From The Telegraph

It was a joke officer... ...We don't feed Jehovahs to dogs!

A woman has been told by police that she must remove a sign on her garden gate that reads Our dogs are fed on Jehovah's Witnesses because it is distressing, offensive and inappropriate.

Jean Grove, a pensioner, has displayed the sign for 32 years. Her late husband, Gordon, put it up after members of the Church banged on their door on Christmas Day 1974. Grove, from Bursledon, Hants, said that police officers had taken her details and insisted that she remove the sign. Once they had left, she put it back.

She said the sign was not intended to cause offence and that no one had complained to her about it, not even Jehovah's Witnesses. It was merely a way of showing that she did not welcome their calls.

It was just a bit of a lark, she said, pointing out that the only dog she had now was a Jack Russell pup called Rabbit, which was too small to savage callers of any religion.I couldn't believe it. The police put my name and address in their little black book and everything.

Her son said his father had become fed up with repeated calls from Jehovah's Witnesses and the visit on Christmas Day was the last straw.

Diana Sneezum, the chairman of Bursledon parish council, said the police should be concentrating on the bigger problems in the village.

A spokesman for Hampshire police said: We were informed by a member of the public who found the sign to be distressing, offensive and inappropriate. Officers attended the address and the sign was taken down.

A spokesman for the Jehovah's Witness movement in Hampshire accepted that the sign was a joke. He said: If we see signs like that we turn around and walk away.

From the BBC

A television documentary team has pieced together details surrounding the case of a 16-year-old girl, executed two years ago in Iran.

On 15 August, 2004, Atefah Sahaaleh was hanged in a public square in the Iranian city of Neka. Her death sentence was imposed for "crimes against chastity".

The state-run newspaper accused her of adultery and described her as 22 years old. But she was not married - and she was just 16.

In the year of Atefah's death, at least 159 people were executed in accordance with the Islamic law of the country, based on the Sharia code.

As a signatory of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, Iran has promised not to execute anyone under the age of 18. But the clerical courts do not answer to parliament. They abide by their religious supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, making it virtually impossible for human rights campaigners to call them to account.

At the time of Atefah's execution in Neka, journalist Asieh Amini heard rumours the girl was just 16 years old and so began to ask questions.

When I met with the family, says Asieh, they showed me a copy of her birth certificate, and a copy of her death certificate. Both of them show she was born in 1988. This gave me legitimate grounds to investigate the case.

So why was such a young girl executed? And how could she have been accused of adultery when she was not even married?

Disturbed by the death of her mother when she was only four or five years old, and her distraught father's subsequent drug addiction, Atefah had a difficult childhood. She was also left to care for her elderly grandparents, but they are said to have shown her no affection.

In a town like Neka, heavily under the control of religious authorities, Atefah - often seen wandering around on her own - was conspicuous. It was just a matter of time before she came to the attention of the "moral police", a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, whose job it is to enforce the Islamic code of behaviour on Iran's streets.

Being stopped or arrested by the moral police is a fact of life for many Iranian teenagers.

Previously arrested for attending a party and being alone in a car with a boy, Atefah received her first sentence for "crimes against chastity" when she was just 13. Although the exact nature of the crime is unknown, she spent a short time in prison and received 100 lashes.

When she returned to her home town, she told those close to her that lashes were not the only things she had to endure in prison. She described abuse by the moral police guards.

Soon after her release, Atefah became involved in an abusive relationship with a man three times her age. Former revolutionary guard, 51-year-old Ali Darabi - a married man with children - raped her several times. She kept the relationship a secret from both her family and the authorities.

Circumstances surrounding Atefah's fourth and final arrest were unusual. The moral police said the locals had submitted a petition, describing her as a "source of immorality" and a "terrible influence on local schoolgirls". But there were no signatures on the petition - only those of the arresting guards.

Three days after her arrest, Atefah was in a court and tried under Sharia law. The judge was the powerful Haji Rezai, head of the judiciary in Neka. No court transcript is available from Atefah's trial, but it is known that for the first time, Atefah confessed to the secret of her sexual abuse by Ali Darabi.

However, the age of sexual consent for girls under Sharia law is nine, and furthermore, rape is very hard to prove in an Iranian court.

When Atefah realised her case was hopeless, she shouted back at the judge and threw off her veil in protest. It was a fatal outburst. She was sentenced to execution by hanging, while Darabi got just 95 lashes.

Shortly before the execution, but unbeknown to her family, documents that went to the Supreme Court of Appeal described Atefah as 22. Neither the judge nor even Atefah's court appointed lawyer did anything to find out her true age, says her father. And a witness claims: The judge just looked at her body, because of the developed physique... and declared her as 22.

Judge Haji Rezai took Atefah's documents to the Supreme Court himself. And at six o'clock on the morning of her execution he put the noose around her neck, before she was hoisted on a crane to her death.

From adnkronos International

An Iranian woman convicted of killing her husband and of having extramarital sex has been sentenced to death by stoning.

The sentence of Ashraf Kalhori could be carried out in the coming weeks, her lawyer said.

With various fatwas, or religious edicts, issued in 2003, some ayatollahs had asked judges to stop giving death sentences by stoning, in favour of alternative punishment.

Reports from Iran over recent months however indicate that sentences ordering death by stoning are again being issued: at least five in the past 12 months.

Fatwas are not enough to stop this barbaric and medieval practice, said Shadi Sadr, a women's rights lawyer: Single judges are not obliged to respect the fatwas. To stop stonings, we need a change to the law. My client, who has been held for five years in Tehran's Evin jail, three days ago received a judicial ordinance which announced her imminent execution by stoning.

As the lawyer of Ashraf Kalhori she has filed a statement of repentance and remorse on her client's behalf, but repeats that the problem must be tackled at the source and called on international public opinion to mobilise against the practice of stoning in Iran and in other Muslim countries where the laws derive from the sharia.

In Iran, beyond the specific case of Kalhori, women are very concerned about the return of stoning, which has been suspended for several years, added Shadi Sadr. For this reason, womens groups and feminists are working on a public awareness campaign to force the government to adopt a moratoriuim on stoning

Such a campaign, even abroad, could help us in our battle for the rights of women and against this barbarity she concluded.

Amnesty International added that: She was sentenced on two charges; the first was for participating in the murder of her husband, for which she received a sentence of 15 years imprisonment; the second was for adultery as a married woman, for which she was sentenced to execution by stoning. Article 83 of the Iranian Penal Code stipulates that the penance for adultery by a married woman with an adult man is execution by stoning.

Based on an article from Christian Today

The new report from Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) details continued violent attacks against Christians in Sri Lanka at the same time as the proposed anti-conversion bill remains on the agenda in the Sri Lankan Parliament.

The report follows from a recent CSW fact-finding visit to Sri Lanka, and offers details of testimonies of death threats against pastors, including the alleged existence of a hit list in one district.

According to information received by CSW during the visit, in the first five months of this year alone there have been a total of 30 reported incidents of violence against Christians with the number of threats being made increasing also.

One meeting gathered about 50 pastors, and approximately half told CSW they had suffered physical persecution, including arson, assault and the destruction of homes and church buildings.

Unusually the intimidation seems to be originating from the Buddhist community.

One pastor reported that posters had been displayed in his village, threatening him with death, reports CSW. One poster gave him three days to leave the village or be killed. Get your coffins ready because we're going to kill you, another poster read.

The violence against Christians coincides with debates on the latest draft of an anti-conversion bill. Despite various drafts of this legislation being rejected over the past two years, the latest version has already passed its second reading in the Sri Lankan Parliament. It is now being considered by a Standing Committee before it will be returned for a final crucial vote.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief, Asma Jahangir, who visited Sri Lanka last year, has already expressed her view that the "very principle" of such a bill could engender widespread persecution of certain religious minorities.

From the National Secular Society

The Government has accepted that it is almost certainly a breach of human rights to force pupils of 16 and over to attend collective worship in schools if it is against their conscience. It now intends to amend the law accordingly. At present, collective worship is mandatory in all schools, religious and otherwise, right up through sixth form colleges, unless parents specifically request their children to be excluded.

In the House of Lords recently, Lord Adonis, Government spokesman for Education in the Lords, accepted the principle of allowing sixteen year olds and over to exempt themselves from worship in schools.

The amendment to the Education and Inspections Bill was proposed by Lib Dem peer Baroness Walmsley, who argued that: there is no justification for forcing young people to take part in a religious service with which they do not agree. Freedom of worship, or non-worship in this case, is a basic part of our rights as citizens of a free country. It is totally contradictory to say we think young people are old enough at 16 to work and pay taxes, get married and even fight for their country but then not give them the right to choose whether they participate in worship. Forcing young people to attend religious services is self-defeating. If we want young people to behave more maturely, we have to give them responsibility for their own decisions over such personal issues as religion.

The amendment was suggested by the National Secular Society, which had recently written to the Education Secretary Alan Johnson, and to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights about the issue. Johnson said he saw no reason then to change the rules on collective worship, but since then, the JCHR had concluded that the NSS argument had merit. Now Lord Adonis has promised that he will introduce an amendment to the Education Bill at the next stage of its passage through Parliament.

Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society which has been campaigning against Collective Worship for over 40 years said: This is very good news indeed. It has seemed intolerable to us that young people are being forced to worship at school, sometimes against their will. It is self-evidently a breach of their human rights. Indeed, it can be argued from a human rights perspective that the age limit for self-exemption should be lower. The church is quite happy to allow fourteen year olds to confirm their commitment to Christianity, yet it will not accept that other children of that age can feel equally certain that they don’t believe.

From the Times & Star

Something fishy is going on in Cockermouth where the wrath of cod has descended on a new business.

Christian and secular folk alike have chipped in against a new fish and chip shop on Main Street because of its name, Oh My Cod, and because it is not in keeping with a gem town!

The Christian element is complaining that the name is blasphemous, while others have complained that the sign's design does not fit in with gem-town status.

Allerdale council rubbed salt in, confirming that it had received a plateful of complaints about the name of the shop. The name is nothing to do with the council, so we did not record the complaints, a spokeswoman said.

Cockermouth churches were also unable to shed light on who might be upset by the name.

Jonathan Hayward, leader of Cockermouth's King's Church, said it was possible that some members of his church had been offended. But he said there were far more serious things to think of and far more important matters to object about.

The Rev Margaret Jenkinson of Lorton Parish agreed.

Methodist minister the Rev Peter Taylor said he had no objection either: It's possibly in slightly bad taste, but certainly not deeply offensive. I wouldn't go to the stake over it. If I did have an objection it would be that the sign would be better in Blackpool than Cockermouth.

From World Net Daily
By Dr. Rusty Shackleford runs the banned website The Jawa Report.

Two days after the Mumbai bombings last week that killed more than 180, the government of India issued a directive banning 17 websites. These websites were singled out because, according to the Indian government, they might incite religious violence. The nine American websites banned by India are all critical of the Islamist movement. Not a single website of Islamic extremists justifying and even celebrating the Mumbai bombings has been banned.

Why did India ban these websites? And what is the larger meaning of this action? As proprietor of one of the banned websites, I am in a unique position to answer those questions.

The short answer to the first question is that we offended Islamists, and India is afraid of its own Muslim citizens. The short answer to the second question is that liberty may not be able to exist where there are large populations of Muslims.

Some time ago, a false story began to be circulated in the mainstream press that a detainee's Quran had been put in a toilet at Guantanamo Bay. Some Muslims reacted by protesting, some rioted, and some were killed as a result.

So, the reaction of our websites was to make fun of this overreaction. Oddly, mocking the intolerant is now considered a form of intolerance by many in the world.

The specific reason for India's ban was that our reactions to the Quran-flushing story could cause religious violence. Since it was only websites deemed offensive to Muslims that were banned, we know precisely who it is that India fears.

From the BBC

Maybe George Pell should also point out the immense harm caused by a total denial of sex. His church should be more aware of this than most!

From Total Catholic

From SF Gate

I have a principled belief against buying rip off products designed for solely for the advantage of insurance companies and the treasury. So why does the Government put nutter belief above mine.

By Tom McPhail, Head of Pensions Research, Hargreaves Lansdown

From the National Secular Society

From the National Secular Society
See also Hansard

Based on an article from the New York Times

There seems to be a massive correlation between those that rail against porn and those that deal with their problems by murdering and killing.

Based on an article from the Middle East Times

From the National Secular Society

New Zealand’s Catholic bishops are appealing to the High Court against a ruling by the Broadcasting Standards Authority last week that said the Bloody Mary episode of TV cartoon series South Park was not offensive. The controversial episode was screened on C4 in February, and showed a statue of the Virgin Mary menstruating. The authority did not uphold the 35 complaints it received about the show including one from the bishops, saying the show was of such a farcical, absurd and unrealistic nature that it did not breach good taste standards.

From The Guardian

Thousands of young women in Britain are living in fear of the "hidden scourge" of so-called honour killing, a conference of police, Home Office staff and victim support groups was told yesterday.

An estimated 12 such killings happen in the country every year, but they represent only the extreme end of a much larger problem of intimidation and abuse.

A small minority of British Asian families deliberately use the threat of violence against supposedly erring daughters and sisters who defy agreements on suitors and marriage, the meeting in Leeds was told. A week ago, a London businesswoman's cousin and brother were jailed for life for stabbing her to death in front of two young nieces, whose own courtship and marriage arrangements might in due course have been influenced by her independent spirit.

This distorted view of 'honour' completely constrains the lives of many unknown victims, said District Judge Marilyn Mornington, a specialist in the subject, who chaired the one-day seminar. For every killing there are 1,000 other women living in fear for their lives.

The judge, who sits in courts in Barnsley and Rotherham in South Yorkshire, praised Asian women's support groups which were involved in organising the conference. She said: We need people from the communities themselves to come forward and speak. This is not easy for people to do because of the whole issue of honour. They could be putting themselves at risk. But the most important part of this is to change hearts and minds in the community.

The conference, designed to bring officials, including crown prosecutors and councillors, together with victims and campaigners, heard that the suicide rate among young British Asian women was almost three times the national average. This suggested high conditions of stress and lack of support not only from relatives and friends but also from agencies unaware of the extent of the problem.

Support groups called for more pro-active work by police, in spite of the need to tread carefully in sensitive ethnic minority matters. Jasvinder Sanghera, of the Karma Nirvana women's group in Derby, said that officers needed specialist training to spot signs of serious abuse as opposed to everyday family tiffs.

Frontline officers want to do the right thing but how many women are walking into a police station right now with an issue that they then find isn't dealt with appropriately, she said. A young woman might be encouraged to return to her family to make things up, when this would actually put her in serious danger.

Judge Mornington said that ending the practice would not be easy because it was based on a cultural mindset going back for centuries. But high-profile campaigns and the work of Asian women who exposed the bogus nature of the "honour" involved were making a difference.

She also called on the government to reconsider its decision last month not to bring in legislation outlawing forced marriages. Ministers were wrong to argue that existing laws against violence and intimidation were sufficient, she said.

From The Guardian

The latest in Islamic fashions got top billing from Iran's religious authorities yesterday in an exhibition aimed at promoting female modesty and countering the influence of western clothing.

Tehran's Imam Khomeini mosque hosted the country's first Islamic dress fair, in which ankle-length manteaus, or overcoats, and all-covering black chadors prevailed.

The 10-day event is being organised by Iran's police force along with the commerce ministry and the state broadcasting corporation, IRIB, to promote the idea of women dressing stylishly in line with the values in the Qur'an.

Hundreds of women, most wearing chadors or other forms of conservative dress, browsed an array of outfits, many of which appeared strikingly uniform in their dark colouring and full length.

The sales pitch was reinforced by a fringe exhibition of quotes extolling the virtue of Islamic hijab. One, from the prophet Muhammad, read: Any woman with faith in Allah and the resurrection day won't expose her adornments to any man except her husband. Any woman who does these things for other than her husband has betrayed her faith and provoked God's anger.

But some young women were not impressed. The designs here are not appropriate for the youth or people of my age, said Shakoofeh, 19, a student. I came along out of curiosity to see what the authorities think we should wear. I would not wear hijab at all if it wasn't the law.

Based on an article from AINA

We have already admonished and 'educated' 32,000 women and 64 men for their clothing and behaviour, said the Tehran police chief, Morteza Talaei. He was speaking on 23 May, giving a first account of the work of the Police Guidance Patrols (religious police) introduced in the Iranian capital. In all, 7,000 shops have been visited, and 190 were fined for violating the ban on selling non "Islamic" clothes and other goods. More harshly, 230 cars were confiscated because they were creating problems with women, according to Talaei. This probably meant women who were only partially veiled in a space not considered by Iranian law to be private. Talaei also talked about 164 pedestrians arrested for similar reasons: 119 women and 45 men.

From The Independent

The letter pinned overnight to the wall of the mosque in Kandahar was succinct. Girls going to school need to be careful for their safety. If we put acid on their faces or they are murdered then the blame will be on their parents.

Today the local school stands empty, victim of what amounts to a Taliban war on knowledge. The liberal wind of change that swept the country in 2001 is being reversed. By the conservative estimate of the Afghan President Hamid Karzai, 100,000 students have been terrorised out of schools in the past year. The number is certainly far higher and many teachers have been murdered, some beheaded.

In the province of Zabul a teacher and female MP, Toor Peikai, said yesterday: There are 47 schools in my province but only three are open. Only one teaches girls. It is 200 metres from a large US military base in the provincial capital.

Across the south, schools burn during the night. According to a bleak report released by Human Rights Watch today at least 200 have been destroyed in the past year and half.

The fate of the mixed-sex Sheikh Zai Middle School, on the outskirts of a community in the mountains of Maruf district is sadly not atypical. A local witness told Human Rights Watch what happened when the Taliban came: They went to each class, took out their long knives .... locked the children in two rooms, where the children were severely beaten with sticks and asked, 'will you come to school now?

The six teachers later told residents what happened to them. They were taken out of school and blindfolded, then they were continually hit and were taken to nearby mountains on foot. They were severely beaten and let go. The beatings were sufficiently serious that they remain handicapped. One of them had his leg broken and he cannot walk or work. One of the others still has problems with his hand and cannot use it.

The headmaster was later targeted. He was beaten with a gun butt and later shot in the thigh.

From News1130

Islamic intolerants controlling the Somali capital broke up a wedding celebration because a band was playing and women and men were socializing together.

The thugs beat band members with electric cables and confiscated their equipment, said Asha Ilmi Hashi, a singer with the group Mogadishu Stars: We had warned the family not to include in their ceremony what is not allowed by the sharia law. This includes the mixing of men and women and playing music, Sheik Iise Salad, who heads an Islamic court: That is why we raided and took their equipment.

What was going there was un-Islamic, Salad said.

From Gay.com
See also www.iglhrc.org

Twenty-one anti-death penalty vigils around the world are planned for July 19 to commemorate last year's public hanging in Iran of two young men accused of homosexuality.

Before Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni were executed in Edalat ("Justice") Square in Mashhad, they were held in prison for 14 months and lashed 228 times.

While the teenagers were accused of raping a 13-year-old boy, several human rights groups believe they were really executed for admitting to having had gay sex and that the rape charge was merely trumped up.

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission asserts that over the next several months, a pattern emerged in which other young men were publicly executed in Iran as couples and/or the crimes they allegedly committed involved some form of sexual assault of another male.

Iran enforces Islamic Sharia law, which demands the death penalty for gay sex. Under the Iranian penal code, girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 can be executed.

Around the world, the death penalty and other brutal forms of punishment are used to destroy and promote fear in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, the global rights group said in a written statement. Many gay men, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people around the world . . . have lost their lives because of who they are.

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission will join the Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization and many other LGBT and human rights organizations for a vigil in New York outside the Permanent Mission of The Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations.

Other vigils will take place in Washington, D.C.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.,; Provincetown, Mass.; San Diego; San Francisco; Sacramento, Calif.; Sioux Falls, S.D.; Tehran, Iran; Vancouver; Toronto; Amsterdam; London; Stockholm; Marseilles; Moscow; Brussels; Mexico City; Warsaw; Frankfort; Berlin; and Vienna.
 

From Gay.com

More than two dozen anti-death penalty vigils were held around the world Wednesday to mark the first anniversary of Iran's hanging of two teens accused of homosexuality.

Before Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni were executed publicly, they were held in prison for 14 months and lashed 228 times. While the teenagers were accused of raping a 13-year-old boy, several human rights groups believe that the rape charge was merely trumped up and that the teens were killed under Muslim sharia law for the crime of homosexuality.

Vigils and protests were held Wednesday in Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, New York, Provincetown, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Sioux Falls, Washington, D.C. and more than a dozen cities across Europe and South America.

In London, Labor MP Chris Bryant hosted a meeting at the House of Commons, which included Green Party European lawmaker Jean Lambert and activists Simon Forbes and Peter Tatchell.

In addition to protesting the execution of children and gays, speakers from the U.K.-based gay rights group OutRage called on Iran to halt the arrest, imprisonment and torture of LGBTs (Lesbian, gay, bi-sexual & transgender) and called on other countries to halt the deportation of Iranian LGBT asylum seekers.

At the London event, OutRage founder and worldwide protest organizer Tatchell claimed that a year-long investigation into this case has revealed that the Iranian governments allegations against the two hanged teens were riddled with contradictions, lies.

At first it was claimed by Iranian officials that they were aged 18 and 19, then that they were 19 and 21, then aged 18 and 20, and finally they made the claim that they were both above 18 at the time of their alleged crimes, Tatchell said. However, the best evidence is that both youths were aged 17 when they were executed and therefore minors, aged 15 or 16, at the time of their alleged crimes. And by instituting charges of kidnap and rape, the Iranian authorities apparently hope to discredit the victims, discourage public protests and deflect international condemnation.

In New York, the demonstration took a quieter approach as Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Committee hosted a forum to set new goals and strategies for changing Iran's human rights policies. A standing-room only crowd at the New York Gay and Lesbian Center discussed the difficulty of pressuring Iran, and discussed new for dealing with human rights issues in a country that resents western interference, according to Paula Ettelbrick, executive director of the international rights group.

Press release from Christian Voice

The first-ever organised Christian witness against London's 'Gay Pride' was held earlier today in London's Pall Mall. Apart from four arrests of violent 'gay pride' activists, the protest, organised by Christian Voice, the evangelical group whose religious convictions on homosexuality recently led to discrimination against them by the Co-op Bank, went off without serious incident, thanks mainly to a large police presence.

Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, said afterwards:

I want to pay tribute to the police who protected our safety and our right to peaceful protest. They moved swiftly to arrest the violent trouble-makers, without being at all heavy-handed. I have nothing but praise for them on this occasion.

The purpose of our witness was two-fold. Firstly, we had to make clear that even in politically-correct Britain, Christians are still prepared to stand up for their Lord and deplore the sin of Sodom being paraded, in all its obscenity, and with the support of police parading in it in full uniform, through the streets of London. The Bible says: 'Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.'

Secondly, I was deeply saddened by the sight of so many men and women celebrating their involvement in a sinful lifestyle characterised by deceit, degradation and death. We just had to reach out in the love of Christ with the message that Jesus died to save sinners like us and like them.

Sadly, all we got back from 'the gays' was hatred, expressed in screaming and obscene gestures, and threats of violence - actual violence on those four occasions during our hour of witness. I did not see any tolerance from the supposedly tolerant, nor any respect for the right of free speech. It is as if Satan cannot bear one word of dissent.

From Flickr

To challenge the homophobes who are Christian Voice in a peaceful manner and detract from their hate and entertain our fellow marchers. We knew that the mission would be very short lived so planned a very clear response.

Once we found them we did a bit of gentle mocking. We shouted can you move along please! and waved and jeered.

Before we were moved along by the wonderful friendly (but slightly harassed) stewards we waved to our fellow marchers and gave a few cheers. So we decided to cross the road. And rise above it...And continue entertaining our fellow marchers...Who turned their backs on the hate and the haters and clapped, snapped and cheered our short lived protest... Before we were finally moved along feeling that our mission to make a statement and entertain had been accomplished!

This year I marched in honour of my brothers and sisters who are unable to enjoy the freedoms that many of us take for granted. And it is with love and respect to them all that I post these pictures!

To say that I felt proud is an understatement!

Tensions remained high in the Nigerian town of Izom where a young woman involved in street evangelization was stoned and beaten to death by an angry Muslim crowd as police refused to intervene.

In a published statement the Roman Catholic Church in Izom said she shared the Gospel with Muslim youth and gave them some tracts to read. Angered by her activities, a Muslim crowd handed the woman over to local police but she was not safe there.

While the woman was under protective police custody for interrogation, Muslim militants armed with sticks and other weapons reportedly stormed the Izom Police station.

After an apparent brief fight, police officers fled and the mob killed the woman with stones and sticks, according to several news reports and eyewitness accounts.

Niger is one of the 12 states that has implemented Muslim law, or Sharia, in northern Nigeria, where there have been several violent incidents against churches and individual believers.

Despite the apparent dangers, believers are often engaged in street evangelism in Nigeria and local Christians say they can be often seen preaching the Gospel in marketplaces, buses and trains.

From NCR-Iran

According to a Kurdish human rights group in Iran, a woman was sentenced to death by a clerical court in Orumieh, Iran.

The woman who was identified as Malek Qorbani from the city of Naqadeh was jailed in Orumieh prison for alleged immoral relationship.

The local court has sentenced her to death by stoning. This is while the clerical regime was to stop stoning following widespread international criticisms by human rights organizations.

 

From Kurdish Info

Turkish women organizations support signature campaign for Iranian Melek Ghorbany who was sentenced last month to be "publicly stoned to death" and will gather at Iranian consulate in Istanbul this Saturday to read out press statement.

Turkish women organizations have joined in the growing international campaign for Iranian woman prisoner Melek Ghorbany who was sentenced by a court in her country last month to be publicly stoned to death according to Islamic Shariah law.

Ghorbany was sentenced to death on June 28, by a court in the northwest Iranian city of Urmia after being found guilty of committing "adultery."

Representatives of women organizations in Istanbul will meet in front of the Iranian consulate building this Saturday to read out a press statement expected to condemn recm, the practice of public stoning.

A statement made in advance of the event said the organizations regarded public stoning as “a crime against humanity” and that they would effort for the Iranian regime to end this form of punishment.

The campaign to stop the execution of Ghorbany was originally launched a week ago by her American lawyer Lily Mazahery who has so far collected nearly 2,000 signatures and is hoping to collect far more.
 

From Kurdish Aspect

In response to international pressure opposing the public stoning of Malak Ghorbany, and the barbaric punishment of women by stoning in general, the Iranian Embassy in France has announced that Malak Ghorbany's case is being re-evaluated, and her original sentence (public stoning for committing adultery) is expected to be revised.

Based on an article from 7 Days

There is some confusion over the fate of two teenage girls sentenced to 61-lashes each for prostitution and adultery in Sharjah, with court sources telling 7DAYS that they may still escape their sentence after the prosecutions’ appeal for tougher punishments was rejected by the Federal Supreme Court.

This sentence most likely would not be carried out as the girls’ defence may still appeal, the source said yesterday. That contradicts local media reports yesterday that suggested the girls have already appealed their convictions at the highest level and lost, meaning the sentence would be carried out.

The two girls, Aiysha S, aged 15, and Noora E, 14-years-old, were arrested in March of 2005 after stripping to have sex with undercover police officers. The two girls, both Muslim and unmarrie