Madam,

The recent killing of 49 people in a gay nightclub in the USA was indeed a tragedy, and accordingly a silent vigil was held on Owain Glyndwr square in Aberystwyth.

At the same time, for years now, many Christians are every day persecuted, tortured and murdered in Syria and Iraq and other countries of the world simply for the crime of being Christians, and yet no vigils are ever held for them.

In fact, the generally apathy of the West in the face of what has actually become a genocide cries out to heaven for justice.

When people are murdered like this, it is important for those who mourn them to know why they are mourning them. The real reason is that they all had an inalienable right to live which was cruelly denied them, not that they were Christians, Muslims, gays or whatever.

We are each of us in the first place human persons endowed with a special dignity and absolute right to life which must be respected at all costs.

Let the victims of Orlando be mourned but, in the interests of integrity, let all those people too be mourned who have been killed, and are still being killed, every day and right now in other circumstances.

Yours etc

Iestyn Daniel

Erw Goch

Aberystwyth.