Magic Statistics

Turkey’s judicial system appears to be riddled with inefficiency.  Earlier this week the trial of two Christian converts on charges of "insulting Turkishness" was delayed because the prosecution couldn’t get its witnesses to show up in court.

Today it is reported that the trial of those accused of murdering three Christians in Malatya has been delayed because some paper shufflers didn’t do their job.

The fourth trial hearing yesterday against the murderers of three Christians in southeast Turkey was postponed for another month after court clerks failed to file a request to replace judges accused of bias.

Plaintiff lawyers’ official demand to replace the presiding bench of judges had been filed on March 1, but when the Malatya Third Criminal Court convened yesterday it was confirmed that the request still had not been forwarded to the higher court in Diyarbakir, which was designated to rule on it.
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[T]he presiding judges in Malatya issued an accusation of “criminal offense” against court clerks of the state prosecutor’s office in Izmir, declaring that their ineptitude in processing the legal complaint “within a reasonable time” had brought a “negative effect” on the case.

Nationalist hardliners in Turkey have recently begun a campaign of violence and intimidation against Christians.

[Christian pastor Orhan] Picaklar was recently kidnaped by young members of a radical group who told him they wanted him to stop teaching.

"Our church was stoned, they tried to kidnap my son, they did kidnap me (and) they put our pictures on YouTube. They spoke to all our friends, bosses and relatives of everyone who come to our church, so as to distance them from us," Picalkar told Al Jazeera.

The nation is in an uproar over the call by procurator general Abrurahamam Galcinkayan to dissolve the ruling AKP party because it is a religious party that endangers Turkey’s official secularism.  The constitutional court is to consider hearing the case.

The AKP party formed the government after winning 47% of the popular vote in the election of July 2007.  Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appealed for calm among party faithful.

An immediate reply came from Erdogan, who exhorted his followers not to take any hasty action, saying "this is not an act against our party, but against the will of the people".  And he added, citing a passage from the Qur'an, "they have ears and do not hear,  they have eyes but do not see, they have tongues, but do not speak the truth".

That’ll keep ‘em calm, for sure.

Previous related posts:

• Trial for “insulting Turkishness” drags on
• From the Protestant Church of Smyrna
• Christians tortured before being murdered

Because Tesco drove him to it.

Tesco blasted for sending Scottish chickens on 1,000-mile round trip to Essex for processing

Tesco came under attack from green campaigners last night after it was revealed that its "local" chicken goes on a 1,000-mile round trip before being put on sale.

Britain's biggest supermarket sends Scottish chickens 499 miles south to Essex to be packaged, then returns them to Scotland.

Environmental groups called the process crazy and said it involved thousands of unnecessary and wasteful "food miles".

Meddlesome environmentalists serve roast Tesco.

Quebec wants to coax people off welfare — CBC Montreal, 19 March

Previous related post: Quebec’s feeble economy is its own fault

A professional association of teachers in Great Britain has sounded an alarm regarding the harmful effects of widespread divorce and single-parent families on school children.

The demise of the traditional family is creating a "toxic circle" of school failure, poverty and crime, teachers said yesterday.

Many pupils struggle in class because they are brought up in chaotic homes without married mothers and fathers, according to the 160,000-strong Association of Teachers and Lecturers.
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The comments come as official figures show the number of single parents in Britain has increased by 250,000 to almost two million over the past decade.

Recent research shows that children with unstable home lives are more likely to perform poorly at school.  Furthermore, children from broken homes tend to become adults who experience unemployment, live in poverty, and commit crime.  Says secondary school teacher Phil Whalley:

"Those who under-achieve in their education are more likely to go on and live dysfunctional lives and be unable to support a stable family life for their own children.

"In short, as a society we are in danger of creating an expanding, perpetuating and toxic circle."

Mr Whalley said evidence from 16 countries in Europe and America showed that even cohabiting couples contributed to the problem. They are twice as likely to separate as married couples, he said.
. . .
"The educational outcomes for all the children in so-called blended families are worse than the achievements of children brought up in traditional nuclear families."

Difficulties in school start before pupils ever set foot in the classroom.  If Britain and other countries are serious about improving educational outcomes, we must stop pretending that family arrangements are a matter of official indifference.  Children do best when raised in a family headed by a mother and father who are married to each other.

Another cause of instability in children’s lives is daycare.  Governments should stop subsiding parents who want to pay strangers to take care of their children.

Previous related posts:

• Child abuse: Dark underbelly of cohabitation
• Marriage is good for you and your kids
• Family instability correlated with poor behaviour in children
• Does marriage matter for the nurturing of children?

Raul Castro may have taken over Cuba from his doddering brother Fidel but, when it comes to religious rights for prisoners of conscience, little has changed.

In its report Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) concludes that prison authorities "regularly deny political prisoners the right to religious literature including Bibles" and, "The right to meet with a pastor or priest or to meet together with other prisoners for religious study, prayer or worship."
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CSW told BosNewsLife that its report is partly based on eight months of interviews with families of prisoners and former detainees. The report also highlights individual cases, including that of Christian Alfredo Rodolfo Domínguez Batista who is serving a fourteen-year sentence in the Holguín Provincial Prison on charges that include "harming the independence of the Cuban state or its territorial integrity" in the interest of a foreign state.

Domínguez Batista’s wife was quoted as saying that his Bible and all religious materials were confiscated in the summer of 2007 and have yet to be returned.  "He has also had to repeatedly request access to a priest, a right which has only been granted every four to six months and most recently was denied outright," CSW said.

The CSW report accuses Cuban authorities of attempting to manipulate prisoners by denying pastoral visits and other religious practices in contravention of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.