Tag Archives: Global: Religious Freedom

The Guardian: A Christian street preacher told two gay men they were “sinners” who would “burn in hell” as they walked past him on a busy high street, a court has heard.

The Washington Post: Despite continuous attacks on Coptic Christians, a delegation of Egyptian Christian leaders said Wednesday (Feb. 8) they do not support the development of a Christian political party as a possible solution.

Stratford Gazette: Perth County has dropped the long-standing tradition of reciting the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of council meetings.

News from The Associated Press: Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is calling on the country’s ruling generals to sack the current military-appointed government . ..

LifeSiteNews (includes video of the arrest): A pro-life activist was arrested in Calgary on Saturday after a police officer objected to his signs, which featured images of aborted babies.

Religion Clause: The High Court in the Indian state of Gujarat today ordered the state government to pay compensation to over 500 religious structures that were damaged in riots in 2002 . . .

Religion Clause: France’s 1905 law on the separation of church and state bars creating municipal cemeteries limited to only one religion. This means that cities have been limited to setting aside Muslim-only sections in existing cemeteries.

Mandatory public, private school classes with graphic, church-bashing content
caused public outcry, lawsuit

Asia News: The attack on the colleges of St. Joseph Anegal (40 km south of Bangalore) occurred on January 27. Reason for the assault, failure to display the Indian flag during celebrations for the national holiday.

Religion Clause: Authorities in Gothenburg have formally notified the Namdars that they will be fined the equivalent of $2400 (US) per week if they do not enroll their children in a Swedish school by Feb. 1.

English pravda.ru: For the first time in the history of Europe, Islamic organization can participate in the elections. Party For Muslim Netherlands wants to get into parliament in 2015. The Netherlands could become the first country on the continent where the Islamists will participate in the legislature. The far-right sentiment is increasing in the country as well.

Christian Freedom International: But despite the consistent defamation of Christianity by prominent Muslims — which has included calling Christians “infidels” and “criminals” and the Bible as “fake” and “Greek mythology” — complaints filed by Christians against Muslims for these offenses in accordance with the contempt of religion law have come to no avail.

Boston.com: An Orthodox Christian church famed for its valuable icons was set alight in southern Macedonia overnight, authorities said Tuesday, as religious tension between Christians and minority Muslims grew over a carnival in which men dressed as women in burqas and mocked the Quran.

News from The Associated Press: Police say suspected Islamic insurgents have killed five people in attacks on security targets in Nigeria’s restive northeast.

News from The Associated Press: The only movie ever banned in Britain for blasphemy was finally approved for distribution Tuesday, 23 years after it was outlawed.

NYTimes.com: The insults were furious. “Infidel!” and “Apostate!” the religious protesters shouted at the two men who had come to the courthouse to show their support for a television director on trial on charges of blasphemy. Fists, then a head butt followed.

The Christian Institute (includes video): Marriage must remain a union between one man and one woman, the Archbishop of York has warned.

LifeSiteNews.com: eventy-four percent of Christian Britons believe that discrimination against Christianity and Christian freedom of expression is on the rise in their country, according to a recent poll. This is a significant increase from 66 percent in 2009 according to an independent research group, ComRes.

Independent.ie: Humanist says ‘godless culture’ sermon was hostile to those who do not share church’s aims . . .

OneNewsNow.com: Thirty-five Christians have been jailed in Saudi Arabia for worshiping in their own homes according to a recent report. The news only surfaced this week that the Christians have been imprisoned for over a month.

News from The Associated Press: Police say suspected members of a radical sect have attacked two more police stations, leaving two people dead in a north Nigerian city where 185 people were killed just over a week ago.

The Daily Star: Fears of new violence hung over Muslims at Friday prayers in the Nigerian city of Kano after Islamists who killed at least 185 people there a week ago threatened to strike again.

Religion Clause: ince 2010, the U.S. State Department has produced a series of online videos labeled Conversations with America.

ADF Attorney Roger Kiska on the Hugh Hewitt Show. | MP3 audio 5:50 mins

ADF Attorney Roger Kiska appeared on the Zeb Bell Show. | MP3 audio 17:10 mins

News from The Associated Press: The Dutch Cabinet moved a step closer Friday to banning the burqa, making good on an election promise that is largely symbolic but has broad public support.

News from The Associated Press: Newly empowered Islamist leaders stood up for Arab democracy Friday, saying extremists need to be brought into the fold and chiding the West for objectifying women and income inequalities.

Washington Examiner: Iranian courts have sentenced two bloggers to death for “spreading corruption,” and government security forces have arrested four other journalists, in the lead-up to the nation’s March elections.

The online database is here: Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe.

The Christian Institute: A senior academic from the University of Oxford has said courts in the West are putting equality issues before the right to religious freedom.

Michael Brown at Townhall: Did you hear what happened to Aryeh Ralbag, chief rabbi of Amsterdam? He was suspended from his post by his own Orthodox Jewish community “for cosigning a declaration which said homosexuality was a ‘treatable’ inclination.” Oh the crime!

Voice of America: A series of bomb attacks by Nigeria’s radical Islamist sect Boko Haram is challenging President Goodluck Jonathan’s government. The pace of the bombings has picked up in recent weeks, with attacks on police stations in the northern city of Kano and a Christmas Day suicide bombing at a Catholic church near the capital, Abuja.

CBN.com: With Islamists poised to take over governments overthrown during the “Arab spring,” Christians and other minorities may soon be subject to Sharia (Islamic) law.

BBC News : UK author Sir Salman Rushdie says he is “sad for India” after threats of violence prevented him from addressing an Indian literary festival.

Courthouse News Service: Hungarian officials violated citizens’ right to peaceful assembly by routinely refusing to authorize demonstrations and declaring the area in front of the Parliament in Budapest a “security operational zone,” the European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday.

LifeSiteNews.com (includes video): An appeal to the British Columbia Supreme Court launched by two pro-life activists convicted last June of violating the province’s infamous “bubble zone” law, was dismissed on December 20th by Madam Justice Fisher.

BBC News: Nigerian forces have arrested 158 suspected members of the Islamist Boko Haram organisation in dawn raids in the northern city of Kano.

Religion Clause: Salafi Al-Asala Party member, Mamdouth Ismail, and 15 other members added to the official oath calling for respect for the constitution and law, the phrase “as long as it does not contradict God’s law.”

Religion Clause: Blackmore claims that Bountiful split from the U.S. based FLDS church in 2002 and that its residents make up a separate religious congregation so that income from businesses in the community should be spread for tax purposes over all the residents. Canadian tax officials, on the other hand, say that Blackmore is merely the patriarch of a large polygamous family

News from The Associated Press: South Africa’s government human rights agency said Tuesday it is investigating whether the Zulu king made comments that could increase anti-homosexual sentiment in a country where gays face hatred and attacks despite liberal laws ensuring their rights.

Religion Clause: In France, the Green Party candidate for President, Eva Joly, has created a controversy by proposing that Jews and Muslims should be given the right to take off work or school on their major holidays.

Middle East Forum: Earlier I discussed how mosques, some of which breed radicalization and serve as terrorist bases, flourish in America, while churches are increasingly targeted and destroyed in the Muslim world, especially the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity. This pattern—religious appeasement of Muslim minorities in the West, religious hostility for Christian minorities under Islam—continues and manifests itself in other ways.

LifeSiteNews.com: Ontario’s Education Minister says she was “so grateful” to have the head of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association at her side as she announced the government’s controversial anti-bullying bill in November.

AP: “Three men have been convicted of a hate crime in Britain for distributing brochures calling for the execution of gay people.”

Catholic Culture: An Irish Labor Party leader told the Irish Catholic that “religious ethos has no place in the educational system of a modern republic.”

ChristianNewsToday.com: First hand report of a native missionary ministry leader supported by Christian aid.

The video is here.

Persecution Blog: Hundreds of Nigerian Christians fled from Yobe State after incessant Boko Haram (a militant Islamist sect demanding the rule of strict Muslim law in Nigeria) attacks took refuge in Jos, the Plateau State capital. Fleeing is a bit like jumping “out of the frying pan into the fire.”

Christian Concern: Leading civil liberties organisation ‘Index on Censorship’ has called for the word ‘insulting’ to be removed from the Public Order Act on the basis that the word’s inclusion in legislation has “a corrosive effect on free speech” in the UK.

The Christian Institute: Mike Harris, head of advocacy at Index on Censorship, said it was not the role of police officers or magistrates “to protect citizens from insult”, and called on Government ministers to “roll back the culture of offence” in Britain. “A good start”, he argued, would be removing the word “insulting” from Section 5 – a change backed by organisations including The Christian Institute and the National Secular Society.

News from The Associated Press: Pope Benedict XVI says Roman Catholics in the U.S. need to understand the “grave threats” to their faith posed by what he calls radical secularism in the political and cultural arenas.

News from The Associated Press: A court has sentenced a democracy activist in central China to 10 years’ imprisonment for subversion, a family member said Thursday. It’s the third lengthy jail term handed down to a dissident in less than a month.

Updated News: A long-standing tradition that sees some schools handing out bibles to students should be scrapped, says a P.E.I. parent.

News from The Associated Press: Iraq needs new leaders to prevent the country from disintegrating, the leader of the main Sunni-backed bloc said Wednesday, reflecting the severity of a sectarian political battle in the Shiite-led government, accompanied by violence, just a month after the exit of U.S. forces.

Religion Clause: Religious-political battles in the Maldives are intensifying.

Christian Concern: Increasing numbers of muslims in Britain are making use of sharia courts to resolve family and financial disputes in line with Islamic principles, according to the BBC.

The Christian Institute: A Muslim campaigner has lent her backing to a “pioneering” Bill which aims to tackle the problems caused by Sharia councils operating in England and Wales.

TheSpec: Don’t expect to find any gay-straight alliances in the city’s Catholic schools — at least, not any groups that go by that name. “We commend any initiatives and efforts to reduce bullying,” said Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board chair Pat Daly

BBC News: Scotland’s largest health board has been taken to court by Catholic staff who claim conscientious objections over abortion procedures were disregarded.

News from The Associated Press: A Polish court slapped a fine on a popular singer who bad-mouthed the Bible.

EuropeNews: new resolution introduced at the United Nations Human Rights Council has free speech advocates concerned about a potential backlash against religious minority groups. Previously introduced as Resolution 62/154, “Combating defamation of religion,” the piece was originally written to criminalize the criticism of religion.

The Persecution Times: On Tanzania’s island of Zanzibar, in one week-long stretch last month Muslim extremists destroyed two church buildings, Christian leaders said

William Saunders The Federalist Society Engage Volume 12, Issue 3, November 2011: Religion can be an intensely personal activity. However, the idea that religion is only a private, personal devotion with no public political consequences is relatively new. For many nations in Europe, religion, in particular Catholicism, exerted an important influence over government and politics for centuries. The remnants of this influence still remain in anthems, oaths, and ideologies, not to mention architecture. However, with the rise of an ideology of “strict separation of church and state” in the European Union and the Council of Europe, it has been unclear how countries may incorporate their religious influences and histories into public life and expression. The case of Lautsi v. Italy in the European Court of Human Rights illustrates this struggle between secular ideology and religious faith and affiliation in the European context. The ultimate decision in the case acknowledges that “freedom of religion” need not result in, as the late Richard John Neuhaus put it, the naked public square.1

Religion Clause: In India last week, the Delhi High Court, in response to a complaint about the noise from loud speakers at a temple and a mosque, placed limits on use of sound amplification by houses of worship.

News from The Associated Press: Top parties in Egypt’s incoming parliament are picking an Islamist as speaker for the first time.

LifeSiteNews.com: fter denying a pro-life group official club status in 2010, Carleton University’s student union is proposing a referendum to ban pro-life groups from the campus altogether.

Religion Clause: The document, according to al-Azhar head Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb, “preserves freedoms of worship, opinion, scientific research and art and creative expression.” In a nod to conservative Islamists, the document also provides that the arts must not “contradict religious sentiments and established social mores.”

News from The Associated Press: A well-known Chinese dissident writer who has been frequently threatened with jail time says harassment has forced him to leave for the United States, possibly for good.

News from The Associated Press: An Australian man who received 75 lashes in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of blasphemy has returned home.

The Christian Institute: A Christian radio station which was banned from airing an advert on Christian marginalisation has been given permission to go to court and challenge the decision.

C-Fam Friday Fax: Tension between free speech advocacy and efforts to curb “hate speech” has arisen over the past year as the result of recent initiatives at the United Nations (UN) and by the Obama administration.

CNET: Google and China have had a strained relationship over the years, but now, the search giant is trying to smooth things over a bit.

Religion Clause: Now however in the town of Morinville where all public schools are operated by the Greater St. Albert Catholic schools, it is the Catholic school board that is the subject of parental complaints about the ability to opt out. At least 5 non-Catholic parents have filed complaints with the Alberta Human Rights Commission claiming that their non-Catholic children were forced to receive religious instruction, without the ability to opt out.

Hindustan Times: Cases of Christians being attacked have more than doubled in the past three years in India with Karnataka and Orissa being the worst according to a report released by a Christian organisation on Wednesday. Maharashtra is among the ten worst states . . .

BBC News (includes video): The head of Nigeria’s Christian Association says he is actively pursuing dialogue with his Muslim counterparts in an attempt to ease religious tensions.