex wedding, they might claim their religious freedom has been infringed.

This lack of specificity undermines the whole project to illuminate the reader. Is the football coach at a public or private institution? Is the valedictorian? And the private chapel is a phrasethat may well warrant its ownarticle, as chapel clearly evokesa religious entity or space, though in the eyes of the lawits simply a business like any other.

But even these vague hypotheticals offer a more concrete illustration of potential harms done to those who claim religious freedom than Gjeltens piece provides about the concrete harms done to same-sex couples who are denied service because of someones sincerely held religious belief. The article makes no mention of real-life cases of religiously justified anti-LGBT discrimination,like the 2014 case in Michigan where a pediatrician refused to treat a six-day-old infantbecause the child had two moms. SinceMichigan does not include LGBT people in its nondiscrimination law, the refusal of service, which the doctor reached after much prayer, was entirely legal.

To fairly illustrate the competing claims of discrimination at the heart of this issue, its necessary to illuminate the practical impact of whats at stake for parties on each side of the issue. Its not just about wedding cakes and church services.

Illustrating that point, Gjelten thenfocuses on the 2004 Massachusetts Supreme Court decision that embraced marriage equality (using the preferred term of equality opponents, claiming the court redefined marriage), which prompted Catholic Charities to voluntarilycease providing adoption services in the state,citing a sincerely held religious belief that barred the organization from placing foster or adoptive childrenwith same-sex parents.

But here, as in the earlier examples, Gjelten omits a key detail regarding the public/private divide:the reason Catholic Charities (in Massachusetts and other states, like Illinois) was subject to the states nondiscrimination law in the first place is because the agency maintained contracts with the state to provide child welfare services. Adoption isno doubt a worthy cause for a faith community and thestate to engage in, but those two entities have vastly different constitutional responsibilities when it comes to how theytreat citizens hoping to provide loving homes to children.

Catholic Charities has what it perceives to be a divine order to serve and protect the vulnerable, including childrenwhose families of origin cannot care for them. But Catholic doctrine formally denounces same-sex parents, and despite some disagreement among Catholic Charities leadership, the agency determined that such doctrine must dictate policy.

The state, on the other hand, is constitutionally barred from denying access to services (including adoption) based on a persons faithor, in Massachusetts and Illinois, on a persons perceived or actual sexual orientation. By extension, the state cannot formally endorse a particular faith practices understanding of morality or appropriate parental qualities, unless those characteristics happen to align directly with a compelling state interest. (This is precisely the reason why, as Gjelten notes, Mississippis sweeping 2016 religious freedom law earned itself afederalinjunction.)

Buttheres a fairly simpleand reasonablesolution to this wholeconundrum, though it requires the very distinctions between the public and private spaces Gjelten fails delineate. The First Amendments prohibition on state establishment of religion can reasonably be read to mean that government agenciesand, crucially, publicly funded entitiesshould create policy based on the public interest, not on any particular religiousdoctrine.

Look, if Catholic Charities wants to deny me, a queer woman, the opportunity to adopt a child, that is their right. As a religious entity founded on and adherent to Catholic doctrine, I understand that, even if I disagree with the decision, this nations promise of free exercise of religion protects faith-based entities from engaging with those who dont share their beliefs.

Simultaneously, however, as a citizen I enjoy equal protection under the law, which includes access to state-funded agencies that provide social services, including adoption. Im OK with Catholic Charities refusing to serve me because of my identity, but I cannot justify my tax dollars funding an agency that actively discriminates against me.

Yet the reader of this NPR piece might leave with only the vague sense that the government is telling a religious institution what it can and cant believe in or act on. Without mention of the finer distinctions the reader is clearly being done a disservicewhich in this case happens to benefit religious freedom advocates. Or, for those who balk at the use of scare quotes in that phrase, lets call them discriminationists.

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NPR Largely Misses Critical Distinction on Religious Freedom vs. LGBTQ Rights - Religion Dispatches

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Imsorry Im not with you tonight, Farhadi said in a prepared statement read by Iranian-American astronaut Anoush Ansari. My absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those of other six nations who have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S.Dr. Firouz Naderi, a director of NASAs Solar System Exploration program, accepted the award on Farhadis behalf along with Ansari; two Iranian-Americans who should be lauded for their exceptional accomplishments.

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The talented Farhadi won the Oscar in the best foreign-language category for his gripping drama, The Salesman. It is his second Oscar. In 2012, his drama A Separationwon him his first Oscar.

Farhadis criticism of Americas president as his own countrys people continue to suffer under an oppressive regime, with bloodied hands, must not be overlooked in light of his artistic achievement.

If Farhadi opposed Irans Supreme Leader the way he opposed President Trump, he would experience a far less fortuitous fate. Jail time and possibly death might have been in the cards for him. Instead of boycotting the Academy Awards, Farhadi could have used the opportunity of this great achievement, which highlights the brilliance of the Persian people, to make the case for Irans freedom.

On Monday, Irans top diplomat, Mohammad Javad Zarif, gave his stamp of approval to Farhadis message and echoedhis governments hypocrisy, tweeting, Proud of Cast and Crew of The Salesman for Oscar and stance against MuslimBan. [sic] Iranians have represented culture and civilization for millennia.

Artists, including filmmakers, continue to languish in Iranian jail cells as the regime cuts deals with the West and suppresses its own people as one of the worlds worst offenders of human rights.

Here are just a few Iranian filmmakers and artists who have served jail time for expressing themselves in a manner welcomed with open arms in the United States:

Atena was jailed because she depicted Irans parliamentary members as animals through her artwork. The U.S. Constitution protects the rights of its citizens to express themselves. In Washington, D.C., a highly offensive, anti-cop panting depicting officers as pigs was given a prime space in theU.S. Capital.

The Iranian regime and its supportershaveheld disdain for Western culture even beforethe 1979 revolution.

In August 1978, Islamic militants and fanatics within the current Iranian regime set the famous Rex Movie Theatre in Abadan on fire, killing hundreds of innocent cinema-goers. Reports later revealed that several anti-Shah Islamists set the theater on fire using gasoline and lighting it with a match. They then ran to the exterior of the theater and locked the doors so no one could get out, except for those who were able to escape through the roof.

In a speech this month in the East Azerbaijan region of Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said the regimes real war with the west is a culture war taking place on the TV and the Internet.

The real war is a cultural war, Khamenei reportedly said. The real war is an economic war, the real war is the war of sanctions, the real war is the arenas of work, activity, and technology inside the country This is the real war! He added, They draw our attention to a military war so that we ignore this war.

Irans rich cultural history has never been in doubt, but to deprive Irans people of their true potential and subject them to such cruel injustice is a sin. The Rex Theater fire will forever remain the symbol of the Iranian regimes true intentions: to stifle and suffocate its peoples ability to express themselves the way they would if they lived in the free world.

Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter and Periscope@AdelleNaz

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NAZARIAN: That Oscar Win Was a Loss for Iran's Freedom-Craving People - Breitbart News

Early morning on February 17, word was getting around that Michael Novak had passed away in his sleep, and email klatsches were forming. In mine, one of his close friends wrote that "the generosity of Michael's friendship allowed him to obscure the fact that he was among the few truly great men that any of us have known." We all piled on with fervent assents. That a man of such towering achievements should also be a down-home, kindly friend (even "cuddly," discerning women would attest) was so unusual that we had pretended he was just one of the guys.

Which is not to say that Michael was modest. He wrote more than 40 books and countless essays on everything under the sun and many things beyond the sun. He promoted his ideas assiduously, through 50 years of nonstop lecturing, debating, and classroom teaching and in everyday small-talk that never stayed small when he was around. He was driven by a firm conviction that he was in possession of singular talents for educating and improving mankind. Early in my time as president of the American Enterprise Institute, I told Michael that he had exactly 12 minutes, not a minute more, to summarize his current work for a gathering of trustees and donors. He cheerfully agreed and then, as he warmed up at the podium, spoke for 50 minutes (on baseball and American democracy) to a rapt and appreciative audience.

And Michael was ardent for recognition and honorswhich, among friends, he never bothered to conceal, treating praise simply as evidence that his labors were indeed moving the world. As he lay dying, a visitor noticed that his daughter, Jana, was reading him the numerous emails she was receiving attesting to his great works and influence. Enough testimonials, the visitor interjected, it is time to turn to larger matters. Michael mustered a smile and said: No, no, read them all! Which was his way of telling everyone assembled that the Novakian spirit they knew and loved was still burning strong.

Michael's combination of ambition and friendliness was more than personal disposition. His thinking and writing, too, were at once aggressive and gentle, tough-minded and irenic. This was an expression of his intellectual position and Catholic faithas I tried to explain in remarks at a dinner in honor of Michael on his retirement from AEI in 2010, printed below. Here let me elaborate with words of his own.

Michael was a Reagan Democrat, proud of his ethnic (Slovak-American) roots and upbringing in working-class Johnstown, Pennsylvania. In the 1970s, his intellectual migration from left to right was inspired by the left's (and the Democratic party's) abandonment of working-class sentiments and aspirations for a new-age progressivism that he regarded as utopian and effete. Accordingly, his conservatism was sinewy, and distinctly non-libertarian. Human freedom, for Michael, was not an abstract good but rather a social artifactthe fruit of lived experience, grounded in family and community, and demanding continuous struggle against the forces of moral entropy. Democratic capitalism is the preferred political system for more than its palpable material benefits: It is the most auspicious arena for the incarnate struggles among groups and nations and within the human heart. Economic prosperity is evidence that the struggles are going well for the time being. "Free to choose," when we gain it, is an obligation.

I thought of Novak the Reagan Democrat last election night, November 8, 2016, when the early returns from western Pennsylvania were beginning to upset expectations of a Hillary Clinton triumph. (Johnstown's Cambria County, heavily Democratic in party registration, went 66 percent for Donald Trump.) In my political set, sharply divided between Trump supporters and opponents, we had learned to be circumspect about election preferencesbut when I reached Michael he was bluntly at the barricades. "If America is going to come apart into those who went to college and those who did not," he said, "I want to be with the folks who did not go to college."

I did not question Michael in any detail, but am certain that he was not rooting for the Trumpsters as if they were the Steelers. I think he regarded the Trump revolt as the rough-hewn, extravagantly flawed, internally conflicted agency of freedom in its latest struggle. But in Michael's conception the struggle is a noble one, because freedom is at once contingent and divine, and it can succeed only by attaching itself to human goodness. That is the teaching of the stem-winding conclusion of his address at Westminster Abbey on receiving the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1994:

No one ever promised us that free societies will endure forever. Indeed, a cold view of history shows that submission to tyranny is the more frequent condition of the human race, and that free societies have been few in number and not often long-lived. Free societies such as our own, which have arisen rather late in the long evolution of the human race, may pass across the darkness of time like splendid little comets, burn into ashes, disappear.

Yet nothing in the entire universe, vast as it is, is as beautiful as the human person. The human person alone is shaped to the image of God. This God loves humans with a love most powerful. It is this God who draws us, erect and free, toward Himself, this God Who, in Dante's words, is the Love that moves the sun / and all the stars.

Michael was one of the last remaining (a few are still with us) of those giants who collaborated directly with Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II on the great liberal achievements of the 1980sthe defeat of Soviet communism and the expansion of economic freedom and prosperity in much of the West and beyond. Today we are once again beset by violent totalitarianism, economic stagnation, angry social divisions, and an abundance of unpleasant options. Many conservatives, and many young people, seem to think we have lost our grip and fallen away from a halcyon past. In the face of such despair, Michael Novak's legacy is that the struggle for freedom is ever present, ever changing, and ever in need of active, tough-minded idealism.

Christopher DeMuth Sr. is a distinguished fellow at Hudson Institute.

'The Total Novak Phenomenon'

Michael Novak and his work during the past 35 years have been abundantly feted. Celebrants have expounded on his brilliance, his prolificacy, and his influence. But brilliance and industriousness, although highly important virtues, are not nearly as rare as the total Novak phenomenon. And influence, although highly admired, is not a virtue at allit puts Michael in the company of Eliot Spitzer and Peter Singer. So I would like to take a different tack and remark on Michael's character, in particular his ambition and his bravery.

He spent the first 20 years of his professional life in academics. To the brilliant and industrious, university life offers wonderful opportunities for achievement and fulfillment. Michael could have continued to hold the best chairs at the best schools and to win all the teaching awards. But the academy favors work on discrete, manageable problems "in the literature" and can punish departures from certain orthodoxies. At some point in the 1970s, Michael decided that he would go after bigger game.

I have often marveled that in the midst of the Jimmy Carter administration, the hardheaded businessmen on the American Enterprise Institute's Board of Trustees would countenance the appointment of a theologian, and moreover a theologian with a colorful paper trail in left-wing politics and Democratic party electioneering. But it was Michael who took by far the greater risk in accepting the offerthrowing away tenure and respectability for God knew what (but He wasn't talking, not even to Michael).

Since then Michael's vocation has been the conquest of momentous, difficult, contentious problems. Problems with large practical and political components, where his philosophical learning provided a foundation but everything else was left to his own wits and experience. Today we recognize the moral architecture of democratic capitalism because Michael built it for useven the terms were unknown before he and Irving Kristol started their work.

And, since publication of The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism in 1982, he has provided many elaborations and applications: on the moral architectures of economic development, of escape from the welfare trap, of nuclear deterrence, of the corporation and business-as-a-calling, and of the income tax, intellectual property, mediating structures, ethnic politics, and even sports (the last however limited to Notre Dame football). If you listen in on Michael debating the progressive income tax with a professional economist, you will get an idea of the moral clarity he has brought to questions that everyone knew to be terribly complicated and endlessly nuanced.

Along the way he has dispatched many cherished liberal shibboleths and theological wrong-turns. In his 2001 book, On Two Wings, he grafted back the second wing of faith onto the long-prevailing narrative (even at AEI) of the American founding as a secular exercise in institutional ingenuity. Bravest of all, he has provided religious instruction to Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

What Michael's greatest projects have had in common is audacity. In taking them on, he was committing himself to originality, which risked failure, and to unflinching truth-telling, which risked elite derision if he succeeded. His brilliance may have given him the confidence to take the big risks; his industriousness may have been inspired by fear of failure. But they alone cannot explain what Michael achieved. They had to be coupled with gutssheer obstinate confrontational Johnstown guts.

Michael's toughness is often masked by his sweet, magnanimous disposition. Don't be fooled. If you have watched him make a big concession in a debate, or respond sympathetically to a hostile questioner, or provide a generous account of an opposing view in a book or essay, then you know that his kindliness is often the sign that serious intellectual vivisection is about to commence.

And then there's his vast philosophical mastery: He already knows Argument 27 better than the other guy, and he also knows that it is conventionally trumped by Argument 8but he also knows that it is completely annihilated by Argument 131 C, which he derived himself 15 years ago.

But most of all, Michael's sweet magnanimity is genuine and in fact reflects the ambition and bravery of his intellectual position. For it expresses his certainty that there is good in human naturegood that calls for earnest entreaty on its own terms. Among career pundits and haut thinkers, nothing could be more politically incorrect, more embarrassingly nave. Yet in Michael's choices of projects, and in the particulars of his arguments, one sees three overarching propositions constantly at work:

First, that man for all his failings is ardently concerned to know what is right and just.

Second, that politics for all its flaws is capable of pursuing social betterment and sometimes finding it.

Third, that reason for all its frailties can help us find our way.

To dedicate a lifetime to such propositions in late-20th-century America one had to be not only brave but downright reckless. That the endeavor has proven so astoundingly fruitful is reason to doubt the cynicism of the age and to work, as diligently as he has, for a return of the better angels.

Christopher DeMuth, July 2010

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The Spirit of Michael Novak, a Friend of Freedom - The Weekly Standard

ROME Like the people of Israel freed from the bondage of slavery, Christians are called to experience the path toward hope and new life during the Lenten season, Pope Francis said.

Through his passion, death and resurrection, Jesus has opened up for us a way that leads to a full, eternal and blessed life, the pope said at his weekly general audience March 1, Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent for Latin-rite Catholics.

Lent lives within this dynamic: Christ precedes us with his exodus and we cross the desert, thanks to him and behind him, he said.

On a warm and sunny morning, the pope held his audience in St. Peters Square. Arriving in the popemobile, he immediately spotted a group of children and signaled several of them to come aboard for a ride.

One by one, the three girls and one boy climbed into the popemobile and warmly embraced the pope.

In his main audience talk, the pope said that while Lent is a time of penance and even mortification, it is also a time of hope for Christians awaiting Christs resurrection to renew our baptismal identity.

The story of the Israelites journey toward the Promised Land and Gods faithfulness during times of trial and suffering helps Christians better understand the Lenten experience, he said.

This whole path is fulfilled in hope, the hope of reaching the (Promised) Land and precisely in this sense it is an exodus, a way out from slavery to freedom, the pope said. Every step, every effort, every trial, every fall and every renewal has meaning only within the saving plan of God, who wants for his people life and not death, joy and not sorrow.

To open this path toward the freedom of eternal life, he continued, Jesus gave up the trappings of his glory, choosing humility and obedience.

However, the pope said that Christs sacrifice on the cross doesnt mean he has done everything and we go to heaven in a carriage.

It isnt like that. Our salvation is surely his gift, but because it is a love story, it requires our yes and our participation, as shown to us by our mother Mary and after her, all the saints, he said.

Lent, he added, is lived through the dynamic that Christ precedes us through his exodus, and that through his victory Christians are called to nourish this small flame that was entrusted to us on the day of our baptism.

It is certainly a challenging path as it should be, because love is challenging, but it is a path full of hope, Pope Francis said.

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Lent is time to relive exodus from slavery to freedom, pope says - Crux: Covering all things Catholic

"Those who report critically land behind bars," stated Carl-Eugen Eberle. The media law expert heads the German branch of the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), a global network of publishers, journalists and industry insiders. IPI actively supports press freedom and, like similar organizations such as Reporters Without Borders or Writers-in-Prison, it appeals to political leaders, sends letters and travels to problematic countries.

Since the coup attempt in July 2016 and the resulting state of emergency in Turkey, the state of freedom of press in Turkey has drastically worsened, according to IPI. Reporters Without Borders has spoken of "repression on an otherwise unknown scale."

Accused of propagating terror and instigating the public, journalists and authors such as Deniz Ycel - a German citizen - have been arrested. According to IPI, around 150 journalists are currently being held in Turkish prisons. The Turkish journalists' platform P24 has put the number at 140, while the Committee to Protect Journalists says it's "more than 80." The Turkish government, on the other hand, admits to imprisoning only 30 journalists.

Turkish constitution guarantees press freedom

"In Germany, we cannot understand why this attack on press freedom is necessary," said German President Joachim Gauck. He is not the only one to have sharply criticized Ycel's imprisonment.

Prof. Carl-Eugen Eberle

However, when it comes to press freedom anchored in their constitutions, Germany and Turkey aren't that far apart. Paragraph X of the Turkish constitution maintains that press is to remain free and uncensored. "The state shall take measures to ensure freedom of the press and information," it reads.

The same article penalizes writings that threaten "the internal or external security of the state" or the "indivisible unity of state territory and people," or that "encourage criminal activity or have to do with confidential state information."

Further restrictions are mentioned in the paragraph, including Article 301, which made it a crime to insult "Turkishness," the republic and certain state-run institutions until it was changed in 2008. Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk and journalistHrant Dink are among those who have been persecuted under this provision. Dink was a newspaper publisher with Armenian roots who was murdered in 2007.

Both Pamuk and Dink had written about the genocide committed against Turkey's Armenian minority in 1915-1916. They were charged with offending "Turkishness" - which the European Human Rights Court later called a "violation of the basic freedom of expression." The court in Strasbourg also condemned the Turkish government for its involvement in the death of Hrant Dink.

Berliners have expressed their support for Deniz Ycel

Pressure from EU led to new laws

This case played a key role in Turkey's efforts to get closer to the European Union and align its law books with EU standards for the protection of freedom of the press and expressions, writes Turkish lawyer Fikret Ilkiz. That is why the penal code was slightly altered in 2008: The terms "Turkishness" and "republic" were replaced with "Turkish nation" and "Republic of Turkey."

Trials based on Article 301 were only opened with special permission from the justice minister, and the highest punishment was reduced by three to two years in prison. Ilkiz says the number of cases based on Article 301 has dropped since then. Nevertheless, offending the nation, the government or the military remains punishable.

Also due to pressure from the EU, Turkey revamped its press law in 2004 - the previous law in the books had been from 1950. Regulations on the protection of informants and the right to a counter-statement were revised, and it became more difficult to confiscate newspapers. The state oversight of the press gave way to a Turkish press council which voluntarily keeps itself in check.

Turkey's press freedom rating is extremely low

Regression due to anti-terror laws

Even before the failed coup attempt in July 2016 - and especially since then - constitutional guarantees have been limited by their interpretation in court. Now more than ever, the work of critical journalists is suffering under the anti-terror laws.

"Even neutral reporting on terror attacks can be interpreted as terror propaganda," law professor Carl-Eugen Eberle told DW. "That has to do with the fact that judges are often recruited from the bureaucracy of the ministries and are inclined toward jurisdiction that puts journalists at a disadvantage."

More than 170 media providers and publishers have been closed due to emergency decrees. Strict internet laws allow critical websites to be blocked. On Reporters Without Borders' press freedom ranking, Turkey took 151st place in 2016 - among 180 countries.

Eberle says that is unlikely to change in the near future: "I'm not very hopeful."

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Turkey's constitution guarantees press freedom - but that's not the whole story - Deutsche Welle

Chicano Batmans new song, The Taker Story, is surely the first 2017resistance anthem to be inspired by a telepathic gorilla.

The L.A. bands frontman, Bardo Martinez, recently read and loved Daniel Quinns 1992 novel, Ishmael, a work of magical realism from the point of view of a primatewhose captive life gave him insights into humans self-destructiveness. Its philosophy that we cant escape natureand humanity needs new myths about itself to survive hit Martinez hard amid the fear and anger of the recent election season.

So on Taker Story, a ruminative single inspired by 60s radicalism and 70s soul, he wrote a new dispatch from the front lines ofecological collapse and cultural genocide.Its a centerpiece of the bands third album, Freedom Is Free.

I spent a lot of time writing that song, probably the most of any song in my life, Martinez said. The Bible is a cry of an oppressed people describing their slaughter, so future people dont make the same mistakes. But now were going to build a pipeline in the Dakotas on the land of a people whove been trampled on. Its an age-old story.

Freedom Is Free refocuses the sound of Chicano Batman, one of L.A.s singular indie rock acts (the band plays a sold-out show at the Roxy on Saturday and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April). Its members have always loved heartfelt oldies and the humid swing of the global south, but Freedom looks to varied blackmusic traditionsfor healing in malevolent times. It raises the stakes for a band thathas toured with Jack Whiteand redefined Latin Americans influence on todays L.A. rock scene.

Ever since its 2010 self-titled debut, Chicano Batman hasreconfigured vintage styles for young ears. Theres yearning East L.A. balladry:If youre Mexican American in L.A., you grew up with oldies, going to swap meets and listening to Art Laboe, Martinez said. But Chicano Batman was just as interested in overtones from countercultural Brazil and Peru.

The Tropicalia movement was kids in the hinterlands of Brazil saying, We dont want to play cheesy music. We love the Beatles and we love indigenous music, and we can do anything we want.Its about getting rid of stereotypes. We love black music and hip-hop and were in an indie rock scene, he added.

Freedom expands thesonic map to emphasizeblack music from pretty much everywhere Afro-Cuban rumbas to Fela Kutis hard-swinging resistance jams, Isaac Hayes virtuoso orchestral arrangements to hip-hops way of absorbingany culture it touches.

Theres a thread in all the music of the Americas, and thats the Afro diaspora and the way those rhythms have been being translated over the years, Martinez said. James Brown influenced music everywhere from Saigon to Rio. Black music is everywhere and all people can appreciate it.

This subtle shift yielded the best and most important work in the bands career. Angel Child and Jealousy feel like the grouptried to reverse-engineer hip-hop, taking the core of a well-constructed soul sample and writing full songs out of those woozy moments. The title track digs hard into guitarist Carlos Arvalo's wah-wah pedal for itsfunkiest track yet, but the stacks of female backing vocals add a dreamy, hopeful ambience.

This was the first time wed ever worked with a producer, and his aesthetic was right in line with ours, Arvalo saidof their time with Leon Michels, a longtimecollaborator for Sharon Jones, Lee Fields and the Black Keys. He had the equipment used on all those old records: an all-analog mixing board, 50s amps and a Hammond organ.

Michelssaw some fellow travelers in Chicano Batman, which also features bassist Eduardo Arenas and drummer Gabriel Villa. He liked how theyre a band steeped in old sounds,drawing on its backgroundto reach acrossneighborhoods and continents.

Theyre writing songs that mean something to them. We werent trying to make a vintage record at all, Michels said. Bands that have a Latin American spin are usually put in a certain box. But theyre young and modern, so its going to have that sensibility. Thats who they are.

The bands invigorated sense of purpose comes when huge,global forces are weighing down. As they sing on Friendship (Is aSmall Boat in aStorm) The sun is getting heavy /The cold is breaking my heart Better start swimming, brother /Cause Im running.

Even in L.A., a relative bastion of liberalism, debates about gentrification and displacement have roiled working-class,creatively vital Latino neighborhoods, the kinds ofplaces that created a proud but inclusive band like Chicano Batman.

I read about that gallery that closed in Boyle Heights, Arvalo said of the recently-shuttered PSSST venue, long a target ofanti-development activists. If you come into a neighborhood, include their art. But wevegot tounderstand that we all have the same wants in life.

I kind of understand how hipsters feel moving into a neighborhood, Martinez continued. People moving from the Midwest who just want a cheap place to live and to get into the culture thats not your enemy.

But at the same time, you know, la raza. Hipsters have to get their heads out of the clouds and stop being super-entitled. Just be cool to your neighbors. Theres so many things to connect on.

Martinez isnt naive about musics ability to heal everything. But like the Ishmaelthat inspired Taker Story, simply getting this all on record is an act of hope.

As people see corporations and the pillars of our society eroding, this band is promoting its own economy, Martinez said. Were just playing shows, but were promoting ideas that go against the status quo.

August.Brown@latimes.com

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Chicano Batman takes on the 800-pound gorilla with 'Freedom Is Free' - Los Angeles Times

State lawmakers have a new prayer group they can join, the Tennessee Legislative Prayer Caucus. Holly Meyer / The Tennessean

Members of the Tennessee Prayer Caucus pray during their meeting at the office of Rep. Kevin Brooks.(Photo: Joe Buglewicz / For The Tennessean)Buy Photo

With their heads bowed, a small group of state lawmakers stood in a loose circle in the middle of a legislative committee room as their colleague, Rep. Mark Pody, led them in prayer.

"We want to invite the holy spirit here, father, to the Capitol. On the floor today, that the words that are said, father, that there's no mean-spiritedness. Father, that we could just focus on you," said Pody, a Wilson County Republican.

Those who gathered on a recent Thursday morning in Legislative Plaza are members of a relatively new prayer group for lawmakers, the Tennessee Legislative Prayer Caucus. It's focused on preserving religious liberty and upholding the country's Judeo-Christian values, its website says.

Pody alluded to that purpose as he continued his prayer.

"Father, across this great nation, Lord, there is, your word's coming under attack as it has throughout the centuries. We just pray for a rising up and revival across this country."

It's about prayer, not partisanship or advocating for legislation, Podysaid. The prayer group is open to all lawmakers regardless of party, he said. In addition to Pody, the group's leadership includes at least three more Republicans and one Democrat.

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"We're just going to stay focused on prayer in general and our religious freedom that way," Pody said.

The prayer groupstarted quietly about halfway throughlast year'slegislative session with just afewlawmakers, but they decided to expand it this year and raised its public profile,hoping more legislators would attend their weekly meetings, Pody said.

They welcomed country music artist Ricky Skaggs for thefirst meeting of the new legislativesession in January.While the star power helped draw a standing-room only crowd, Pody saidthey will try to keep the prayer group for lawmakers only.

Prayer at the Capitol

While weekly attendance varies, nearly 30 lawmakers, largely Republicans,are listed as members on the prayer caucus' website. Rep. Brenda Gilmore, D-Nashville, is among them. She did not attend the Feb. 9 prayer caucus, but said in a telephone interview that shejoined the group because she believes prayer has a role in solving issues facing Tennesseans, including poverty and criminal justice problems.

I recognize in order for us to make a difference in Tennesseans lives, really affect real change in the quality of life, its going to take prayer and its going to take all of us working together, Gilmore said. God is not partisan.

God is not partisan.

The prayer caucus isnt the only prayer or devotionalgroup at the state Capitol. Andlawmakers are within their rights to use prayer groups to exercise their freedom of religion, said Kent Syler, a political science professor at Middle Tennessee State University.

It becomes a problem if they start to try to blur the line between church and state and it also becomes a problem if they seek to use their office to promote one religion over another, Syler said.

Pody, and other members of the caucus, have said thats not theintention of the prayer group.

But Cody made clear that he doesn't set aside his Christian beliefs while performing his duties as a lawmaker, and he said his constituents are well aware of that. He's sponsored bills on religion-tinged issues, including legislation that would definemarriage as strictly between one man and one woman.

"There is no separation for me. Everything I do is going to be based on scripture. How I vote is going to be based on my biblical values as well as the Constitution, but I believe that my biblical values are the first things that I would turn to," Pody said.

The group is tied to the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, a Virginia-based nonprofit that describes itself as neither partisan nor political. The foundation's website says it protects religious freedom and challenges "anti-faith trends impacting legislative, legal and cultural issues" through a national network of citizens and leaders.

The foundation's platform focuses on conservative religious issues, including keeping prayer in public schools and advocating for states to pass their own religious freedom restoration acts. It also is a big advocate for the national "In God We Trust" motto. Lea Carawan, the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation's executive director, was not available for comment.

"When you look at the Congressional Prayer Caucus'website there is certainly a theme of Christianity under attack," Syler said.

One of the foundation's initiatives is to establish state legislative prayer caucuses, which are modeled after the Congressional Prayer Caucus formed in 2005. Lawmakers in more than 20 states have formed prayer caucuses, the foundation's website says. Secular groups, including the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the American Humanist Association, have voiced opposition to the national and state caucuses in the past.

Pody said thenational foundation reached out to him to start the prayer group at the state house.Hethinks the national network is a plus for the state prayer group, and he used the preservation of"In God We Trust" as an example.

"Across the nation, it seems that people are saying we can't even have the word God in anything we're doing in our government buildings," Pody said. "It is on our money, 'In God We Trust.' It is passed at the capitol in Washington both the house and the senate, reaffirming that 'In God We Trust' is our national motto. We want to make sure we keep that in each of the states as well."

State lawmakers often communicate with legislators in other states, Syler said. Frequently, policies or other mechanisms on a wide variety of issues are tried in one state and then introduced in Tennessee, he said.

The wider spread the prayer caucuses are the more impact they can have on both the desire to get like-minded legislators together to exercise their religious freedoms and it can also help them push an agenda more effectively should they go down that path, Syler said.

The small group that gathered for the prayer group s Feb. 9 meeting prayed together for about 10 minutes. A chorus of "amen" followed a brief silence. But before the lawmakers rushed off to tackle the days business, Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver led them through a few bars of a well-known hymn.

Then sings my soul my savior God to thee. How great thou art. How great though art."

Reach Holly Meyer at hmeyer@tennessean.com or 615-259-8241 and on Twitter @HollyAMeyer.

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Lawmaker prayer group focuses on religious freedom - The Tennessean