Left stranded: US military sonar linked to whale beachings in Pacific, say scientists

Islands surrounded by US military study area, including Guam and Saipan, call for activity that harms the whales to stop

A Cuvier’s beaked whale breaching. The mammals may be acutely vulnerable to sonar and there have been 13 documented strandings since 2010, possibly linked to sonar use. Photograph: Nature Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo

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Jon Letman
Fri 15 Jan 2021 THE GUARDIAN

In the midst of the western Pacific, flanked by the world’s deepest ocean trench, the waters off the Mariana Islands are home and habitat to whales, dolphins, and countless other marine mammals as they breed and feed.

It’s also where they encounter the might of the US military.

The US territory of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), which includes Saipan, Tinian, and 12 other islands, are surrounded by the US military’s Mariana Islands Training and Testing (MITT) study area.


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Almost the size of India, the MITT is strategically important to the Department of Defence as a proving ground for new weapons systems and for live-fire training.

But some on the neighbouring islands, including indigenous Chamoru people, hold grave concerns for the military’s impact on their environment, especially the use of sonar for anti-submarine warfare training, which may be causing whales to beach themselves and die.

Map of the Mariana Islands Training and Testing Study Area Photograph: Mariana Islands Training and Testing

In particular, Cuvier’s beaked whales, known for deep dives documented to last for hours, may be acutely vulnerable to sonar.

Able to dive to nearly 3,000 meters, Cuvier’s beaked whales can feed beyond the reach of competitors and predators, but not out of range of navy sonar.

Since 1998, fisheries biologist with Guam’s department of agriculture, Brent Tibbatts, has documented 30 marine mammal strandings – 13 of them since 2010. The timing of the strandings, and their proximity to sonar, have led him to believe they are related.

When strandings occur, Tibbatts is the first called. If the animal can be saved, it’s pushed back into the water. If it washes up dead – over 80% of the time, Tibbatts told the Guardian – or dies while stranded, Tibbatts performs a necropsy , taking tissue samples, measurements, and photos.

Tibbatts recalled a 2015 live stranding of a Cuvier’s beaked whale which later died. Initially, the military denied it was using sonar, only to later admit it had after divers presented video in which sonar could be heard.

Listening to the inaudible

In February, a team of researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography published a study examining how the navy’s use of mid-frequency active sonar may contribute to whale strandings in the Marianas.

The study reported eight stranding events between 2006-2019 involving at least 10 whales.

An adult males Cuvier’s beaked whale stranded. There are growing concerns US military activity – including sonar – off Guam and the Mariana Islands is contributing to whale strandings. Photograph: FLPA/Alamy Stock Photo

The lead author, acoustic ecologist Dr Anne Simonis, said the team recorded in waters between 600 and 1000 meters off Saipan and Tinian islands at timed intervals for up to 12 months, analysing recordings of the whales’ distinctive echolocation clicks, which fall beyond the range of human hearing but are easily identified using a spectrogram to visually represent sounds.

The team detected three beaked whale species and examined eight Cuvier’s beaked whale strandings, of which three were confirmed to have occurred within six days of sonar use in the area, similar to other beaked whale strandings in other parts the world after anti-submarine activity.

A leading hypothesis suggested sonar may cause the whales to surface too quickly, forming bubbles in their blood or vital organs similar to decompression sickness, known as the bends.

“The number of animals that actually show up dead on the beaches may only be a fraction of the animals that are dying at sea,” said Simonis, saying that far fewer animals in pelagic [open ocean] waters are recovered compared to coastal species, no matter the cause of death.

“It does seem to be clear that beaked whales are more sensitive to navy sonar than other species,” Simonis said.

“There’s still a need to answer some basic questions about beaked whale populations and behaviour before we can understand the impact of sonar-associated strandings.”
Level ‘B’ Harassment

The US Navy declined an interviewed but in an email, Pacific Fleet spokesperson Lieutenant James Adams said: “Whales strand for a wide variety of reasons, including due to natural causes”.

The Center for Naval Analysis analysed complete data, including classified information, Adams said, determining there was “insufficient evidence to claim a relationship between sonar use and beaked whale strandings in the Mariana Islands”.

None of this can be understood without understanding indigenous dispossession and US imperialismIsa Arriola

The navy would not release the number of anti-submarine warfare exercises it has conducted in the Marianas over the last 24 months, but Adams said, “the navy has not exceeded [authorised] sonar and explosive levels,” adding “the navy has trained with active sonar in the region for over 70 years with negligible effects to the marine environment”.

The navy follows strict guidelines, employing protective measures to avoid impacts from at-sea training and testing, Adams said.

Kate Goggin, NOAA fisheries spokeswoman, said the Marine Mammal Protection Act allowed the navy to use sonar and conduct in-water detonations inside the MITT, “which are likely to result in … behavioural disruption, temporary hearing impairment or, in limited cases, permanent hearing impairment [of marine mammals].”

NOAA Fisheries has authorised “Level B harassment” of beaked whales which includes “interruption of feeding behaviours or displacement from areas where and when navy activities are occurring”.

Goggin said low to moderate severity of effects was not expected to impact the survival of beaked whales.

In January 2019, the navy released a 1,400-page MITT draft supplemental overseas environmental impact statement followed by its record of decision, selecting the option that allows for the most activity in the MITT


The island of Guam seen from the deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The relationship between the US navy and the islands of Guam and the Northern Marianas are generally strong, but have been strained over the issue of environmental damage. Photograph: Zachary Wheeler/US NAVY/AFP/Getty Images

In response, eight Guamanian senators – led by Senator Kelly Marsh-Taitano – introduced a resolution calling on the navy to “cease its use of active sonar that harms marine mammals; use passive sonar to detect the presence of marine mammals; and provide all information as declared necessary by the government of Guam in order to determine boundaries of habitat areas of beaked whales and other cetaceans”.

In a virtual public hearing in September, Senator Régine Bisco Lee noted protective agreements already exist for Hawaii and California: “We’re just asking that our land and our resources be protected in the same way”.

One ocean, two governments

While both US territories, Guam and CNMI’s distinct governance structures (larger Guam is an unincorporated territory, while CNMI is a commonwealth with is own governor and legislature) complicates protection of the beaked whale habitats.

Edwin Reyes, a government of Guam coastal management program administrator, says co-operation between Guam and CNMI is important in pursuing the common goal of ensuring the navy’s use of sonar is consistent with local policies.

Guam’s size, even small compared to Hawaii, Reyes said, means the impact of human activity is even greater and “puts a lot of strain on our resources”.

On neighbouring Saipan, part of the Marianas, Isa Arriola, chair of the group Our Common Wealth 670, said militarisation was about more than sonar and whales.

“None of this can be understood without understanding indigenous dispossession and US imperialism.”


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She argued current levels of military activity were “totally unsustainable” and said co-operation between Guam and the CNMI was imperative because “whales and dolphins aren’t restricted by red dotted lines on a map”.

Also on Saipan, CNMI representative Sheila J. Babauta said that while the military has generally been welcome in the commonwealth, the relationship is complex. She has introduced a house joint resolution calling for a halt to all destructive military training.

“If this is happening now and the training and testing is not in full force yet … imagine what’s going to happen in the future.”

And then there were two: can northern white rhinos be saved from extinction?

Fatu (left) and Najin (right) are the last two northern white rhinos left on the planet. They are both female and are a mother-daughter duo. The fate of the species now rest on assisted methods of reproduction. Photograph: Gurcharan Roopra


There are only two remaining rhinos of this species, a mother and daughter, but scientists see new hope in stem cell breakthroughs

Megan Mayhew Bergman
Thu 14 Jan 2021 THE GUARDIAN



“I watch these beautiful animals walk the path toward extinction every day,” keeper James Mwenda tells me. He’s out in the Kenyan bush, swatting flies. The anti-poaching K-9 dogs bark in the background. “I’ve watched their numbers fall from seven to two ... Working with them and watching what’s happening – it’s an emotional freefall.” He smiles, clearly resigned to the pain of bearing witness. “But I’ve dedicated my life to it.”

The window to keep the northern white rhino from going functionally extinct to fully extinct is closing fast. Were things left only to nature, the two remaining rhinos – elderly, calm Najin and her feisty 20-year-old daughter Fatu – would be the last of their kind to graze the African grasslands. After civil war, habitat loss, and aggressive poaching, scientists declared the species extinct in the wild in 2008.

Scientists now have a last-minute chance to bring the northern white rhinos back from the void, thanks to stem cell breakthroughs – but only if they can manage to work through the constraints of the pandemic.

“In 2012, there was no hope for the northern white rhino,” Dr Thomas Hildebrandt, a Berlin-based expert in wildlife reproduction, tells me. But, inspired by an interdisciplinary conference on interstellar life, Hildebrandt used grant money to forge an international consortium dedicated to saving the species. “We realized we were not yet at the end. There was, suddenly, a new horizon.”

He spearheaded “BioRescue” – a collaboration between the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, the Dvůr Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic, Italian laboratory Avantea, and Kenya’s Ol Pejeta and Kenya Wildlife Service. Hildebrandt believes increased international cooperation is the future of conservation, sharing resources without the expectation of payback. “It’s the moral thing to do,” he says.

Covid-19 thwarted BioRescue’s 2019 momentum, disrupting travel and diverting science funding. They wondered if they would be able to harvest more egg cells from Fatu and the aging Najin and get them to a laboratory in Italy during a global pandemic.

But given the cost and complexity – should they?

How we answer this question not only determines the rhinos’ future, but our ability to pioneer processes that will be called upon to preserve other species.

The stakes could not be higher. There are no longer any living northern white rhino males after the beloved Sudan was humanely euthanized at the advanced age of 45 in 2018. Ol Pejeta employs intense security measures against the constant threat of poaching: armed rangers, electric fences, the specialized K-9 unit, motion sensor cameras, and airplane surveillance.

In 2014, scientists discovered that 20-year-old Fatu cannot conceive naturally, and recently that her mother Najin has a large tumor in her abdomen next to her left ovary, potentially compromising the egg harvesting process. Najin’s hind legs are weak and veterinarians believe a pregnancy – 16 months of depleted resources for the mother and a 100kg baby – would cause debilitating stress.

Rhino caregiver James Mwenda spends his days taking care of the northern white rhinos along with 10 other dedicated rangers. Photograph: Gurcharan Roopra

In December, BioRescue harvested 14 egg cells from Fatu using an ultrasound-guided probe. Though sperm can be frozen, unfertilized eggs cannot. Thus, Fatu’s eggs are better traveled than any of us in 2021. They were overnighted via a charter flight from Nairobi to Frankfurt to Milan, then driven to the Avantea laboratory in Cremona, Italy.

Once in Italy, Fatu’s eggs were matured and combined with frozen sperm from Suni, a bull born in 1980. (Though he died of natural causes in 2014, Suni’s sperm was collected when he was still relatively young. His sperm is considered healthier than that collected from the aged Sudan.) After eight of Fatu’s eggs were fertilized, two were deemed viable, and were cryofrozen on Christmas Eve, bringing the total frozen embryo count to five.
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Though Suni is dead and Fatu cannot conceive, science has christened this couple the future of the northern white rhino.

•••

In November 2015, I joined an NGO focused on ending extreme poverty for women in Nanyuki, Kenya. Before heading to our field work further north, we drove into the Ol Pejeta Conservancy after a brief but violent rainstorm. There, I witnessed the last remnants of several species: a handful of Grevy’s zebra, a reticulated giraffe, a cheetah, and – just beyond an electric fence and armed guards - the last three northern white rhinos. Sudan was still alive.

I walked through Ol Pejeta’s rhinoceros cemetery, where a sign reads: “A Memorial to Rhinos Poached on the Conservancy Since 2004.” I stood next to a gravestone for Shemsha, a female black rhino who was “shot dead with both horns removed”. Rhino poachings are gruesome, calculated and a daily danger for both the rhinos and the rangers.
There are no longer any living northern white rhino males after the beloved Sudan was humanely euthanized in 2018

That November, I photographed Sudan and Najin in their 700 acre enclosure. Now the photos remind me of those of the last passenger pigeon named Martha, or the last Carolina Parakeets named Incas and Lady Jane. When populations dwindle, a specificity occurs. A personal connection blooms, making investment more urgent, and the loss harder to bear.

Mwenda thought he would leave his job as a keeper at Ol Pejeta after Sudan died. “No one wants to be associated with failure,” he says. “No one wants to watch a species die.”

Mwenda recalls a day three years before Sudan was euthanized. “I was standing with him out in the field, feeding him bananas. I enjoyed looking at his lovely face. I think he was feeling good. But then I looked at him and saw he was dropping tears. I know scientists will say that rhinos do not cry. But I think maybe he was feeling empty. I laid my hands on him. After that day, I decided it was not about taking selfies with rhinos and making a photo about the last of a species. It’s about making meaning. I told Sudan I would become his voice when he was gone.”

Mwenda thinks a lot about the youngest rhino, Fatu. Soon, her mother Najin’s age and tumor will lead to a decline. “Fatu is an ending,” Mwenda says. “This is her reality. She will have to bear the responsibility of being the last of her kind. She will be a symbol of political and human greed. That’s what her loneliness stands for. That is her work.”

•••

BioRescue must balance short term objectives – like extracting eggs and freezing embryos – with ambitious long-term plans.

“We plan to have a calf on the ground in two to three years,” Hildebrandt tells me.

First, scientists will plant Suni and Fatu’s embryos into a southern white rhino female, a similar rhino which diverged from the northern white rhino around a million years ago. Owuan, a sterilized southern white bull, arrived at the conservancy in early December to help indicate when the female is in heat, maximizing chances that the embryo will take.

Luckily, frozen embryos are not the only path forward. Nobel Prize-winning scientist Shinya Yamanka’s work with mice shows that skin cells can be transfigured with stem cells to create gametes – or, as the everyday reader might think of it: test tube rhinos. According to Hildebrandt, enough skin cell samples exist to create the necessary genetic diversity for a healthy future population. Over 20 to 30 years, the population would grow in surrogates and sanctuaries. One day – perhaps when Fatu and the original scientists are gone – northern white rhinos will return to Uganda, the most feasible country in the rhino’s original range.
How do we determine which species are worth saving, and how far to go?

The embryos are currently stored in a tank of liquid nitrogen kept at -196C, with a backup generator for additional security. Theoretically, the embryos will continue to be viable for thousands of years, waiting for science to catch up.

“Liquid nitrogen buys us time,” Hildebrandt says.

I think of Norway’s Svalbard Global Seed Vault, or as some call it – the Doomsday Vault. I imagine the analogous sperm and oocyte bank of endangered species, a frozen Noah’s Ark, where embryos from Fatu and Suni join embryos from vaquitas, cheetahs and Right Whales. A so-called Bio Bank.

But liquid nitrogen cannot replace what Hildebrandt calls “social knowledge”. It’s critical that a baby northern white rhino spend time with Fatu and Najin to learn the proper head position for grazing. “A southern white rhino can provide a northern white rhino milk,” Hildebrandt says. “But not species-specific knowledge.”

•••

How do we determine which species are worth saving, and how far to go? How do we realize when we’re pushing western conservation standards and consequences on other nations – like punishing hungry locals hunting animals for bush meat, or asking them to change longstanding cultural beliefs and medicinal practices? Is conservation a global concern? These are questions that will be asked increasingly as the planet hurtles through its sixth mass extinction.

I ask BioRescue if, ethically speaking, there’s a way the conservation community thinks about prioritizing spending to prevent extinction. For example, do we prioritize animals who have an important function in their ecological niche?

Hildebrandt points out that preserving the integrity of keystone species and ecosystems is a public health issue. “We may get more pandemics as systems break down,” he notes, thinking about HIV, Ebola, Covid, and ones we can’t yet imagine. Unhealthy and unnatural ecosystems release pathogens and promote the spread of disease.

“This is not just exotic conservation or a scientific exercise, like the mammoth project,” Hildebrandt explains, “but an attempt to repair a complex ecosystem. We are providing solutions for irresponsible behavior. It is much wiser to save species through responsible behavior, while we still can.”

“Think of all the other ridiculous things humans spend money on. This may be cheap in comparison,” Jan Stejskal, director of international projects for the Dvůr Králové Zoo, tells me.

“I believe in the value of the rhino himself,” Stejskal adds. “Who can ascribe value to an animal? It’s about more than subsistence. It’s deeper than that.”

“It’s existential, a new philosophy,” Hildebrandt says. “Sudan is not dead for me. What is death? He is saving his species. This is life. It’s a complex process, but it’s possible to preserve life, and give opportunities to future generations.”

Mwenda hopes that the upside of Covid’s impact on tourism is that Kenyans have been able to connect with wildlife through opportunities usually reserved for tourists. He wants Kenyans to see the northern white rhinos as not just good for tourists, but good for Africa.

“These rhinos are my family,” Mwenda says. “I spend more time with them than my own family. I truly love them.” His shift is winding down as we finish our talk. Soon, he will escort Najin and Fatu to their evening enclosure, his favorite time of day.

“Right now it sounds helpless,” Hildebrandt says. “But we have a fair chance. We just need support. The fragility of our planet is dramatic. We must act now.”

 In 2020, a small but timely library of Sikh history

Distinctive in style and scope, these three Sikh histories will fascinate any religion or history nerd.

Courtesy images

December 29, 2020

By 

Simran Jeet Singh

(RNS) — I know I speak for people everywhere when I say that 2020 has been the longest year in history. The pandemic. The U.S. presidential election. The recounts.

And yet, there are many comforts to consider. Health, for those of us who have survived or avoided the virus. Loved ones. Hope for the future.

One of the real pleasures of this year for me was enjoying three ground-breaking books of Sikh history written by Sikh women. The subject itself is consistently underrepresented and traditionally dominated by the voices of men. Each of the books published this year is distinctive in style and scope, and yet any religion or history nerd can enjoy all three.

The Wheat Fields Still Whisper: Faith, Gender, and Activism in the Punjab Conflict
By Mallika Kaur

As I write, Indian farmers are leading a historic protest on the streets of New Delhi, opposing new agricultural laws that benefit large corporations and harm small farmers. Most analyses of the situation remain limited to the immediate issues, but, as with most uprisings, there is far more to it than meets the eye.

Kaur’s “The Wheat Fields Still Whisper” unlocks the complexities behind the current crisis. She explains why much of the movement is being led and driven by Punjabi Sikhs, guiding us through the neglect, abuses, resistance and resilience that the Punjab’s Sikh population has withstood in the immediate past decades to deliver an understanding of what’s going on in India right now.

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RELATED: Farmers’ protests against India’s new agriculture laws follow long Sikh tradition

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Kaur’s vehicles are three of Punjab’s inspirational human rights defenders: Baljit Kaur, Justice Ajit Singh Bains, and Inderjit Singh Jaijee. Their relative privilege has allowed them to support their community in violent conflict, and their life stories pull in dozens of other everyday heroes who haven’t been written about thus far, or in this detail.

She tells the story beautifully as well, mixing incisive analysis with prose that makes it easy for the reader to not only understand what is happening, but to empathize with those who are going through it. It’s a masterful work of contemporary history and a joy for anyone interested in discovering the Punjabi Sikh community and their psyche.

Royals and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire
By Priya Atwal

Perhaps my favorite period in Sikh history is the time from the late 1400s to the early 1700s, when the 10 Gurus lived. But a close second is the period of autonomous rule known as the time of the Sikh Empire. The glorious reign began when Maharaja Ranjit Singh wrested control of Punjab from the Mughal overlords in the late 18th century. Sikh rule expanded rapidly, stretching from Tibet to Afghanistan before eventually being felled by the British just before the 20th century dawned.

Despite its storied past, the Sikh Empire is little mentioned today. Priya Atwal’s Royals and Rebels not only restores this period to historical memory but also gives it dignity.

Atwal’s splendid historical scholarship brings forward voices and stories that have been marginalized in previous tellings, delivering a fascinating story full of women and even children whose contributions are as essential as any male ruler. But it’s no slow crawl through sociological data: Atwal’s is a chronicle of politics, royalty, family and intrigue with all the makings of a series for Masterpiece Theater.

The First Sikh: The Life and Legacy of Guru Nanak
Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh

For decades, Kaur Singh has been the preeminent feminist writer in Sikh studies — stress on writer: Though an academic historian, she leans into her poetic sense, an ability that makes her latest book, “The First Sikh,” an enchanting account of the life and legacy of Guru Nanak, the founder and first guru of the Sikh tradition and songster-poet himself.

Instead of the typically dry prose of academic historical writing, Singh fuses translations of first-hand testimony, oral histories and Guru Nanak’s own writings to produce the best and most accessible modern account of Guru Nanak’s worldview and teachings.

Opinion

What Christians can learn from Indian Sikh farmers’ desperate protests

The protesters’ cause and community have shown a way for people of all faiths to go forward in a post-pandemic world.  

Indian farmers participate in a tractor rally in a protest against new farm laws at Ghaziabad, on the outskirts of New Delhi, on Jan. 7, 2021. India’s top court temporarily put on hold the implementation of new agricultural laws and ordered the formation of an independent committee of experts to negotiate with farmers who have been protesting against the legislation. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri, File)

January 13, 2021

By 

Joseph D'Souza

(RNS) — For months, farmers in India have been

Almost immediately, farmers in Punjab, many of them Sikhs, began protesting locally, but in November, hundreds of thousands of farmers surrounded New Delhi in the largest mass protest India has seen in decades. Although these protests are largely leaderless, millions of farmers across the nation are united in their struggle for human dignity.

What can we learn from the protesters?

Humans have a right to a dignified livelihood. 

Globalization and the so-called market economy — which is built upon making money with money, not generating wealth with labor — have destroyed the livelihoods of numerous working-class people around the world. In India, globalization has wreaked havoc on the masses.

One effect has been to force Indian farming communities, which comprise 70% of India’s people, to grow nonessential crops for unsustainable compensation. In the state of Bihar, where the new agriculture laws were implemented, many farmers have become destitute. The dynamics that are starving farmers are also worsening India’s already dire water crisis.

Every person desires the right to dignified labor and compensation, the right to which was given to humanity by God, as recorded in Genesis:

And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ …The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

Though human work eventually became corrupted by the sin of the first man and woman, work gives us a sense of worth and purpose. 

Indian farmers, created in the image of God, take pride in their profession. They know their work is neither a low kind of labor nor anything to be ashamed of. Their protests declare they will not be the servants of those who would try to take advantage of them.

Humans have a right to property. 

One of the most precious resources God has given humanity is land. Genesis makes clear that God placed the first people in a garden and not in a desert.

Yet, the new agriculture laws in India are propounded by a misplaced philosophy that holds that the ultimate value in life is profit, regardless of consequences and methods. India is not against global trade, but this toxic form of globalism negates the human right to property and home. 

Indian farmers protesting new agriculture laws hold a meeting at the Delhi-Haryana state border on Nov. 30, 2020. While trying to march toward New Delhi, the farmers, using their tractors, have cleared concrete blockades, walls of shipping containers and horizontally parked trucks after police had set them up as barricades and dug trenches on highways to block roads leading to the capital. (AP Photo/Rishi Lekhi)

Farmers in the state of Punjab are aware the agriculture laws will end up depriving them of the little land they have for farming and survival, even if it’s just a few acres. They know they will eventually have to lease their land to wealthy corporations, which will then produce what they want on the land and determine the prices the farmer will be paid, even as the companies sell their produce for higher prices in local and international markets. 

Many farmers across India bear an intolerable burden of loans, and hundreds of thousands are dying by suicide because they are unable to repay them. Their families become impoverished and other exploitation then begins to take place.

Human dignity demands doing away with racial, caste and religious divides. 

Many of the farmers who are protesting the agriculture laws are Sikhs living in Punjab. Sikhism is a monotheistic religion that originated in Punjab in the 15th century. Sikhs highly value their relationship with their holy book and their relationships with others.

Sikhs also believe people of all faiths have access to God and Sikhs are proponents of freedom of religion. They are against all forms of societal hierarchies. Although there are a significant number of Dalit Sikhs who are conscious of their low-caste status, there are not the same kind of atrocities, rapes and attacks against Dalit Sikh women as there are against other women in India. 

In images of the protests in the news and on social media, farmers of all faiths and castes can be seen joining together in their struggle. Many Sikh women who are farmers are now in the streets protesting alongside their husbands and others. Young girls are also on the roads in biting cold weather.

My heart aches for a similar expression of unity among Christians. Our tendency to fight among ourselves does not make our faith attractive. Do we really think our fights over nonessential doctrines of faith will mean anything in the kingdom of God or our love?

The Sikh “langar” meal is intended to bring people together. 

The Sikh practice of “langar” has also precipitated the most outstanding examples of charity and sustenance for the protesting farmers, whether they are Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims or Christians, which has built a community around food to sustain the protesters.

Sikh men and women have made chapatis, pizzas and sweets on the streets to feed hundreds of thousands of protestors for free, with donations from Sikh villages and temples.

Originally a Persian word, “langar” translates as “an almshouse” or “a place for the poor and needy.” In the Sikh tradition, it refers to a community kitchen, where everyone in need is provided with food, irrespective of caste, class, religion and gender.

These acts of immense generosity are not lost on India’s people. This is not foreign-funded aid but personal contributions from neighbor to neighbor.

We Christians observe Communion without practicing the community meal. We should, like the protesters, be eating together as brothers and sisters.

As we see in Scripture, Jesus regularly ate meals with his disciples. Jesus instituted the Holy Communion around the Last Supper. After his ascension, believers continued to gather to break bread. It is the basis of our worship.

Perhaps it is time for us to rethink how we do church in the post-COVID-19 world. The pandemic has shown us the incredible needs of children, women and men, regardless of faith and caste. The post-COVID world has shown us the incredible need for human community, which digital communities cannot replace.

We have come through a tough year. May we learn from this great struggle for human dignity in India, and may this be the year where we strive to heal what has been broken.   

(The Most Rev. Joseph D’Souza is the founder of Dignity Freedom Network, archbishop of the Anglican Good Shepherd Church of India and president of the All India Christian Council. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

 

Pakistan attempts to prosecute Ahmadi US citizens for digital blasphemy

In 2016, Pakistan enacted digital regulations that allow authorities to block online content in the 'interest of the glory of Islam.'

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community website TrueIslam.com. Screengrab

January 13, 2021

By 

Aysha Khan

(RNS) — Pakistani authorities have asked leaders of the American Ahmadiyya Muslim community to take down its official website, claiming that the U.S.-based site violates Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws and new cybercrime regulations.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said in a legal notice issued on Dec. 24 to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA’s spokesmen, Amjad Mahmood Khan and Harris Zafar, that failure to remove the website TrueIslam.com would result in fines of up to $3.14 million or criminal sanctions, including possible 10-year-prison sentences.

“This is a new frontier in persecution of Ahmadi Muslims in the digital space,” said Khan, a lawyer in Los Angeles who has testified before Congress about blasphemy and religious freedom. “Pakistan wants to impose its abominable blasphemy laws on the whole world by targeting U.S. citizens and U.S. websites.”

Brad Adams, who heads Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division, said “censoring Ahmadis and using blasphemy laws to airbrush them from Pakistani society” is part of the “widespread and rampant discrimination and social exclusion” Ahmadis face in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, home to about 4 million Ahmadis, the constitution and penal code declare members of the Ahmadiyya sect non-Muslims and impose harsh penalties — including death — for those who call themselves Muslims or publicly engage in religious activities. Ahmadis accepts the sect’s 19th-century founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, as the messiah and as a subordinate prophet to the Prophet Muhammad, a belief many Muslims consider blasphemous.

“This is a malicious attempt to chill free speech and expression by a Muslim American website,” attorney Brett Williamson of O’Melveny & Myers, which is representing TrueIslam.com pro bono, wrote in a letter to PTA on Monday (Jan. 11).

He described the takedown notice as “legally infirm, but also patently absurd in its reach.”

The website is registered and hosted in the U.S. and is aimed at an American audience. Zafar and Khan are both U.S. citizens and the threat of extradition is virtually nil, but both have relatives in Pakistan and say penalties would make it impossible to travel there.

Law professor Arturo Carrillo, who directs George Washington University Law School’s Global Internet Freedom Project, said this case shows that the Pakistan government is now using its controversial cybercrime laws in an effort “to repress online expression and content emanating from outside the country’s borders because the government has deemed it to be undesirable and unlawful.”

Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA spokesmen Amjad Mahmood Khan, left, and Harris Zafar. Photos via Twitter

PTA officials did not respond to requests for comment.

In 2016, Pakistan enacted digital regulations that allowed authorities to block online content in the “interest of the glory of Islam.” Last year, the government passed blanket censorship laws that would allow authorities to order tech companies to remove digital pornography, blasphemy and anti-state content, drawing ire from Google, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms.

But human rights experts say the takedown notices also come amid increased targeting of Ahmadis’ online religious expression. 

One day after issuing the takedown notice to TrueIslam.com, PTA also sent notices to Google and Wikipedia, threatening penalties and prosecution if the platforms failed to remove “sacrilegious content” associated with the Ahmadi sect’s beliefs.

PTA said it was responding to complaints regarding an “unauthentic” Ahmadi translation of the Quran on the Google Play Store; “misleading” search results that returned the Ahmadi leader Mirza Masroor Ahmad’s name when the term “Khalifa (caliph) of Islam” was searched; and “deceitful” Wikipedia articles that suggested that the Ahmadi caliph is Muslim.

Officials also demanded that all internet service providers serving Pakistan block content from Ahmadi websites, including TrueIslam.com, the English-language magazine Al Hakam and the international satellite TV network MTA. 

Five of Pakistan’s top Ahmadi leaders have also had cases filed against them in recent weeks over religious activity on WhatsApp, Khan told Religion News Service.

Earlier in December, Khan told a hearing of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom that extremists in Pakistan were intent on using the country’s cyber crime statutes to initiate blasphemy cases against Ahmadis.

But this latest action, Khan told Religion News Service, is “a very slippery slope in terms of what this could mean for other minorities. We’re the canaries in the coal mine. This would mean any potential website or digital content that is quote-unquote blasphemous can be the subject of criminal prosecution.”

USCIRF Commissioner Johnnie Moore described the takedown notices as “recklessly brazen” and said he expected fierce bipartisan condemnation from both the Trump and Biden administrations.

“Surely, the Pakistani government doesn’t intend on threatening American citizens within the United States?” Moore asked. “Surely, Prime Minister Imran Khan doesn’t want this controversy, now?”

Melania Trump celebrates her 'Be Best' cyberbullying campaign, Twitter users urge her to 'Be Gone' 

NZ Herald

As turmoil continues in the US, the current First Lady of the country, Melania Trump, has taken to Twitter to celebrate her cyberbullying campaign "Be Best" — but she was met with backlash, as Twitter users pointed out the legacy of her role.

In a video posted to Twitter, Melania begged Americans to "give a voice to our Nation's children & the issues that impact their lives".

"It's the values & spirit of the American people that inspired Be Best," she wrote in the post.

The post was met with swift backlash as users pointed out her husband, Donald Trump, has been the perpetrator of cyberbullying himself, among other thing

"What legacy? Your husband demonstrated to children all over America that bullying wasn't just okay, it was something the President of the United States does. He modeled [sic] childish temper tantrums and insults for four years. That's your legacy, lady," one Twitter user responded.

"Melania Trump is married to one of the nastiest bullies on the planet and was an active participant in the incredibly racist birther movement against Obama. #BeBest was nothing more than a smokescreen. Be better, Melania. Be much better," another person said.

A few Twitter users took the opportunity to point out that Melania's own legacy is not the best one, either.

A few Twitter users opted for responding to Melania's #BeBest tweet with a different hashtag: #BeGone.

I WANT TO SMOTHER DEMOCRACY 

WITH MY PILLOW

Donald Trump ally Michael Lindell reveals notes urging 'martial law'
15 Jan, 2021 

My Pillow CEO Michael Lindell is seen outside the door of the West Wing at the White House with his notes. Photo / Getty Images

By: Phoebe Loomes

A close adviser to US President Donald Trump has been spotted at the White House clutching a piece of paper that appeared to urge the most powerful man in the world to invoke "martial law".

Michael Lindell, the founder and CEO of MyPillow, was photographed outside the West Wing clutching a typed memo, partially concealed by a fold. However, some of what was written on the memo was visible.

Some of the document is visible. Photo / Twitter: Jabin Botsford

"…nsurrection Act now as a result of the assault on the… martial law if necessary upon the first hint of any… Foreign interference in the election. Trigger emergency powers... Make clear this is China/Iran... used domestic actors".

Also visible on the memo are the names Sidney Powell, a lawyer who worked on Trump's legal campaign to overturn the election result, and Bill Olson, a Florida Republican who lost in the November election.

The document also appears to advise Trump to "move Kash Patel to CIA Acting". Patel is currently the Acting US Secretary of Defence.

Lindell is a strong ally of the president, and remained a vocal supporter in the wake of the siege at the Capitol last week, which killed five people including a Capitol police officer.
 

MyPillow CEO Michael Lindell reveals his notes outside the White House. Photo / Twitter: Jabin Botsford

His bedding company, MyPillow, launched an online offer where buyers could receive a discount by entering the phrase "FightForTrump" at the checkout.

The discount was available on the day of the siege at the Capitol, where Lindell was at the rally, according to the New York Times.

Lindell standing outside the White House. Photo / Twitter: Jabin Botsford

After the deadly riot, Lindell appeared on conservative cable news channel Newsmax and referred to what had transpired as "very peaceful".

Trump's impeachment in the House of Representatives for inciting the insurrection now heads to a Senate trial, which will not begin until Biden is sworn in as the new president.

While he was once expected to leave office as the most powerful voice in his party and the leading contender for its 2024 nomination, Trump has been shunned by much of the party over his response the violence.

Trump intends to leave Washington DC next Wednesday morning (Thursday NZT), just before President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration the following day, to begin his post-presidential life in Florida.