This thesis contends that the theme of persecution plays a vital role in the argument of Paul's letter to the Galatians. Particularly, this thesis argues that suffering for the cross is seen as a mark of identity and a sign of destiny for those who follow the crucified Messiah. In regard to identity, suffering is shown to be a badge that demarcates Paul's Gentile audience as children of Abraham and children of God (i.e. the “Israel of God”) in conformity with genuine Christian identity, represented chiefly by Paul himself through solidarity with the cross. In regard to destiny, those who are marked out by suffering for the cross will receive the future inheritance, as promised to Abraham, and be vindicated at the eschatological judgment. The relationship of suffering for the cross to Christian identity and destiny is shown to parallel other such markers like possession of the Spirit and justification by faith. This thesis proposes further that Paul derives his understanding regarding the importance of suffering from his wider reading of Isaiah, particularly chapters 49–54, which Paul believes prefigures the death of the Messiah, his own Gentile mission and the opposition to it, as well as the status of his Gentile converts as servants of the Messiah. The influence of Isaiah is demonstrated especially in Paul's paradigmatic self-presentation in the autobiographical section of the letter (Gal. 1–2), the subsequent summons to imitation (4.12–20), and the famous allegory where Paul explicitly cites Isa. 54.1. In this thesis it is demonstrated that all of these themes and emphases in Galatians related to persecution and suffering are utilized for the particular crisis in Galatia regarding the promotion of circumcision, which this thesis suggests is promoted aggressively. It is proposed, therefore, that Paul has utilized the theme of persecution with its Messianic and Isaianic influences to engage the way that receiving circumcision provides a means of avoiding and alleviating social tension and pressure. To that end suffering for the cross is upheld by Paul as a mark of identity and a sign of destiny to highlight the fact that receiving circumcision will lead to apostasy since Paul understands it to be a rejection of the Messiah and his cross.

I länder som Afghanistan och Somalia är kvinnor rättsligt underordnade män och har sällan möjlighet att erhålla statligt skydd mot könsrelaterad förföljelse. I dessa länder är kvinnors skydd och överlevnad i stor utsträckning beroende av att det i sitt hemland har tillgång till ett manligt nätverk. En kvinna som saknar ett manligt nätverk i hemlandet löper stor risk att utsättas för könsrelaterad förföljelse vid ett återvändande till hemlandet. Enligt den svenska utlänningslagen beaktas kön som en förföljelsegrund som ska kunna grunda rätt till uppehållstillstånd i Sverige. Trots den svenska lagbestämmelsen nekas kvinnor som åberopat skyddsgrunden könsrelaterad förföljelse sin rätt till asyl i Sverige. I vissa fall avslås ansökan med hänvisning till att kvinnan vid ett återvändande ska vända sig till manligt nätverk för skydd mot könsrelaterad förföljelse.                                                                         Syftet med uppsatsen är att genomföra en kritisk analys av Migrationsverkets och Migrationsdomstolens praxis att hänvisa kvinnliga asylsökande till manligt nätverk i hemlandet.  För att uppnå studiens syfte har jag studerat asylbeslut som avser kvinnor från Somalia och Afghanistan. Studien visar på att kvinnors tillgång respektive avsaknad av manligt nätverk i hemlandet har betydelse för rättsinsatsernas skyddsbedömning. Min ambition med denna framställning är att i dialog med postkolonial teori kring den subalterna kvinnans dubbelutsatthet och rättighetsdiskursens begränsade effekt att motverka diskriminering problematisera rättsinstansernas hänvisning till det manliga nätverket. / In countries such as Afghanistan and Somalia, women are legally subordinate to men. Due to womens subordinated role, women are depended on their access to a male network in order to secure their protection and survival in their home country. An asylum seeking women without a male network is at high risk of being subjected to gender related persecution when being sent her country of origin.  The Swedish Aliens Act Utlänningslag states that fear of gender-based persecution is considered as a base for asylum claim. However, it has shown that asylum seeking women claiming fear of gender-related persecution are denied their right to asylum in Sweden. In some cases the Swedish Migration Board direct the applicant to seek protection within her male network in the applicant’s country.                The aim of this thesis is to conduct a critical analysis of the Swedish Migration Board and Migration Court's practice of referring female asylum seekers to their "male network". I have studied asylum decisions made by Swedish Migration Board and Migration Court's regarding women from Somalia and Afghanistan. The study shows that women's access and lack of male network in their country of origin is crucial for the Swedish judicial assessments in establishing whether the women is considered to be in need of protection. My goal with this study is to problematize this issue by implementing a postcolonial theory of the subaltern women’s two folded oppression and the limited effect of the legal discourse to eliminate discrimination.

Refugee definition in international law The definition of the term "refugee" in international law is a very wide issue which can be conceived from many different points of view. One of the best ways how to deal with it is to focus on only one part of the generally most widely accepted definition of a refugee. This is the definition according to the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. According to this document a refugee is a person who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country..." This definition is more than fifty years old and still actual. It has been adopted in response to the Second World War and the mass refugee flood. The missing interpretation of the term "persecution", which is the fundamental element of the Geneva Convention refugee definition, is still one of the biggest problems of refugee law. The aim of my thesis is to find out whether the missing definition of the term "persecution" is really such a serious imperfection as it is brought out sometimes. I try to answer this question through researching the...

Legal forms of political persecution in the Czechoslovak Republic in the period of communist totalitarian régime This thesis Legal forms of political persecution in the Czechoslovak Republic in the period of communist totalitarian régime is divided into five chapters. In the theoretical part of the thesis (chapter No. 1) the author defines examined period to be between years 1948-1960, defines political persecution as a legal term and desribes the ideological basis of communist law. In the end of this chapter there is a categorisation of legal forms of political persecution that is reflected in the core part of this work. In the second chapter author depicts causes of political persecution in the Czechoslovak Republic in the period of communist totalitarian régime that are based on legal and political developement between years 1945 and 1948. In the scope of this chapter author also offers a general characteristics of the period of so called Third republic. Constitutional developement in the Czechoslovak Republic after second world war and the system of Popular Front of Czechs and Slovaks are also depicted here. This chapter also includes assessment of the constitutional system of the Czechoslovak Republic between years 1948 and 1960 and of the political situation in the years 1945-1948. The...

This thesis describes the formation of religious communities (orders, congregations) and their development in the world and in our country. They are described with a view to their charitable activities. It further deals with the persecution of the church in general and the persecution and the life of the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Charles Borromeo with regard to Prague in the period of 1945-1989. This section is divided into six particular periods according to the importance of the influence of the state on the activities of the church and the Congregation. Each of these periods is divided into two parts. The first part illustrates the development of the relationship between the state and the church generally. The second part describes the relationship between the state and womens` orders and with the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Charles Borromeo in particular. The thesis utilizes relevant literature and archives. Archival documents come from the National Archives in Prague, mostly from the funds of the State Agency for Religious Affairs, the Military Historical Archives and the archives of the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Charles Borromeo in Prague. The thesis is closed with some thoughts of the role of religious communities in today's world. Key words...

The aim of the thesis was to introduce the life and work of Rudolf Dušek SJ, so far captured only through shorter interviews, and to use the story of his life as a case study of the persecution of religious orders and congregations during two totalitarian regimes in Czechoslovakia in the twentieth century. These aims have been fulfilled. The research for this thesis revealed previously unknown facts and details, acquaintances and relatives have written down their memories of Rudolf Dušek, and a great deal of material has been discovered in the archives of the Czech province of the Jesuit order. The thesis is thus the most detailed existing account of the life, works, and thought of Rudolf Dušek. In the future, it could be published in expanded form for the benefit of friends and family and the Jesuit order, possibly offered for publication to one of Christian publishing houses in the Czech Republic.

Plusieurs patients du cancer au Cameroun pensent que leur état résulte d’une attaque de sorcellerie. Les auteurs en contexte africain attribuent cette thématique persécutrice au caractère collectiviste de la société qui fait de l’individu, en cas de maladie, la scène d’expression d’un conflit interpersonnel et communautaire. Nous tentons de montrer qu’au-delà de cet enjeu groupal, le vécu de persécution et son expression remplissent une fonction narcissique au niveau individuel. Le thème de la persécution chez la plupart de ces patients constitue un déni de la maladie, un moyen d’inhibition de l’angoisse de mort afférent à celle-ci, une expression du sentiment de toute puissance et d’immortalité caractéristique du narcissisme. Ainsi, il s’accompagne d’une hypertrophie du moi du sujet, lequel se croît envié par une personne de la génération parentale dans une lutte œdipienne mais parfois aussi de la même génération. Il s’agirait en réalité d’une forte réaction au vécu de catastrophe narcissique suscitée par le cancer.Le vécu et l’expression du thème de la persécution est aussi la recherche d’une protection contre la détresse liée au cancer par une fuite dans l’imaginaire observée chez les malades parfois même en milieu occidental. Ce qui favorise une richesse imaginaire en contradiction avec l’idée de démentalisation des malades somatiques soutenue par l’école psychosomatique de Paris notamment. Mais les patients sont débordés par cet imaginaire, ce qui leur ôte l’aptitude de l’élaboration mentale, et ne débouche pas sur une mentalisation et une symbolisation langagière. Par ailleurs, le vécu et l’expression du thème de la persécution s’est révélé être un moyen d’affirmation subjective pour des sujets aux prises avec des alliances narcissiques aliénantes. / Several cancer patients in Cameroon think that their sickness is the outcome of a witchcraft attack. Authors in the African context ascribe the theme of persecution to the collectivist character of the society that make the individual, in case of illness, the scene of expression of an interpersonal and community conflict. We try to show that beyond that goupal stakes, the experience and the feeling of persecution fulfils a narcissistic function at the individual level. The theme of persecution among most of these patients is a denial of the sickness, a mean of inhibition of anguish of death related to it, an expression of the feeling of omnipotence and immortality proper to narcissism. Thus, it is accompanied of an ego hypertrophy, which believes to be envied by a person of the parental generation in an Oedipian fight, but at times also with somebody of the same generation. It would be in reality a strong reaction to an experience of catastrophe provoked by cancer. The feeling and expression of the theme of persecution is also a search for a protection against the distress related to cancer by a escape in the imaginary observed among the patients even in the western milieu. This favors an imaginary affluence in contradiction with the idea of deficit of mentalising of somatic patients supported by Ecole psychosomatique de Paris. But these patients are overwhelmed by this imaginary richness, and this deprives them from the mental elaboration ability, and doesn’t lead to a mentalising and language symbolization. Moreover, the feeling and expression of the theme of persecution is also a mean of subjective affirmation for subjects confronted to alienating narcissistic alliances.

Daily event data on a group of sub-Saharan African nations from 1975 to 1982 are analyzed to determine the nature of the short term relationship between acts of regime repression and dissident reaction. The results support the Relative Deprivation prediction of an "Inverted U" relationship between acts of repression and acts of Turmoil. Conversely, the concurrence of "U-shape" and "Negative Linear" relationships between repression and acts of Internal War suggest that a mixture of frustration-aggression and cost-benefit analysis may affect dissident behaviour. Moreover, the simultaneous strength of the deprivation indicators and the weakness of the mobilization indicators support the conclusion that a synthesis of the two main approaches to the study of social movement behaviour is in order.

This thesis examines the violent punishments undergone by various martyrs in Prudentius’ Peristephanon. In particular, it explores how the poet’s depiction of this violence and suffering might affect readers of the collection. Four poems (poems II, III, IX and XI) are studied from the point of view of the emotions they are likely to evoke in the reader. The question of whether different types of readers might undergo different emotional experiences while reading these poems arises as a result of the proposed study. The first chapter of this thesis thus examines the nature of emotions, focussing on their sources and composition. This examination suggests that an individual’s emotional experience can be influenced both by biological factors and by social and cultural environment. With this in mind, an examination follows of various aspects of Roman society and culture which were likely to influence the ways in which its citizens, in particular, reacted to the violent scenes in the poems. We will also consider how our own specific cultural milieu may influence modern readers to sometimes react differently to Roman readers. In particular, it is proposed that most readers of the Peristephanon will react with varying shades of disgust and horror. These two emotions are thus used as a framework for discussing reader reactions to the poems. Disgust and horror are understood in a very broad sense, allowing for different varieties of these emotions, which at times even give rise to contradiction and paradox. The remaining chapters of the thesis are devoted to examinations of the four chosen poems which explore the various ways in which they might evoke horror and disgust among both Roman and modern readers. Often, there is considerable overlap between these two groups. These examinations provide a way of understanding why these poems are so striking, and have impacted so strongly on readers through the ages. / Thesis (M.A.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 2009

High Fantasy is extremely popular, with publication and sales of High Fantasy titles outnumbering Science Fiction for thirty years, yet Fantasy is less respected by reviewers of the Speculative Fiction genre. One reason for this is that High Fantasy often fails to adequately address culturally or politically significant issues. Respected Science Fiction writers, such as Octavia Butler, on the other hand, use the issues such as discrimination and persecution on the basis of race and gender. In my exegesis I explore the ways in which High Fantasy has explored the problems of discrimination and persecution. In my novel, The T'En Exiles, I create a world populated by differently abled races. The ' ordinary ' people resent and fear the gifted people, who are less numerous and marginalised. Among the gifted there are those who are aware of mystical powers and those who can manipulate them; because of this a strict hierarchy has evolved. There is also a divide between the genders because the power of the females is expressed differently to that of the males. In The T'En Exiles I use the device of cognitive estrangement, a technique common in both Fantasy and Science Fiction, to examine discrimination and persecution. In particular in terms of how it affects individuals. In the exegesis I examine the ways in which issues of discrimination and persecution are dealt with in contemporary High Fantasy and Science Fiction, and the ways in which a more comprehensive and sensitive treatment of these issues in High Fantasy can address some concerns about the marginalisation of the sub-genre.