Free Republic

Ukraine has had a tortured political existence as an independent nation, but it has respected freedom of conscience. In 2014 the Orthodox Church, both the Moscow and the Kiev patriachates, made up more than half of the religious organizations in both Donetsk and Luhansk. But there was an abundance of other faiths and churches. For the first time in decades, people enjoyed liberty in faith. However, that changed when the separatists took control. They sought to eliminate dissent, any hint of backing for the Kiev government. And they claimed that the Russian Orthodox Church had been oppressed, encouraging creation of...

A story about the times we live in, and assumptions we can make in our current political climate. The news tip a few days ago said: “Hi. Suddenly there is a Confederate flag flying in front of a house in my Greenwood neighborhood. It is at the north-east corner of 92nd and Palatine, just a block west of 92nd and Greenwood Ave N. I would love to know what this ‘means’ … but of course don’t want to knock on their door. Maybe others in the area are flying the flag? Maybe it’s a story? Thank you.” It was from...

A handful of self-described supporters of President Donald Trump converged on Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood Wednesday to call for the removal of a statue of Russian Communist revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin that has stood in the neighborhood for 22 years. Protesters Wednesday wore Make America Great Again hats and held signs that said “Lenin = Hitler,” “100 Million Dead” and “Alt-Left Hate,” and they chanted slogans such as “Shame on Seattle,” “Tear hate down,” and “Genocide is not a joke” at passing cars and people grabbing lunch in the arty, tech-heavy neighborhood. Fremont is home to offices of such tech companies...

SEATTLE - A Confederate monument in Capitol Hill's Lake View Cemetery is in the spotlight as a local group calls for its removal. For more than a century, Lake View Cemetery has been the final resting place for many of Seattle's pioneers. Only a short walk from one of the cemetery's most visited grave sites - that of Bruce Lee - a 14-foot granite monument memorializes Washington state's Confederate veterans and their families. "Just because it's a military memorial doesn't justify it," Charlette LaFevere says. "It's offensive." LeFevere is part of a small group calling on Seattle City leaders to...

The larger-than-life portraits of Lenin and Karl Marx that once dominated Kim Il-sung Square have been removed, suggesting a change of direction within North Korea. The NKNews web site, which monitors developments in the secretive state, has reported that the austere images of two of the founding fathers of communism were first taken down in the summer but have never been replaced. Lenin and Marx had glared out over the square—used for military march-pasts and mass rallies in support of the regime—for decades, despite the Workers' Party of Korea revising its charter in 1980 to replace their concepts with those...