How jobseekers from Africa are being tricked into slavery in Asia’s cyberscam compounds

He was set to work every day for the next three months, forced to send thousands of messages from fake social-media profiles, posing as a rich American investor to swindle US real estate agents into cryptocurrency scams. 

When he failed to reach daily targets, he was beaten, locked inside a freezing-cold room and deprived of food for up to two days. He prayed he would avoid the electric shocks and sexual torture others endured at the hands of a Chinese criminal gang that ran the centre...

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/sep/09/cyberslavery-kenya-uganda-ethiopia-southeast-asia-myanmar-scam-centres

 

(Another) Extraordinary Update on Abrego Garcia

Abrego Garcia filed suit against the Trump Administration as they plot to deport him to Uganda in retribution

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbvpdXpTjKk

FURIOUS Judge Gives CEASE AND DESIST to Trump

A federal judge on Monday said the Trump regime is “absolutely forbidden” from removing mistakenly deported man Kilmar Abrego Garcia from the U.S., for now. Judge Paula Xinis blocked Abrego Garcia’s deportation to Uganda until she can hold a hearing to determine whether the administration will let him contest his removal to the third country. The bid to deport him comes just 3 days after he was freed from custody in a criminal case filed against him in federal court in Tennessee. He filed suit after he was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody Monday when he reported for a check-in at ICE’s Baltimore field office.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCAoTD_QfuE

 

Telling Jefferson Lies: Consequences of Christian Nationalism (Warren Throckmorton)

In general terms, I believe Christian nationalism is bad history, bad politics, and bad religion. In prior episodes, I have concentrated on the bad history. In this segment and the next, I focus mainly on the bad politics. Around the world, religious nationalism is associated with state sponsored violence against citizens, use of force to take political control, erosion of the separation of church and state, degrading of democratic principles and attacks on minority rights. I believe Christian nationalism is also bad for Christianity which I will examine in the next episode.

Note: I did not mention that long time Fellowship leader Doug Coe passed away in 2017. I believe that explains some of the shifting within the Fellowship. Having said that, there always was an element within that group which didn't make a strong commitment to human rights.

Resources mentioned: 

• The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet. 
• The Family, Netflix documentary, by Jeff Sharlet. 
• Charismatic Revival Fury, podcast by Matthew Taylor, produced by Brad Onishi 

Expert guests this segment: 

• Dartmouth College historian and author Randall Balmer,
•  Communications director at Americans United for the Separation of Church and State Rob Boston,  
• Louisville pastor and social worker Joel Bowman, Mount St Mary's University philosophy instructor Scott Coley, 
• Grove City College social work associate professor Jennifer Hollenberger, 
• historian Troy Jackson, 
• journalist Jonathan Larsen, author and journalist Katherine Stewart, 
• religion scholar with the Institute for Islamic, 
• Christian and Jewish Studies Matthew Taylor, 
• and historian and author Jemar Tisby. 

Interview: 

https://www.podbean.com/ew/dir-337hg-1e2c9e63

Ugandan president signs one of the world's harshest anti-LGBTQ bills into law | CNN

The bill includes the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality' which includes sex with a minor, having sex while HIV positive and incest. 

The bill criminalizes sex education for the gay community and makes it illegal not to expose what it calls perpetrators of aggravated homosexuality to the police. It calls for "rehabilitation"-- widely discredited conversion therapy -- for gay offenders...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/29/africa/museveni-assents-homosexuality-bill-intl/index.html

‘We Will Hunt You’: Ugandans Flee Ahead of Harsh Anti-Gay Law - The New York Times

"They kept saying, 'We will hunt you. You gays should be killed. We will slaughter you,'" he said. "There was no option but to leave."… 

The president congratulated lawmakers and religious leaders on what he called their "strong stand" against L.G.B.T.Q. people. 

It is good that you rejected the pressure from the imperials," he said, a reference to Western countries, in footage released by the public broadcaster. He spoke hours after the European Parliament denounced the bill…

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/world/africa/uganda-anti-gay-bill-lgbtq.html

Ugandan president calls on Africa to ‘save the world from homosexuality’ | Global development | The Guardian

The bill, which imposes the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality" and life imprisonment for "recruitment, promotion and funding" of same-sex "activities", has been widely criticised internationally, with the UN high commissioner for human rights urging the president not to sign it...

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/apr/03/ugandan-president-calls-on-africa-to-save-the-world-from-homosexuality

LGBTQ+ groups face crackdowns in Uganda as environment turns hostile | Global development | The Guardian

"It is part of a deliberate, calculated, very systematic move by groups within government, parliament and the conservative evangelicals trying to erase the LGBTQ+ community," said Mugisha...

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/mar/14/lgbtq-crackdowns-uganda-environment-hostile

‘It was a torture chamber’: Ugandans abducted in vicious crackdown | Uganda | The Guardian

Victims and relatives describe suffering as repression intensifies under Yoweri Museveni

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/22/torture-abducted-uganda-crackdown-museveni

Archbishop of Uganda urges women to use contraception during lockdown

The new archbishop of Uganda has become the first primate of the country’s Anglican church to embrace the use of modern contraceptives after urging women to be “very careful” to avoid getting pregnant during the Covid-19 lockdown. The ninth archbishop of the church of Uganda, Stephen Kazimba Mugalu, said in a televised Sunday sermon he is “really concerned” that many women will get pregnant during the nationwide shutdown. On Tuesday, President Yoweri Museveni extended the initial 14-day lockdown for a further three weeks.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/18/archbishop-of-uganda-urges-women-to-use-contraception-during-lockdown

Uganda arrested 16 LGBTQ activists. Here’s where else gay rights are a battleground in the world. - The Washington Post

This week Ugandan police arrested 16 LGBTQ activists on charges of gay sex — which is punishable by life imprisonment. Police arrested them at the sexual health organization where they worked and lived and cited condoms, lubricants and anti-HIV medicines found there as evidence of a crime.....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/10/26/uganda-arrested-lgbtq-activists-heres-where-else-gay-rights-are-battleground-world/

Witch doctors in Uganda sacrificing children in bid to end drought, report says | Fox News

Officials in Uganda say the number of human sacrifices are on the rise, as the East African country battles its worst drought in more than half a century. More than 11 million people are facing food insecurity and more than 1.6 million are on the brink of famine....
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/09/26/witch-doctors-in-uganda-sacrificing-children-in-bid-to-end-drought-report-says.html

PHOTOS: Here's What Climate Change Looks Like To Uganda's Coffee Farmers

Tim McDonnell · Jun 6, 2017 If you've ever bought coffee labeled "Uganda" and wondered what life is like in that faraway place where the beans were grown, now's your chance to see how climate change has affected the lives of Ugandan coffee farmers — through their own eyes.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/06/06/531580368/photos-here-s-what-climate-change-looks-like-to-uganda-s-coffee-farmers

Uganda’s LGBT Community Is Facing A New Wave Of Government Oppression

Since 2014, when Uganda’s Constitutional Court overturned the country’s anti-homosexuality law, the political fate of LGBT Ugandans has been somewhat stagnant. A government crackdown on recent Pride Uganda celebrations demonstrates, however, that the overall climate in the country has not improved and may be facing another backlash.

The demise of the law originally pitched as a “Kill The Gays” bill — until punishments for homosexuality were reduced to life sentences in prison — did not trigger immediate progress. Last November, the Ugandan Parliament passed the Non-Governmental Organizations Act, which requires all NGOs to apply for permits to operate and gives the government the power to jail the leaders of organizations that they determine go “against public interests.” This posed a new threat to organizations like Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), though so far, SMUG and similar organizations have continued to operate. Indeed, Pride Uganda was set to hold many big events starting in early August....
https://thinkprogress.org/ugandas-lgbt-community-is-facing-a-new-wave-of-government-oppression-3fc61d095151#.7iae7qjyk