6 Answers
In Canada >>> http://sanctuarycanada.ca/userfiles/downloads/Legal-implications-of-offering-sanctuary-May302014.pdf
8 years ago. Rating: 9 | |
No, all religious organisations abide by the laws of the land, of which all outlaw sanctuary in churches, deferring to modern legal systems for due process.
8 years ago. Rating: 8 | |
I found this relatively interesting in response to your question:
In the U.S., religious sanctuary was never recognized in state or federal law. The only legal equivalent in most places now is the granting of political asylum in embassies and consulates.
That hasn’t stopped people from claiming sanctuary. Examples:
- GIs occasionally sought sanctuary during the Vietnam War. The most publicized episode took place in Honolulu in 1969, when dozens of AWOL servicemen and their supporters fled to local churches, possibly inspired by a similar movement in Boston the prior year. The result was what you’d expect: after giving the unwilling soldiers a couple weeks to change their minds, MPs raided the churches, breaking down doors as needed.
- During the investigation of the Tawana Brawley rape case in New York in the late 1980s, Brawley’s mother claimed sanctuary at a series of Baptist churches to avoid testifying before a grand jury. Police, presumably to avoid inflaming the black community, made no move to grab her, and eventually she fled the state.
- A few U.S. churches over the years have granted sanctuary to illegal aliens, including some fleeing Central American violence in the 1980s and others facing religious persecution in Indonesia today.
- Canada has been trying to oust a former KGB agent and an AWOL American soldier living in churches for several years.
- In Norway in 2007, Iranian asylum seeker Shahla Valadi, tired of hiding from deportation in church sanctuaries for seven years, had an RV fitted out as a “rolling church” so she could travel to a demonstration in Oslo. The ploy worked — not only was she not nabbed and deported, she was granted asylum less than two months later
Source: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3073/can-i-seek-sanctuary-in-a-church
8 years ago. Rating: 8 | |
Years ago in Jersey, people accused of a crime could take refuge in a church and follow a set route to the sea where they could take a boat off the island, never to return. This was the 'perquage' system
8 years ago. Rating: 6 | |