Mission & Justice

John Kidman; 14/9/08

A man charged with 150 counts of sexual assault was under police guard in hospital yesterday and may face a bedside court hearing. Tony Golossian, 61, of Dulwich Hill, is accused of masquerading as a spiritualist with the ability to cast out evil spirits through sexual rituals. Police will allege Golossian used the ruse to abuse two women repeatedly. One of the women, now aged 30, was allegedly blindfolded and subjected to sexual assaults during prayer sessions at various hotels and motels, mainly in the Ashfield area, in Sydney’s inner west, between 2001 and 2005.

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John Stapleton; 13/9/08

Two men, who allegedly claimed they could speak to angels and remove curses, were arrested yesterday in relation to more than 220 sexual offences against a young woman. Tony Golossian and Arthur Psichogios, who allegedly passed themselves off as lay priests to Sydney’s Greek community, were already on bail over similarallegations concerning another woman. They allegedly claimed the curses could only be removed by sexual acts, and charged the women up to $1000 a session. Police allege both victims may have been drugged during the incidents.

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Shlomo Shamir and Natasha Mozgovaya; 12/9/08

Five American religious organizations said they plan to host a dinner to break the Ramadan fast with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his upcoming visit to the United States. The Mennonite Central Committee, the Quakers, the World Council of Churches, Religions for Peace and the American Friends Service Committee are sponsoring the meeting with President Ahmadinejad on September 25 in New York City.The dinner to break the Ramadan fast, called an Iftar, is being billed as ?an international dialogue between religious leaders and political figures? in a conversation “about the role of religions in tackling global challenges and building peaceful societies.”

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Jumana Al Tamimi; 11/9/08

A newly built masjid in a Jordanian city was named Al Maseeh Eisa Bin Mariam (Jesus Christ Son of Mary) in a bid to show Muslims and Christians can coexist. This comes amid what many Jordanians and Muslims describe as increasing enmity between Islam in the West. “In this way, we want to emphasise that Jesus is loved by all Muslims,” the masjid’s imam, Jamal Safarati, was quoted as saying in press reports. “Muslims don’t disagree on that,” he added.

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Shenaz Kermalli;10/9/08

Shukaina, says she feels ‘prouder than ever’ to wear the headscarf. An Irish family at the centre of a nationwide dispute over the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in schools has accused Ireland’s government of repressing minority rights while “flaunting itself as the bastion of democracy”. Liam Egam,whose daughter’s desire to wear the headscarf to school last year sparked the debate, said: “It is time the world witnessed the true face of Ireland. “The issue of the hijab [Islamic headscarf] is a reflection of how Ireland treats its minorities. “It has silently repressed Muslim rights while flaunting itself as the bastion of democracy for far too long.”

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10/9/08

The Press Council has dismissed a complaint from Benjamin Isaac against the Herald. The ruling said: Mr Isaac [complained about] aspects of a series of articles about Mercy Ministries’ work with women in crisis, its links with Hillsong Church, and related matters. In particular, Mr Isaac took issue with an article not concerned directly with Mercy Ministries, but which reported a letter of support for a development proposal in Rosebery by the Hillsong Church. The letter of support came from Caroline Bateson in her role as manager of the South Sydney Police and Community Youth Club. Ms Bateson was a former volunteer worker for Hillsong.

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Damien Murphy & Jonathan Dart; 10/9/08

Allegations of sexual abuse at St Stanislaus’s College in Bathurst are likely to widen, with two more former teachers at the school to be named to police. A 47-year-old man who attended the school in the 1970s said he witnessed what he called “inappropriate sexual behaviour” by a priest and a brother, members of the Vincentian Order, while he was a boarder there. He was preparing a statement for police about the behaviour of the priest and brother after reading reports in the past fortnight that three religious teachers at the school in the ’70s and ’80s had been arrested and charged with child-sex offences. He said the brother used to get into bed and sleep with boarders regularly “to comfort them and stop them being homesick”. The priest, he said, had pursued him at the school and asked him to go to bed when he visited a former schoolmate at the Vincentian seminary in Sydney.

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9/9/08

Move to build a Catholic school in Camden, in Sydney’s south-west, have been welcomed by the same community group which vocally opposed plans for a Muslim school. The president of the Camden/Macarthur Residents Group, Emil Sremchevich, told Fairfax the Catholic plan “ticks all the right boxes”, even though he was yet to see its development application. “Catholics are part of our community so we should be supporting it on this basis alone,” Mr Sremchevich told Fairfax. “To become part of the community, you need to live in the community. You can’t just turn up.” Mr Sremchevich said he was not being racist.

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Elizabeth Vuvu; 8/9/08

The Catholic archdiocese of Rabaul in East New Britain province, with the help of police last week, began evicting illegal settlers from its land. The eviction exercise started last Wednesday, with the removal of squatters from the Takubar Commercial Centre, Palnakaur and Takubar Plantation. Police operation commander Insp David Yapu said police went into these areas and told illegal settlers to pack up and move out. People were seen standing at the Vunapope beachfront with their belongings. He said the archdiocese hired bulldozers to clear the gardens and demolish the buildings. Over the weekend police monitored these areas to check if settlers had returned. A spokesperson for the archdiocese said this exercise was done after many warnings. He said the church had been shouldering problems such as trespassing, stealing and destruction to properties for a long time.

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Rhys Blakely; 8/9/08

The mob appeared an hour after sunset, armed with axes, clubs and paraffin. The carnage that followed would have been much worse if the Christians of Gadragaon, a remote village in northeast India, had not been warned by text message: “The Hindus are coming to kill you.” The alert gave most enough time to flee to the jungle, where 114 of them would hide for a week, drinking rainwater and foraging for food. But the warning did not come early enough for those unable to run. “They doused him with petrol and taunted him; we could hear him screaming,” said Ravindra Nath Prahan, 45, of his paralysed brother, Rasananda, 35, who was burned alive by Hindu fanatics. “I could have tried to save him. But we had to save ourselves.” The attack on Gadragaon, by a mob that chanted “Hail Mother India” as they razed the village, was among the first of the grim litany of atrocities committed against minority Christians in the state of Orissa over the past two weeks. The Vatican has called the wave of violence “a sin against God and humanity”.

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