Tag Archives: Category: Global

HSLDA: Roger Kiska, the Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior legal counsel in Europe, was outraged by the court’s action. “It is beyond belief that a modern civilized country could allow such injustice to continue,” he said. “There is no evidence in the record that justifies the continued separation of this family. We will continue to fight for this family and on behalf of the principle that the European Convention condemns such acts.”

Reuters: Large majorities in the Muslim world want the Islamic legal and moral code of sharia as the official law in their countries, but they disagree on what it includes and who should be subject to it, an extensive new survey says.

Tim O’Gorman at Iona Institute: This week’s ruling in Scotland which found in favour of two midwives who insisted on their right to conscientiously object to taking any part in the abortion process is one that should be welcomed by all who think this freedom is important, whatever their views on abortion itself.

LifeSiteNews: Progressive think-tank Australia21 has released a report that calls on Australia’s parliaments to embrace euthanasia and assisted suicide.

AP: Despite significant improvements since the hard-line Taliban ruled Afghanistan, religious freedom remains poor, especially for minorities, and Afghans still can’t debate religion or question prevailing Islamic orthodoxies without fear of being punished, a U.S. commission said in a new report on Tuesday.

AP: A Pakistani court on Tuesday banned former military ruler Pervez Musharraf from running for public office for the rest of his life, the latest blow since he returned from exile last month to make a political comeback.

AP: Anti-Muslim violence flared anew in central Myanmar on Tuesday as angry mobs destroyed two mosques and set fire to hundreds of homes and shops in unrest that injured at least 10 people in the predominantly Buddhist nation.

Fox News: The American pastor jailed in Iran for his faith has been placed in solitary confinement and may now be suffering organ failure, according to family members in Iran who are increasingly alarmed at his deteriorating health.

Human Events: Christians throughout the Islamic world are under attack. Unlike Muslim attacks on Christians, which are regularly confused with a myriad of social factors, the ongoing attacks on Christian churches in the Muslim world are perhaps the most visible expression of Christian persecution under Islam.

LifeSiteNews: In 2010, high school science teacher Robert Haye was dismissed from his position at Deptford Green School after he responded to questions from high school students aged 15-16 by saying that homosexual activity is a “sin.” Teaching authorities subsequently banned him “indefinitely” from teaching at any high school in the country, a ban that was later endorsed by Education Secretary Michael Gove.

AP: A paralyzed Irish woman who wants to die cannot legally commit suicide with her partner’s help, Ireland’s Supreme Court ruled Monday in a case that moved some in the courtroom to tears.

The Volokh Conspiracy has posted a very interesting fact and graphic.

BBC: A Sinn Fein motion calling on the Northern Ireland Executive to legislate to allow for same sex marriage has been defeated in the assembly by 53 votes to 42.

Ben Bull at Christian Post: Speaking via video link to the Oslo Conference on Human Rights on April 15, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that he is launching an international campaign to elevate the demands of sexually confused individuals over the demands of other individuals.

AP: Wirathu has become the figurehead of a virulent strain of religious nationalism being spread by some of the most venerated members of Burmese society: Buddhist monks. Their core message is that Buddhists must unite against a growing Muslim threat.

AP: A woman desperate for another child forced her 14-year-old daughter to get pregnant using syringes of donor sperm, a British judge said.

AP: Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk has fired his justice minister, who made comments alleging Germans may be experimenting on Polish embryos from in vitro fertilization procedures

Breitbart (also on the Drudge Report) : A woman in Spain recently gave birth to the first child born in the village of Los Giles in 45 years, causing a stir in the village.

Reuters: The 60-year-old teacher, challenging his 2011 dismissal, had claimed his constitutional right to freedom of opinion trumped the Church’s right to employ only Catholics who agreed with the religious mission of their jobs.

Catholic Culture: Health officials in Australia have recommended a heavy government subsidy for the abortifacient drug RU-486.

Christian Concern: In an important development for the protection of ‘freedom of thought, conscience and religion’ the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has passed a resolution calling on its 47 Member states to . . .

Christian Institute: The Presbyterian Church in Ireland is calling on MLAs to vote against a motion supporting same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland on Monday.

LifeSiteNews: In an astonshing display of gentleness in the face of a vile attack, the head of the Catholic Church in Belgium, Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, remained calmly seated with eyes closed in prayer Tuesday as four topless women attacked him with shouts and curses and doused him with water.

LifeNews: Delegates from around the word are a the United Nations headquarters in New York City for the latest Commission on Population and Development. At that meeting, the international affiliate of the Planned Parenthood abortion business is threatening the representative from Nigeria.

Patrick Buchanan at The American Conservative: What benefit do we derive as a people to justify the risks we take by opening up America to mass migration from a world aflame with hatred and hostility over race, ethnicity, culture, history and faith? Why are we bringing all of the world’s quarrelsome minorities, and all the world’s quarrels with them, into our home? What we saw in Boston was the dark side of diversity.

RT.com: The head of the Upper Chamber, Valentina Matviyenko, told President Putin that the Russian Foreign Ministry was already working on changes to the adoption agreement with France.

LifeSiteNews: Responding to a groundswell of public opinion, the Supreme Court of India has asked the government to respond to a public interest litigation (PIL) petition that seeks to ban online pornography.

NTD Television: Human Rights Without Frontiers, an international NGO based in Brussels, presented its latest report on freedom of religion and belief around the world at the European Parliament on Tuesday.

Telegraph: The Islamic Society of North America, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, has published an article that calls Andalusia – the hottest bit of Spain – a “paradise” that will return when “the only victor is Allah.”

Washington Blade: Six Colombian LGBT rights advocates have visited D.C. and two other states this month as part of a State Department-sponsored trip to learn how activists, politicians and government officials in this country advance civil and human rights.

UNUSA: Today these young students begin a journey that will connect them with the United Nations and its work around the world for years to come,” said UNA-USA Executive Director Patrick Madden.

Forum 18: As part of its controls on free speech in the area of religion, Kazakhstan’s government agency controlling religion – the Agency of Religious Affairs (ARA) – is stepping up pressure on religious communities to instruct their members not to speak about their faith with others in public, Forum 18 News Service has found. The ARA has already instructed people to report such individuals to the police.

Forum 18: Within 48 hours of a claim by Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev that “religious freedom is fully secured”, seven members of a small Pentecostal Church – four of them in their sixties – were given heavy fines for meeting for Easter Sunday worship. The leader, Aleksandr Balaev, was fined the equivalent of six months of his pension, he told Forum 18 News Service. Galina Gileva, who is 73, complained that during the raid police “brought me to such a position of stress that I suffered a heart attack”. The raid on the Church in Zhaskent was one of four recent raids on religious worship. Lt-Colonel Nikolai Narkhov, head of Karabalyk Police in Kostanai Region, refused absolutely to answer Forum 18′s questions as to why about 15 police officers and officials raided a Jehovah’s Witness meeting, seizing religious literature.

Breitbart.com: President Vladimir Putin on Friday said Russia could change its agreements for the adoption of Russian children with France and other Western states that are legalising gay marriage.

Financial Times: The Muslim Brotherhood is set to open offices inside Syria for the first time since the organisation was crushed there decades ago, in an apparent effort to capitalise on the increasingly Islamised rebellion.

Washington Post: Women who want to wear prayer shawls while praying in the women’s section of the Western Wall are not breaking the law, according to a landmark decision handed down Thursday (April 25) by the Jerusalem District Court.

C-FAM: European leaders pressing President Obama to fund African abortions argue that a novel interpretation of laws governing war should trump US restrictions on abortion funding. To make their case, they are elevating the views of a few experts from a different body of law—human rights.

Religion Clause Blog: As previously reported, last year in the case of R v. N.S., the Canadian Supreme Court held that whether a Muslim woman could be required to remove her niqab (full face veil) while testifying in court in a preliminary hearing should be decided by balancing concerns about trial fairness with religious freedom rights of the witness.

Christian Concern: Two Catholic midwives have won the right to be exempt from involvement in abortion procedures following a ruling by an appeal court in Scotland.
Judges in Edinburgh ruled that Mary Doogan (58) and Concepta Wood (52) could lawfully refuse to supervise and assist staff involved in abortions under the conscience clause in the 1967 Abortion Act.

Christian Concern: A special event has been held at the Council of Europe in relation to two UK Christians who are seeking a referral to the Grand Chamber in their religious freedom cases at the European Court of Human Rights.

Washington Blade: The Colombian Senate on Wednesday rejected a bill that would have extended marriage rights to same-sex couples couples in the South American country. Senators opposed the proposal by an 51-17 vote margin a day after they debated it.

LifeSiteNews: Just one week after the passage of gay ‘marriage’ legislation in New Zealand, it has been revealed that a group has been formed whose goal is to have group marriages recognised in law.

Religion Clause Blog: In Britain yesterday, in the House of Commons, MP Kris Hopkins opened a debate on Sharia Law, questioning whether the government planned to recognize and provide resources for Sharia councils.

MercatorNet.com: But Gotland (province) Social Services persisted, and managed to get a mid-level appeal court to overturn the district court ruling. Now the couple, with the aid of the US-based Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) and the Alliance Defending Freedom, have taken their case to the Supreme Court of Sweden. They are being represented by Ruby Harrold-Claesson of the Nordic Committee on Human Rights. . . . Alliance Defending Freedom and HSLDA are encouraging concerned people from all over the world to participate in an HSLDA-sponsored letter-writing campaign that asks the Supreme Court of Sweden to accept the case Johansson v. Gotland Social Services and return Domenic to his parents.

LifeSiteNews: One of the top researchers in the field of stem cells has said that iPS (induced pluripotent) stem cells, the “embryo-like” cells hailed by many as the answer to the ethical problems presented by embryonic stem cells, are “probably” actually already embryos and have already, with the right conditions and treatment in the lab, developed into “complete animals” in experiments.

Christian Concern: Three Christians whose cases were rejected by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) earlier this year have requested a referral to the Grand Chamber.

Christian Institute: report for the Church of Scotland on same-sex relationships has suggested an order of service for a civil partnership blessing. The liturgy contains ideas for scripture readings, including passages about David and Jonathan, and Ruth and Naomi.

WorldNetDaily: Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice, said Abedini’s physical condition is worsening amid the continued beatings from prison guards. “Following a brief visit from family members today, we have learned Pastor Saeed continues to suffer from the effects of a brutal beating one week ago and continues to be denied medical care,” Sekulow said.

AP: The legal adviser of Egypt’s Islamist President Mohammed Morsi resigned Tuesday, alleging that the Muslim Brotherhood has monopolized decision-making and encroached on the governing of the country.

Ed News: Up to 74 girls in Afghanistan have been treated after a suspected poisoning attack at their school, officials said yesterday.

EurasiasiaNet.org: The recent conviction of Turkish virtuoso pianist Fazil Say on charges of blasphemy is sending a troubling message to secular Turks that the Turkish government values religious expression only if it conforms to authorities’ views on religion.

Huffington Post: Home-schooling families in Europe have become a cause celebre for some U.S. conservatives. The Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom is working with two Swedish home-schooling families, including Christer and Annie Johansson, who lost custody of 11-year-old Domenic when they refused to enroll him in public school.

CBN (includes video): Alliance Defending Freedom and the Home-School Legal Defense Association have asked the European court of Human Rights to hear the case of a Swedish family heavily fined for home-schooling.

AP: The legislation also permit an heir to the throne to marry a Catholic, though Catholics would still be barred from succeeding to the throne.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: French parents who wish to pass on certain values to their children will clash in the coming months over the Republic’s education system, which the current Government wishes to reform, particularly in relation to the complementary …

NY Times: On Tuesday afternoon, France is expected to become the 14th country to legalize marriage for all couples, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

Christian Science Monitor: Earlier this month, residents of a Christian neighborhood in Gujranwala did something unprecedented when their settlement was attacked by Muslims: They fought back.

Daily Mail: Hymns have been dropped from assemblies at a Church of England school which has also introduced separate prayer rooms for girls and boys to cater to its mostly Muslim students. Daily assemblies at Slough and Eton Church of England Business and Enterprise College, where 75 per cent of pupils are Muslim, are not based specifically on the Bible, but may make reference to it alongside other religious texts.

Boston Globe: Hungary’s parliament has overwhelmingly approved a modified plan to restrict the display of Nazi and communist symbols such as the swastika and red star.

Ken Blackwell at Townhall: Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood’s governing majority, is not actually crucifying the nation’s Christians. But they are nonetheless actively persecuting Coptic Christians who are said to be one-tenth of the population of the largest Arab country. A photograph of two young men set afire during recent demonstrations is pretty striking.

Doug McNeil at International Socialist Organization of NZ: The International Socialist Organization supported the campaign for equal marriage rights from the very beginning and, in a very modest way, we have done what we can, along with hundreds of other groups and individuals, to win this battle. We are proud of this. We will be all the prouder joining in the struggles to come. Working-class LGBTI people still have a world to win. I hope this victory so far away will give new energy and determination to everyone involved in the fight for equal marriage rights in the USA. Your fight is our fight. Our victory is your victory.

Wendy McElroy at Future Freedom Foundation: Many would disagree with Bonhoeffer’s simple and uncompromising Christianity but even those with no religious belief can find a rolemodel in his behavior. He and his family definitely disprove the theory of a German character flaw. They should make us pause before blaming a nationality or a race for the triumph of totalitarianism and make us consider, instead, the dynamics of how that tyranny came to be. As long as we blame only the character of individuals or defined groups, we will learn little about the more general institutional character of totalitarianism itself.

FT Magazine: Don’t misunderstand: this is not a tieless, first-naming internet start-up; these are courts of law, and based on hierarchy and deference. But the grandeur and remoteness that were inevitable when the court was an adjunct to the Lords have been swept away.

Washington Times: A Bush-era rule that forbids some federal AIDS money to go to groups unless they “explicitly” oppose prostitution and sex trafficking is heading to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday.

Richard Wolfe at USA Today: Fights against AIDS, sex traffic collide at high court At stake is a little-known provision in the law, intended mainly to combat HIV/AIDS, requiring most outside organizations that receive federal funds to have policies “explicitly …

Huffington Post: The United Nations offers a crucial, albeit under-acknowledged, platform for raising awareness about anti-LGBT bullying in terms of human rights and exchanging best practices to counteract the problem. Similarly, sports, with their exceptional capacity to straddle varying belief systems, serve as a universal language for communicating this message. In June 2011, for example, the UN Human Rights Council passed the United Nations’ first-ever resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity.

weden’s highest court is being asked to free an 11-year-old boy whom government officials have held in captivity for four years because his parents home-schooled him. Attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom and the Home School Legal Defense Association are legal advisors to the parents, who are represented by Ruby Harrold-Claesson of the Nordic Committee on Human Rights.

CNA: A group of at least 14,900 French mayors has said it will not perform “gay marriages,” even if the government moves ahead with plans to legalize the practice.

AP: A look at recent major attacks attributed to the radical Islamic extremist network known as Boko Haram . . .

WorldNetDaily: Swedish parents Annie and Christer Johansson have launched what may be their last hope to see their son again – with an appeal to the Supreme Court of Sweden to overturn a lower court’s decision to end their parental rights over homeschooling . . . he HSLDA has been working on Domenic’s case, along with officials from the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/homeschool-parents-have-1-shot-to-see-son-again/#vPLSHHFWFSdLzt1K.99

Alliance Defending Freedom and the Home School Legal Defense Association have asked the European Court of Human Rights to hear the case of a Swedish family heavily fined for home-schooling their daughter.

Reuters: Chanting “We don’t want your law, Hollande!”, some 50,000 protesters massed behind a banner reading: “All born of a Mum and a Dad” and said it was undemocratic to bring about such a fundamental social change without holding a …

LifeSiteNews: 77 people changed the institution of marriage in New Zealand from a conjugal union with the potential for generating children and providing them with the nurture of their own mother and father into “a union of 2 people regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity” with the potential for systematically depriving children of their mother or father, or both. All in the name of “love”. Starting in August.

Independent: Scuffles broke out in the French parliament in the early hours of as right-wing opposition to a gay marriage law becomes increasingly strident and ill-tempered.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: An international abortion advocacy group recently created a questionnaire as a way measure abortion stigma. However, a look at the series of questions reveals it’s not a neutral tool to measure people’s attitudes, but rather an implement of advocacy seeking to redirect stigma onto those who oppose abortion.