Tag Archives: Global: Religious Freedom

Carnegie Endowment: Arabic press reported on May 29 that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia summoned twenty prominent Salafi clerics to Riyadh to ban them from soliciting donations for Syria’s embattled citizenry.

Domenic Johansson still in government captivity after three years

CNSNews: Chinese human-rights activist Harry Wu said he was “very disappointed in Obama,” and he also said the U.S. State Department, by excluding chapters on religious freedom for the first time in its human rights reports on various countries this year was ignoring the problem of religious repression in Communist China.

Religion Clause Blog: Zenit reports that the Bilateral Permanent Working Commission between the Holy See and the State of Israel met in the Vatican on June 12 to discuss an agreement that has been under negotiation for the last 13 years.

AP: German authorities launched a nationwide crackdown Thursday on an ultraconservative Islamic organization, raiding homes, meeting halls and mosques, while banning one related group and opening in an investigation of two others.

Jurist: Ontario lawmakers on Wednesday unanimously approved an amendment to the province’s Human Rights Code [text] to prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and gender expression. All three parties of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario [official website] approved Toby’s Act [Bill 33], making Ontario the first province to acknowledge the rights of transgender people.

Washington Post: Egypt’s Islamist-dominated parliament is likely to be suspended after a high court ruling Thursday that one-third of its lawmakers were elected unconstitutionally, officials said.

Telegraph: Three Saudi women have been refused entry into France because they refused to remove their burkas.

Christian Institute: Churches that don’t wish to conduct same-sex marriages could face legal problems, a Government Justice Minister has admitted.

BeliefNet.com: Turks are being prosecuted for publishing “tweets” on Twitter that are “insulting to Islam,” despite the Turkish constitution’s guarantees of religious freedom. Christians are increasingly marginalized. Bureaucrats routinely block the building of churches.

OnIslam.net: Finnish lawmakers forced a right-wing deputy on Wednesday, June 13, to resign from an influential parliamentary committee after making derogatory comments on Muslims and immigrants.

AP: Tunisia’s leaders on Wednesday condemned extremists after days of riots by radical Islamists left one man dead, injured 62 security personnel and led to more than 160 arrests.

Catholic Culture: In the town of Homs, most Christians have apparently fled after receiving an ultimatum from the leader of opposition forces there. In nearby Qusayr, remaining Christians are being harassed by opposition fighters, who are generally aligned with militant Islam.

Christian Concern: Leaders in the Church of England have warned that, should marriage be redefined, churches will be forced to marry same-sex couples under equality laws, despite any statutory exemptions for religious bodies such as those promised by the Government.

Chicago Tribune: Larayedh said the violence appeared organized and some of it may have been inspired by a recent statement from al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, rather than simply an art exhibition.

AP: In the small southern Egyptian town of Azaziya, where almost all the residents are Christians, few doubt that nearly everyone who can is going to vote for Ahmed Shafiq, ousted leader Hosni Mubarak’s last prime minister and his longtime friend . . .

Religion Clause Blog: Xinhua reports today that China’s State Council Information Office has published the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2012-2015).

AP: Liberals, leftists, women and minority Christians say the Islamists want to dominate the process of writing a new constitution so that the new document would have an Islamist slant. The move, they claim, is part of a grand design by the Brotherhood and its allies to take over the main state institutions, including the executive and the legislative.

AP: The conflict pitting ethnic Rakhine Buddhists against stateless Rohingya Muslims in coastal Rakhine state marks some of the worst sectarian unrest recorded in Myanmar in years.

Raymond Ibrahim at the Middle East Forum: Apologists for Islamic persecution of Christians regularly argue that the animosity is not driven by religion, but rather a “sectarian” divide, by any number of “indigenous” factors—poverty, intertribal conflicts, political machinations, etc. Other times, persecuted Christians are portrayed as Zionist agents and rapists, spies and traitors—anything other than people killed for their Christian faith.

Christian Concern: The General Medical Council (GMC) has today (11 June) decided to continue disciplinary proceedings against a Christian GP, despite the fact that the patient who made the complaint has refused for two years to give evidence face to face.

Christian Post: At least six people were killed and dozens injured after a suicide bomber allegedly from Islamist terror group Boko Haram detonated explosives outside a church, and gunmen from the same outfit opened fire at worshippers in another church on Sunday.

Catholic Culture: Archbishop Ayau Kaigama of Jos implored his people not to seek retribution, saying that acts of violence would play into the hands of the terrorists. “Most Muslims are against Boko Haram,” the archbishop said.

LifeSiteNews: In a 94-word statement, they wrote that despite their “serious concerns,” “the Accepting Schools Act is now the law” and the Catholic schools will work within it to “foster safe and welcoming school communities.”

Economist: HOW far does tolerance stretch? In March Christian Concern, a lobby group that opposes gay marriage, booked rooms for its conference at the Law Society, a statutory body that represents solicitors in England and Wales. On May 11th the Law Society’s hospitality company cancelled the booking, saying that the event was “contrary to our diversity

Michael Curtis at the Gatestone Institute: Support for people who criticize their own Western democratic societies is now all too apparent among many Western intellectuals, academics, members of the media, international organizations, and religious groups which, while refusing to challenge cases of injustice, particularly in Muslim countries, instead criticize and condemn the state of Israel at every turn, despite the continuing physical and rhetorical aggression against it.

Religion Clause Blog: On May 24, the State Department released the 2011 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in a new streamlined format that includes a country-specific executive summary and examples of the significant human rights problems reported in each country.

Gatestone Institute: Finland’s Supreme Court has found a prominent politician guilty of defaming Islam for “Islamophobic” comments he made on his personal blog. The ruling represents a major setback for free speech in a Europe that is becoming increasingly stifled by politically correct restrictions on free speech, particularly on issues related to Islam and Muslim immigration.

Religion Clause Blog: Reuters reports today on Buddhist-Muslim violence that broke out over the weekend in the state ofRakhine in Myanmar (Burma). At least 8 people have been killed as rival Buddhist and Muslim mobs torch large numbers of houses.

Catholic News Agency: Bishop Frederick J. Colli of Thunder Bay told CBC News that Catholic schools would follow the law by allowing “gay-straight alliance” clubs if students request them. He also said the groups would have adult oversight to protect schools’ Catholic identity.

The pdf press release is here.

Reuters: The province of Ontario was within its rights to press criminal charges against a grandmother who has spent 10 of the last 18 years in jail for defying court orders not to demonstrate outside abortion clinics, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Friday. | R. v. Gibbons, 2012 SCC 28

AsiaNews.it: The horrific video was released not by anti-Islamic groups, but by an Egyptian journalist, Tawfik Oshaka, condemning the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood. Islamic extremism has a cruel image of Islam. But the seeds of violence are present in the Koran and the life of Muhammad. It is time for Muslims to unequivocally condemn this violence.

Spiegel Online: German politicians have lately shown a penchant for weighing in on whether Islam belongs to Germany. A clear understanding of history, however, is often missing from the debate.

FARS News Agency: Tehran’s provisional Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani stressed that enemies are deeply fearful of the Islamic identity of Iran, and described Islam as a source of power and glory for the country.

CNN: Last month saw a series of riots in Europe, not over the wobbly Euro, but instead over the integration of Muslim Europeans and immigrants. In Bonn, hundreds of German Muslims clashed with police in a violent reaction to a far-right political party’s anti-Muslim gathering.

CBC.ca: The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is calling for an end to prayers at official City of Saskatoon events.

Religion Clause Blog: In Egypt, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has invited both chambers of parliament to meet next Tuesday to select the 100 members of the panel that is to draft the country’s new constitution.

Middle East Forum: Ostensibly dealing with a building, a recent report demonstrates how Turkey’s populace—once deemed the most secular and liberal in the Muslim world—is reverting to its Islamic heritage, complete with animosity for the infidel West and dreams of Islam’s glory days of jihad and conquest.

Persecution.org: “The suicide bomber came to the security check point of the Living Faith Church in Honda car. When he was approached by the security operatives for checking, he refused to stop; instead he ran and hit the security gate of the church and immediately the bomb he was carrying in his car detonated.”

Christian Institute: Hundreds of people have been penalised for opposing gay marriage in Canada since marriage was redefined, a US magazine reports. The National Review, one of America’s most widely read political magazines, says there have been between 200 and 300 proceedings in less than five years.

Piero Tozzi at C-FAM: As pro-life and pro-family leaders from around the world gathered in Madrid over the last weekend in May for the Sixth World Congress of Families, the man of the hour was clearly Bishop Juan Antonio Reig Pla. The Spanish bishop’s plainspoken honesty regarding the destructiveness of homosexual acts in the months leading up to the Congress earned him the enmity of leftwing rights activists and a standing ovation from conference participants.

LifeSiteNews: The bill, sponsored by NDP MP Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC), proposes to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code to include “gender identity” and “gender expression” as prohibited grounds of discrimination.

Novinite.com: “This is a clear-cut case of arbitrary use of power,” explained the family’s attorney, Viktor Kostov, who is working with the international Alliance Defense Fund on the case. “The authorities are trying to scare the family into bowing down to the [Social Services Child Protection Unit]‘s demand that the child go back to school … they have absolutely no grounds for accusing the father and mother of a crime.”

AP: China plans to stiffen restrictions on Internet service providers as it seeks even greater control over the opinions voiced on the country’s lively microblogs and other web forums.

Christian Institute: A Roman Catholic mental health worker who was sacked after expressing concern about the impact of abortion on women is suing the NHS.

Catholic Culture: Officials of the Diocese of Pangkal-Pinang charge that protests from local Muslims have prevented civil authorities from approving the construction of a minor seminary.

AP: Google said Wednesday that it has added a feature to warn users whose accounts it believes are targets of “state-sponsored attacks,” but the Internet giant did not cite a specific government.

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi at the Middle East Forum: Nonetheless, the overall trend is pointing in a negative direction with respect to treatment of religious minorities. In February of last year, a Christian man was convicted of “blasphemy” against Islam and sentenced to five years in prison.

Baptist Press: One day, I was out sharing the Gospel in some small Chinese villages when, suddenly, the police surrounded me. They grabbed me and threw me in the back of a van.

Catholic Culture: A Melkite Greek Catholic archimandrite has denounced Western media coverage of the Syrian conflict. “The reality on the ground is far from the picture that imposes disinformation in Western media,” said Msgr. Philippe Tournyol Clos. “Opposition forces have occupied two areas, Diwan Al Bustan and Hamidieh, where there are all the churches and bishoprics.

CNA: Bishop Juan Vicente Cordoba, secretary for the Colombian bishops’ conference, has allegedly been sued by columnist and gay activist Felipe Zuleta over his support of marriage as between one man and one woman.

AP on Yahoo: The Kremlin-controlled Russian parliament held a marathon session Tuesday to ram through a draconian bill that would raise fines 150-fold for people taking part in unsanctioned rallies in a bid to discourage the opposition from challenging President Vladimir Putin.