Tag Archives: Global: Religious Freedom

Jerry Newcombe at Crosswalk: A tape of his sermon was sent to the police, who then listened to it and determined that he had indeed committed a hate crime for saying homosexual conduct is sin. He was actually sentenced to jail, but spared from prison only when attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund, an American religious liberties legal group, went over to Sweden and successfully defended his case.

News from The Associated Press: Online calls by activists to visit a blind lawyer being held under house arrest in China have drawn unusually large support, with some traipsing to his village and being detained, questioned and even beaten.

News from The Associated Press: Islamic authorities will provide counseling to a dozen Malaysian Muslims to “restore their belief and faith” after they attended a community dinner at a church hall . . .

News from The Associated Press: Egypt’s Coptic church blasted authorities Monday for allowing repeated attacks on Christians with impunity as the death toll from a night of rioting rose to 26, most of them Christians who were trying to stage a peaceful protest in Cairo over an attack on a church.

Reuters: Egyptian Christians turned their fury against the army on Monday after at least 25 people were killed when troops crushed a protest using tactics that deepened public doubts about the military’s ability to steer Egypt peacefully toward democracy.

The Australian: THE push to recognise sharia law in Australia has entered an ambitious new phase that draws on the tactics that have handed success to Islamists in Britain.

Christian Today: The former Bishop of Rochester has written to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to ask that he grant clemency to a pastor sentenced to death for apostasy.

Reports are emerging today that Chan Guangcheng, a prominent human rights activist who had led the fight against forced abortions under the one-child policy in China, may have been killed by Chinese officials.

British Pakistani Christian Association: We have received news of the tragic killing of a young man Sabir Masih yesterday morning, in District Khanewal in the Punjab province. Our correspondent Khalid Gill from APMA reported on the incident and will be providing a full update tomorrow.

The Washington Post: A Tunisian university dean says a group of people armed with swords and knives entered his school and threatened staff after they refused to enroll students wearing Islamic face veils.

AFP: Hundreds of Christian Copts protested outside the state television building on Tuesday after a church was burned in the southern Aswan district and demanded that the governor be sacked, the channel reported.

AINA.org: On Monday, October 3, Muslims surrounded St. Mary’s Church in the Upper Egyptian village of Elmadmar, Tema district, Sohag province, in an effort to demolish it.

A Reluctant Sinner Blog: The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano has published a scathing opinion piece today (5 October), which questions the real motives behind the BBC’s desire to replace the ancient dating abbreviations “BC” (Before Christ) and “AD” (Anno Domini) with the more secular “BCE” (Before Common Era) and “CE” (Common Era).

Religious Clause Blog: Catholic Register reported that on Monday Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, with 100 religious leaders present, opened formal consultations on creation by Canada of an Office of Religious Freedom.

Religion Clause:: The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom was scheduled to go out of business last week. 22 USC Sec. 6436 originally provided that USCIRF “shall terminate on September 30, 2011.” A reauthorization bill, HR 2867, passed the House on Sept. 15 and is now pending in the Senate.

Asia News: Yesterday in the district of Muthana, an armed group assassinated the 30 year old Catholic Bassam Isho. October 1, Emmanuel Polos Hanna, was found at the edge of the road to Baghdad shot to death. Christian sources in Kirkuk: “The attacks continue, in the total silence of the world.”

Baptist Press: Iran has an obligation under its international commitments to free a pastor facing execution and to drop all charges against him, Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land says in a letter written to Iran’s United Nations ambassador.

Video here.

Fox News: Imprisoned Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, originally sentenced to death for apostasy and refusing to renounce Christianity, is now in even greater danger of being put to death in light of reports in state-run media of other charges, including being a Zionist and a threat to national security.

The Christian Institute: It should not be a crime to display the Bible or disagree with homosexuality, former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe has warned. Miss Widdecombe was commenting in light of a Christian café owner in Blackpool . . .

NCRegister.com: Wagner, 38, has just been convicted of mischief and sentenced to 40 days in jail for entering a Toronto abortion business and counseling the women there to keep their babies. It’s Wagner’s second conviction since 2000 and her second time in jail in two years. This spring she was actually acquitted of the same offense — but not before she spent four months awaiting trial. She could have been released during the interim before her case was heard, but only if she signed an agreement to stay away from abortion clinics.

Catholic Culture: The Archdiocese of Puebla and Roca Fuerte, a Protestant organization, have agreed that Catholics and Protestants in the village of San Rafael Tlanalapan will respect one another’s religious liberty.

Catholic Culture: The government of the Czech Republic will pay the Catholic Church 47 billion korunas ($2.5 billion) over 17 years in compensation for property confiscated during the Communist era (1948-89), according to a proposal outlined by the government’s culture ministry.

Islamist Watch: Over the past few months, a “mosque” in Toronto has inspired quite a hubbub in the blogosphere and Canadian press, even promptingdemonstrations, including some in September. As in many mosques, the genders are segregated, with males sitting in the front and females in the back, but it is the location of the “mosque” — a public school — that initiated the controversy. The Valley Park Middle School basically converts its cafeteria to a temporary mosque in which Muslim students hold Friday (jum’ah) prayers.

Catholic Culture: The Catholic Church will cease witnessing legal marriages if the government insists on equal treatment for same-sex couples, an Australian archbishop has warned.

The Christian Institute: British courts are wrongfully penalising Christians through an “incorrect interpretation” of human rights laws, a Roman Catholic Archbishop has warned.

XINHUANET.com: The head of the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC), Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, refuted the existence of any extreme Islamists inside the NTC, saying Islamic sharia will be the main source of legislation in the new Libya.

Raymond Ibrahim at the Middle East Forum: Finding and connecting similar patterns of behavior throughout Islamic history is one of the most objective ways of determining whether something is or is not part of Muslim civilization.

Jerusalem Post: The textbook, which warns students of democratic countries’ attempts to Westernize Muslim countries by advancing the United Nations’ human rights agenda, has received little attention in the media, where restrictive laws passed in response to the Arab Spring. The Saudi government can levy fines and jail sentences for criticizing government institutions.

The New American: A member of Britain’s Parliament has declared that Christian churches that do not perform homosexual “marriage” ceremonies should be denied the right for their pastors to contract a legally-binding marriage on behalf of the government.

Compass Direct: Throng of 3,000, including Salafists, burn Christian-owned houses, businesses.

Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News: Sapir Prize winner Yoram Kaniuk sets legal precedent implying that all Israelis can self-determine their own religious identity.

The Church Report: A survey of more than 400,000 people by the Office for National Statistics found the proportion who said they were not religious rose from 20.5% in 2010 to 23.2% this year.

News from The Associated Press: Arsonists torched a mosque in an Arab village in northern Israel Monday, setting off protests by residents who clashed with police.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide: Eleven Iranian Christians who fled Iran in the wake of a government campaign against evangelical Christianity have received threats via email from ‘the unknown soldiers of the Hidden Imam’ calling on them to either repent or face extra-judicial execution. The ‘unknown soldiers’ are alleged to have links with Iranian security services.

Telegraph: Two local councils have been ordered to stop members praying before each meeting in case it offends non-believers or other religious groups.

Catholic Culture: Over 50 Christian churches have been shut down or demolished in Indonesia since January 2010 . . .

Asia News: A petition of the Global Council of Indian Christians in the National Commission for Human Rights draws up a long list of crimes, injustices and complicity of local and state authorities to the detriment of the victims of anti-Christian pogroms of 2008. The Hindu radicals continue to persecute Catholics and Pentecostals, aided by the police.

Catholic Culture: A desire for divorce is the cause of much of the tension between Muslims and Coptic Orthodox Christians in Egypt, according to a newly published article in the Catholic Near East Welfare Association’s ONE Magazine.

EuropeNews.DK via Google Translate: Representatives of the churches in Indonesia have called on the government of their country to take action against the repression of Christians. The growing influence of radical Islamic forces from the Middle East had already led to numerous churches were closed, members of the Indonesian Council of Churches declared on Wednesday during a visit to Berlin.

Community Press – Ontario, CA: Hastings County is poised to remove the Lord’s Prayer from it’s monthly agenda.

Baptist Press: An Iranian pastor facing a death sentence remained in jail Thursday as the White House publicly asked Iran to release him and friends of the pastor urged the international community to maintain its pressure.

Eugene Volokh reports at The Volokh Conspiracy.

International Business Times: here were rumors on Wednesday night that Nadarkhani’s execution sentence was to be waived after the final trial, but contradicting reports indicate that the news was incorrect.

News from The Associated Press: The lawyer of an Iranian pastor sentenced to death for apostasy said Thursday he is hopeful an appeals court will acquit his client.

News from The Associated Press: Kazakhstan’s upper house of parliament approved a bill Thursday that backers say will help combat religious extremism, but that critics call a blow to freedom of belief in the ex-Soviet nation.

NYTimes.com: But a recent published account of a party at Mr. Berlusconi’s home where one female guest performed a striptease dressed as a nun, apparently was more than the Church could stand.

The Irish Times: Ali Selim said yesterday that the centre had received “a great number of complaints” from Muslim parents in south Co Dublin “regarding a limited number of schools that will only accept Catholic children”. They are considering asking Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin to intervene, he said.

English pravda.ru: A large terrorist act, prepared by Islamists, has been prevented in Britain. This is another reason to pay attention to the problem of the Muslims in this country. On September 26 . . .

FCO.gov.uk: Foreign Secretary William Hague has spoken following reports that Iranian Church Leader Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani faces a death sentence after refusing an order to recant his faith.

Europarl.europa.eu: Parliament called today for an end to the discrimination and violence suffered by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people on a daily basis both in the EU and outside it and stressed that gender identity disorders should not be treated as psychiatric conditions.

An Iranian pastor who has refused to renounce his Christian faith faces execution as early as Wednesday after his sentence was upheld by an Iranian court.

Asia News: The rape of Christian women in Punjab has become a “common practice” an “outrageous” phenomenon compounded by the fact that “the police protect the guilty” and not the victims.

Asia News: The retired bishop of Hong Kong, attacks the Chinese government proposal that imposes separate classes for “national education”. According to the prelate, “they want to foment nationalism, the Church does not accept this situation.” Hong Kong deputies also express doubts.

Catholic Culture: Iraq’s ambassador to the Vatican argues that Christians in the Middle East have good reason to be skeptical about the “Arab Spring” rebellions.

News from The Associated Press: Switzerland’s lower house of parliament voted 101-77 Wednesday to outlaw veils like the burqa worn by some Muslim women when using public transportation or dealing with authorities.

Matstunehag.com: Second@s Plus, a lobby group in Switzerland consisting of mostly Muslim immigrants, demand that Switzerland removes the cross from the nation’s flag.

Christian Today: A day after a suicide bomb attack wounded 28 at a church in Indonesia, affiliated with Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback megachurch, explosives were found in front of another church in a different district Monday, exposing the magnitude of the threat to minority Christians.

NYTimes.com: — Abu Elias sat beneath the towering stairs leading from the Convent of Our Lady of Saydnaya, a church high up in the mountains outside Damascus, where Christians have worshiped for 1,400 years. “We are all scared of what will come next,” he said turning to a man seated beside him, Robert, an Iraqi refugee who escaped the sectarian strife in his homeland.

AFP: A Pakistani school expelled a 13-year-old Christian girl for alleged blasphemy and her mother was transferred from her job as a nurse near the town where Osama bin Laden was killed, officials said Monday.

The Washington Post: Just days after Iran released two Americans accused of spying, an Iranian court has upheld the apostasy conviction and execution sentence of Christian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani.

Police in Lancashire have told the owner of a Christian café to stop displaying Bible texts on a video screen, because it breaches public order laws.

Pope Benedict addresses the German parliament

News from The Associated Press: Also on Monday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said that it has never been up to the Dalai Lama to pick his own successor and that Beijing will identify who is the next incarnation of the Tibetan spiritual leader.

Middle East Forum: Among analysts of the ongoing unrest in Syria, it is a truism that the main reason Christians are generally not participating in demonstrations against Assad’s rule is because they fear reprisals at the hands of the Sunni Arab majority if the Alawite-dominated regime falls.

AHN: They said they would appeal the fines to France’s highest court and to the European Court of Human Rights. Their fines were paid by the civil rights group Don’t Touch My Constitution, which predicted the European Court of Human Rights would sanction France for its ban on Muslim veils.

Catholic Culture: The government of Eritrea–one of the most repressive in the world–has placed 3,000 Christians in prison, “where they face mistreatment and deprivation of food and medical treatment, pending renunciation of their faith,” according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

Pulse: A Christian GP who asked a troubled patient if he had considered faith in Jesus said today he was ‘disgusted’ with the GMC, after the hearing into his conduct was adjourned.

KansasCity.com: Benedict’s speech to the Bundestag was mainly a philosophical attack on the idea that religion has no place in ethics and politics, but he began with a defense of his right to speak as Vatican head.

ADF Attorney Roger Kiska appeared on Voice of Russia. | MP3 audio 9:30 mins

Christian Concern: GMC Investigatory Committee has decided today (23 September) to continue to pursue the case against Dr Richard Scott, the Kent GP accused by a patient of sharing his faith in a one-to-one consultation, despite the witness not being at the hearing and showing an ‘unconditional disinclination to attend’.

The Local: Sweden’s top legal official has given backing to the decision to reassign the integration ministry civil servant who compared Islam to totalitarian ideologies.

The Christian Institute: Christmas has disappeared from a Thomas the Tank Engine DVD and been replaced by “winter holidays”.

A Christian GP “crossed the line” when he asked a patient if he had considered faith in Jesus, the General Medical Council (GMC) has heard.

Yahoo! News: U.S. diplomats walked out of the U.N. General Assembly Thursday as Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a fiercely anti-American speech, attacking the U.S. as an “arrogant power” ruled by greed.