Magic Statistics

British Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt says Muslim women have told her that their doctors are violating confidentiality by passing information to their families.

Ms Hewitt, who represents a constituency in Leicester with a large ethnic minority community, said: “I have had Muslim women give me chapter and verse on very distressing breaches of confidentiality by Muslim GPs.

“Some women patients feel they cannot trust their own GP. If they talk to him about a very difficult situation concerning domestic violence or sexual health problems they fear that he will share that with other members of the community.”

Some Muslim women avoid visiting their GP for fear that intimate details will be revealed to family members.

Muslim doctors have angrily rejected Ms Hewitt’s charges, but a recent report by the Muslim Women’s Network on Health contained similar claims.

[T]here was support for Miss Hewitt from the Muslim Women's Network on Health, which produced a report in December claiming some women were afraid to consult their GP because of concern over confidentiality.

Spokesman Haleh Afshar said: "In our report we said this is a concern shared by all women, but the difficulty for Muslim women is that sometimes they don't have the option of going to a GP outside their community.

The General medical Council says that eleven doctors have been investigated during the past year for alleged violations of patient confidentiality.  No information was available about their religion, however.

Previous related post: Women forced to leave seminar on Islamic medical ethics

Glenn Penner of Voice of the Martyrs Canada notices this pithy letter in today’s National Post:

Re: Fury as Iran parades captive sailors on TV, March 29.

Do you hear that sound? The sound of people rioting in the streets because a female British hostage was forced to wear a headscarf during a televised "confession"? Didn't think so. Now imagine a Guantanamo prisoner, forced to wear a crucifix or a yarmulke on TV. Once again, cultural "tolerance" proves to be a one-way street.

Jeremy Sale, Toronto.

I am increasingly puzzled and disturbed at the British Labour Government’s muted reaction to the humiliation of British sailors and Royal Marines seized in Iraqi waters by Iranian forces.  How long will this be allowed to go on?

h/t: Persecuted Church Weblog

Two days after Muslim students mobbed and killed a Christian teacher in the city of Gombe, Nigeria, a church building belonging to the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA) has been torched.

The Rev. Rukun Gaius, 50, chairman of the Gombe district of the ECWA, told Compass that a large number of Muslim extremists went to the church on Friday night (March 23) and set it on fire, gutting the sanctuary.

“The Muslims came to the church premises at about 11 p.m. to set the church on fire,” Rev. Gaius said. “People around the area and some of our members who saw the church burning rushed there put it out, but by then much damage had already been done to the building.”

The 500 members of the church must now “worship and conduct their church programs in the open,” Rev. Gaius said.

In his capacity as vice chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Gombe state, Rev Gaius has seen reports indicating that Islamic extremists have compiled a list of arson targets.

“We have received security reports that 15 more churches have been earmarked to be burned, and that’s why you met us holding the emergency meeting at the Bishop’s Court [residence of the Anglican bishop of Gombe diocese],” he said.

The Gombe district of the ECWA has about 15,000 members and 57 local congregations.

The burning of the sanctuary of the ECWA church in Chanchanya, Rev. Gaius said, is not the first in the state. Arson and other attacks on Christians have characterized their lives for years, he said.

Rev Gaius accuses the Islamic state government of indifference to Muslim attacks against Christians and, indeed, encouraging discrimination and persecution.  The government has also frustrated plans to build new churches to accommodate the growing Christian population.

Gombe is one of twelve states in Nigeria that have adopted sharia law.

Previous related posts:

• More details on Nigerian teacher killed by Muslim pupils
• Muslim pupils kill Christian teacher in Nigeria
• Against forced conversions in Nigeria
• Islamists in arson attack on Nigerian school chapel

Welcome to the new world of "gay" "marriage".

A 29-year-old English woman has been charged after she went through a civil partnership ceremony with her lesbian partner while still married to her husband.

Suzanne Mitchell, of Wingfield Gardens, Ditherington, is accused of holding a civil partnership ceremony with Caroline Beddows last year while her marriage to Charles Mitchell had not been annulled.

The case is one of the first of its kind to come before a British court.
. . .
Mitchell denies making a false statement by declaring she had not been married before when she held the civil partnership ceremony with Ms Beddows in Shrewsbury in February last year.

A BBC report says she has been charged with bigamy, but other sources maintain that this is not the case.

The charge of making a false statement to a registrar is not the same as bigamy, where a person enters into a marriage while still already married to another person.

A person guilty of an offence of making a false statement is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years or to a fine (or both).

Ms Mitchell has three children with her husband.  She was released on bail and told to re-appear in court on 23 May, when a trial date will be set.

h/t: MarriageDebate.com

Previous related posts:

• Scientific studies speak against same-sex parenting
• Three-parent ruling based on adult preference, not child’s best interest

UPDATE (24 May): Suzanne Mitchell has been bound over for trial on two counts of violating the Civil Partnership Act 2004 by making false statements when registering her partnership with Caroline Beddows.