Turkish man sentenced to life for honour killing

A Turkish man has received lifetime imprisonment for killing his daughter, in a trial of 'honor killing' in the northwestern Turkish city of Bursa.

Dumlu Ozcelik, accused of killing his daughter in July, appeared before 4th Bursa High Criminal Court.

The court first granted the public prosecutor's demand for an aggravated life sentence on charges of murder on the prompting of tradition, also known as an honor killing. The court jury, however, mitigated the punishment considering the good conduct of the accused during the trial, and sentenced Ozcelik to a lifetime sentence only.

His sons, Ensar and Karen, had been released in the previous hearing pending their trials and were acquitted by the same court.

In July, Huri Ozcelik, the victim of the honor killing, left her husband and came to her father's home bringing along her two children. Dumlu found his daughter, who eloped with another man, in Ankara. He took the 28-year-old woman back home in Bursa and allegedly shot her six times in front of her children.

This verdict might become a precedent for similar lawsuits of honor killings, which are common in Turkey, especially in the eastern and southeastern parts of the country.

From The Telegraph

Islamic sharia law is gaining an increasing foothold in parts of Britain, a report claims.

Sharia, derived from several sources including the Koran, is applied to varying degrees in predominantly Muslim countries but it has no binding status in Britain.

However, the BBC Radio 4 programme Law in Action produced evidence yesterday that it was being used by some Muslims as an alternative to English criminal law. Aydarus Yusuf, a youth worker from Somalia, recalled a stabbing case that was decided by an unofficial Somali "court" sitting in Woolwich, south-east London.

Yusuf said a group of Somali youths were arrested on suspicion of stabbing another Somali teenager. The victim's family told the police it would be settled out of court and the suspects were released on bail.

A hearing was convened and elders ordered the assailants to compensate their victim. All their uncles and their fathers were there, said Yusuf. So they all put something towards that and apologised for the wrongdoing.

Although Scotland Yard had no information about that case yesterday, a spokesman said it was common for the police not to proceed with assault cases if the victims decided not to press charges.

In his book Islam in Britain, Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, says there is an alternative parallel unofficial legal system that operates in the Muslim community on a voluntary basis.

Sharia courts now operate in most larger cities, with different sectarian and ethnic groups operating their own courts that cater to their specific needs according to their traditions, he says. These are based on sharia councils, set up in Britain to help Muslims solve family and personal problems.

Sharia councils may grant divorces under religious law to a woman whose husband refuses to complete a civil divorce by declaring his marriage over. There is evidence that these councils are evolving into courts of arbitration.

Faizul Aqtab Siddiqi, a barrister and principal of Hijaz College Islamic University said this type of court had advantages for Muslims: It operates on a low budget, it operates on very small timescales and the process and the laws of evidence are far more lenient and it's less awesome an environment than the English courts. Siddiqi predicted that there would be a formal network of Muslim courts within a decade.

From News.com.au

The book publisher, Scholastic Australia, pulled the plug on the Army of the Pure after booksellers and librarians said they would not stock the adventure thriller for younger readers because the "baddie" was a Muslim terrorist.

A prominent literary agent has slammed the move as "gutless", while the book's author, award-winning novelist John Dale, said the decision was "disturbing because it's the book's content they are censoring".

There are no guns, no bad language, no sex, no drugs, no violence that is seen or on the page, Dale said, but because two characters are Arabic-speaking and the plot involves a mujaheddin extremist group, Scholastic's decision is based 100% (on) the Muslim issue.

Scholastic's general manager, publishing, Andrew Berkhut, said the company had canvassed a broad range of booksellers and library suppliers, who expressed concern that the book featured a Muslim terrorist. They all said they would not stock it, and the reality is if the gatekeepers won't support it, it can't be published.

Scholastic described the writing as "almost flawless" and the story about four children chased by Afghan terrorists after discovering a plot to blow up Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor a "gripping page-turner".

Dale's agent, Lyn Tranter, yesterday branded the move "a gutless" publishing decision. I am appalled that this is censorship by salesmen, she said.

This must be one of the most worrying stories for a long time. The Police seem to be setting up a law where 'offence' is criminalised and yet we know how easily 'offended' religious people are.

Surely we should be supporting the right to offend....I have a feeling we will need it!
 

From The Guardian

Police are to demand new powers to arrest protesters for causing offence through the words they chant and the slogans on their placards and even headbands.

The country's biggest force, the Metropolitan police, is to lobby the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, because officers believe that large sections of the population have become increasingly politicised, and there is a growing sense that the current restrictions on demonstrations are too light.

Trouble at recent protests involving Islamic extremists has galvanised the Met's assistant commissioner, Tarique Ghaffur, into planning a crackdown. His proposals are due to be sent to Lord Goldsmith, who is reviewing how effective the current laws are in tackling extremists.

The police want powers to proscribe protest chants and slogans on placards, banners and headbands. Human rights experts say that such powers could also be used against protesters such as animal rights and anti-globalisation activists. The civil rights group Liberty said the powers would make the police "censors in chief".

Ghaffur has previously advocated banning flag burning. But this document would take the police a lot further. Ghaffur says there is a "growing national and international perception" that the police have been too soft on extremist protesters, which has led to rising anger across the country.

As well as the absence of a law banning the burning of a flag, there is no law banning the burning of a religious text.

The police want powers to tackle a "grey area" in the array of public order laws. At present, causing offence by itself is not a criminal offence.

There must be a clear message that we will not allow any extremist group to display banners or make public statements that clearly cause offence within the existing law, the document says.

The document continues: Is the sand shifting in our collective viewpoint around what constitutes 'causing offence'? Equally, we need to have a clearer determination of current community perceptions around what 'public offence' actually means. We also need to think more laterally around how we police public demonstrations where 'offence' could be caused, while still respecting the British position around freedom of speech.

The document, entitled The widening agenda of public demonstrations and radicalisation, says Islamic extremists have learned how to cause offence without breaking the law. It also reveals that the government has yet to implement the bill outlawing religious hatred which received royal assent in February. It says that the law may prove useless against extremists: Virtually all activity by protesters could constitute insulting or abusive language, behaviour or banners towards particular religions, but would fall outside the remit of inciting religious hatred.

The director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, said: [The proposal] misunderstands the nature of law and free expression in a democracy and casts the police as censors in chief. It aims to protect people from 'offence' rather than harm, slates the CPS and muses wildly on 'public perceptions'.

From The Peninsula

Pakistani police arrested two Catholic men from Faisalabad for allegedly burning a copy of the Qur’an despite the fact that their accusers did not see them commit the act itself.

Their arrest spared them a possible lynching by a mob of 500 Muslims who had surrounded the house in Munir Park where James and Buta Masih both lived.

A catholic attorney, Khalil Tahir, took on their case. He told AsiaNews that the police locked up in an isolation cell rather than go before a judge for fear that extremists might attack them.

A local priest, Fr Yaqoob Yousaf, told AsiaNews that the Muslim employer of James Masih’s daughter Nargis, who works as a maid for his family, gave her items that she might reuse. She took them to her father’s house. After sorting out things they kept some for themselves and sold some in the market. Her father burnt waste papers in the street. Both are illiterate and are unaware whether any pages from a holy book was among them. More importantly, no one saw them burn pages from the Qur’an.

Arshad Mubarak, a local Muslim, made a complaint at the local police station against James Masih and his neighbour and friend Buta Masih for burning the Qur’an in the street. He told the police he didn’t actually see the two accused burning the Qur’an but that other local people told him that that was what they were doing.

However, Father Yaqoob said that the plaintiff was trying to get James Masih to sell his house to no success and that the accusation gave him the opportunity “teach him a lesson for refusal”.

A Pakistani court has now sentenced the two Christians to 15 years of hard labour on charges of desecrating the Holy Quran under the country’s tough blasphemy laws, officials said yesterday.

James Masih and Boota Masih were found guilty of burning pages of the Muslim holy book, judge Mohammad Aslam said in a verdict on Saturday after a trial in the industrial city of Faisalabad.

Both men, who are not related, were also fined 25,000 rupees (416 dollars), court officials said.

Based on an article from Spero News
See also the full article

Because of the bizarre apartheid of Malaysia, all citizens are given an identity card, called MyKad, at the age of 12. This card states the holder's race and religious status, details which are then held at the National Registration Department (NRD). All Malays are automatically classed as Muslims.

No Muslim is legally allowed to convert from Islam. The Islamic courts (Syariah Courts) control issues such as apostasy and issues of marriage and other issues. The NRD will not allow recognition of a person's conversion out of Islam, unless such a process has been authorized by the Syariah Courts. And so far, these courts have refused to allow any Muslims to apostasize.

The 13 states of Malaysia have mostly adopted the Control and Restriction Bill, which gives a fine of 10,000 ringit ($2,653) or imprisonment for up to one year for persuading, influencing a Muslim to leave Islam for another religion. On August 23 Mohamed Nazri Aziz, the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, ordered that the "constitutional law" which forbids others to spread religions other than Islam to the Muslims must be streamlined nationwide.

In March, Aziz had said that anyone who criticised Islam would be tried under the Sedition Act, a legacy of British colonial rule, which existed in Malaysia before its independence in 1957. The penalty for transgressing against the Sedition Act can be three years in prison, with an additional fine of up to 5,000 ringit or $1,350.

Article 3(1) of the constitution states that other religions may be practiced in peace and harmony in any part of the Federation. For those of other religions, there is little sense of harmony, and many feel under attack both from politicians and Islamists.

On August 26, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is head of his political party, UMNO, and also is Minister of Internal Security said people should not even question the contradictions of the constitution: My advice to everyone is to stop (raising such issues). Do not create a situation that can lead to difficulties. Difficulties will make everyone apprehensive.

UMNO veteran Tan Sri Mohamed Rahmat, secretary-general of the party, also spelled out the racism and Islamofascism of UMNO. He warned the other affiliates within the Barisan Nasional to avoid testing the Malays' patience, and even invoked the threat of "amuk" - a Malay tradition of ritual insanity and killing.

He said that members of other races and religions had to make sacrifices, until Malay Muslims were compensated for their (imagined sacrifices). The reference was a dig at the Chinese, who hold most of the wealth.

The Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, also said that he would take strict action against any group which dared to question the status of Islam in Malaysia. He warned against any attempts to use Islam to promote intolerance, but also said that he would protect the Islamic (Syariah) courts from being undermined.

Badawi supports a notion of Islam which is called "Islam Hadhari", or "civilizational Islam", which believes that a quasi-moderate Islam can be used to promote culture and development in Malaysia, and could be exported as an example to other nations.

He said on November 15: Unfortunately, some parties had misinterpreted Islam Hadhari as an excuse to become more conservative and more radical. Long-accepted cultural practices like wishing (well) other Malaysians of different religions in conjunction with their festivals had now been deemed taboo.

Have we reached such a level of intolerance? Joint open houses are now condemned. When did we become ultra-conservative? This is not Islam Hadhari. Such an outlook threatens the unique tolerance for which Malaysian Muslims are renowned for and this should not be allowed to happen

In the face of rising Islamization, UMNO is failing to address the nation's problems realistically. Relying upon Hindus and Chinese to stay in power, its acceptance of the policies of destroying Hindu temples since April, and more recently the destruction of a Taoist temple in Bukit Mertajam, Penang, only serve to alienate the minorities in the so-called multi-racial state. The Nine Emperor Gods Taoist temple was relocated last year because its land had been sold to a property developer. It was demolished on Friday, November 18. Police fired shots at Chinese protesters as they supervised the destruction of the temple.

Abdullah Badawi has asked for meetings with editors of Chinese-language and Malay editors of newspapers, where he is expected to ask them to "tone down" their reporting of religious and racial issues.

Malaysia's 49 years of independence have been marked by the Islamist and racist policies of UMNO. The Malay Muslims are given special rights in its policy of "ketuanan Melayu", the "Malay Agenda". It seems that only now is it starting to realize that such a racist agenda - when actual ethnic Malays only comprise 50.8% of the population - can only help to destroy a country, not to build it up.

Based on an article from Rediff News

At least 20,000 Muslim demonstrators waving Turkish flags and chanting staged a defiant rally in Istanbul yesterday to protest against the Pope's arrival tomorrow.

The Pope is set to defy death threats and security fears to visit Ankara, Ephesus and Istanbul on a four-day trip to Turkey intended to bring the Catholic and Orthodox churches closer together.

But many Muslims are still angry at the Pope's address at Regensberg University in September. He quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor who claimed Muslims were "evil and inhumane".

The small Turkish Saadet political party organised the rally yesterday. Although Saadet claimed one million people would take to the streets, and laid on 2,000 coaches, the numbers were far smaller. A crowd of mostly young Islamists and Turkish nationalists waved banners against the "sly" Pope and demanded an end to the "Crusader Alliance".

Another protest from the Grey Wolves, an ultra-nationalist movement, is expected when the Pope reaches Istanbul. Around 40 of the group were expelled from Haghia Sofia last week with tear gas and arrested for their protest. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, played down the security concerns yesterday, saying: We have had almost daily information on the situation. There is no fear

From the BBC

A court in Yemen has sentenced a newspaper editor to a year in jail for reprinting Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The court also ordered the independent weekly newspaper which carried the cartoons to be closed for six months.

The editor, Kamal al-Aalafi, said he had reprinted the cartoons to raise awareness, not to insult Muslims. Mr al-Aalafi has been released on bail and will appeal the sentence.

The editors of two other Yemeni publications face similar charges.

I feel this story should be treated with an awful lot of skepticism. There may be other factors such as wealth, education, job prospects, social class etc that may provide more likely underlying causality.

From The Times

Churches are being advised to protect congregations against paedophiles and rapists in their midst as The Times uncovers figures showing a clear link between religion and sex crime.

The Home Office has disclosed statistics for the first time, showing the prison population according to their faith and type of offence committed.

Two trends emerge: a strong tendency for prisoners who declare a religious faith to be serving time for sexual offences; and a large proportion of fraudsters from oriental faiths.

Richard Foot, of the charity Sanctuary UK, said that some Christians used a warped theology to justify sex crimes and tried to get out of therapy programmes. We do know of men that go from church to church seeking children. It’s an issue the Home Office is becoming particularly aware of.

The likelihood of sex offenders to adhere to a religion can be seen from the figures released under the Freedom of Information Act.

The proportion of all prisoners declaring any faith compared with those with none is about 2:1 but among those convicted of sex crime it rises to 3:1. The trend is marked across many faiths, including Buddhism, Anglicanism, Free Church Christianity and Judaism.

The Home Office has held two preliminary meetings with church leaders to discuss protecting worshippers when freed sex offenders join congregations.

Based on an article from the Daily Mail

A number of university campuses have been caught up in disputes over religious belief, with at least two student Christian Unions under threat because of their refusal to sign up to gay rights rules.

The university row is widely seen as a vital test of freedom of speech in institutions that should be natural supporters of the right to individual expression.

A number of university Christian unions have come under pressure from both university authorities and student unions for refusing to accept equality rules.

In Exeter, the Christian union has threatened to sue the main student body, the Guild of Students, for attempts to suspend it from groups with rights to use university facilities.

The Guild accused the Christians of breaking equality rules by requiring members and officials to declare Christian beliefs. They are also trying to force the union to change its name to Evangelical Christian Union.

Christian bodies are also taking legal advice at Edinburgh University, where authorities are trying to penalise a Christian group for running courses which teach gay sex is wrong, and at Heriot-Watt and Birmingham, which also face accusations of 'homophobia'.

From The Guardian

Gemma Tumelty, president of the National Union of Students, explains further:

A small number of Christian unions have been disaffiliated, or have had their funding terminated by their local students' union, which believe these particular Christian unions are failing to follow the equal opportunities policies they have signed up to. This often involves a refusal to let anyone get involved in their society who does not sign up to their doctrinal statement.

The 1994 Education Act requires universities to ensure that student unions act in an open, fair and democratic way. As part of this, student unions defend these principles in their relationship with the student societies they fund. This simply means that all student societies, be they political, religious or social, are required to sign up to the same rules, run democratic elections and allow all students to get involved - a right enshrined in the act and in their constitutions.

These obligations are there to protect everyone. How can one society condone closing the door on anyone who is there to learn about another faith or even their own, or to help generate discussion among their peers?

From the Bangkok Post

All 322 schools in Pattani province in Southern Thailand will close indefinitely from tomorrow after the director of a community school was shot and burnt by Muslim militants on Friday.

Bunsom Thongsriplai, chairman of the Pattani Teachers Federation, said all classes would be suspended until authorities could come up with better security measures for teachers in the province.

In Narathiwat's Rangae district, many business operators have decided to yield to insurgent demands to close their businesses every Friday and Sunday. Small businesses in the district have closed their stores on Fridays due to similar threats in the past.

But yesterday, business operators received a letter signed by ''Terrorist Group,'' telling them to also close their shops on Sundays. The letter says all businesses in Rangae district's Tambon Tanyongmas municipality must acknowledge that Sunday is also a holiday as well as Friday. Any business operators failing to comply with the announcement would have to bear the consequences on their lives and property, the letter threatened.

An intelligence official in the deep South predicted possible simultaneous, coordinated attacks against state officials and public facilities by separatist groups in villages where members of muslim militant groups are living. The militants are believed to be planning bombing attacks on local electricity generating facilities in the villages before hitting other targets.

The insurgents also planned to fly their Pattani State flags at villages where their military operations were successful, said the source.

The funding for the operation was believed to have come from the Bersatu separatist movement.

Fujairah is one of the emirates of the UAE

From Gulf News

A woman escaped a sentence of 'death by stoning' after her sentence for adultery was commuted by an appeal court to one-year imprisonment, 40 lashes and deportation.

NAM, a Bangladeshi, had been convicted by Fujairah's Sharia Court of committing adultery with the second defendant, MN who was also convicted of the same charges.

With the stoning, NAM. was initially also sentenced to two years in jail, a Dh1,000 fine and deportation.

Based on an article from the Daily Mail

British Airways made the news when they rejected an appeal by Heathrow check-in worker Nadia Eweida to wear a small cross necklace to work.

Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu denounced BA's decision as nonsense: British Airways needs to look again at this decision and to look at the history of the country it represents, whose culture, laws, heritage and tradition owes so much to the very same symbol it would ban.

Eweida has been off work without pay for two months after she refused to remove the cross. She appealed against the decision because her fellow Muslim and Sikh workers are permitted to wear hijabs and turbans.

But in a ruling yesterday, Eweida was told it would not be "practical" to order Muslims and Sikhs to remove their religious headwear. Eweida now faces the sack after insiders said it was clear BA would not back down.

BA's hardline stance is said to go all the way up to chief executive Willie Walsh, who believes giving way would mean other employees could wear jewellery.

Eweida is planning to lodge a second appeal before launching more formal employment tribunal proceedings against the airline.

Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti said: British Airway's policy appears to be fundamentally misconceived and has led to a bonkers result. This woman's cross is clearly as important to her as a turban or a hijab to someone else.

A BA spokesman said: British Airways has 34,000 uniformed staff, all of whom know they must abide by our uniform policy.The policy recognises that it is not practical for some religious symbols such as turbans and hijabs to be worn underneath the uniform.This is purely a question of practicality. There is no discrimination between faiths whatsoever. We have also offered her an alternative non-uniformed post, in which she would be able to wear her cross openly.

Eweida said she was delighted with Dr Sentamu's comments. I am very grateful for his support. It is wonderful. I was beginning to feel a lone voice in this country. I am glad that a Christian like him has spoken out. I hope it encourages other Christians to start praying and persuades BA to change its mind.

Two senior ministers have also rounded on British Airways as the airline suffered an angry backlash over its refusal to let an employee wear a Christian cross.

Environment Minister Ben Bradshaw said he would now avoid BA flights as a number of MPs joined a growing boycott of the airline. He praised the boycott of the airline begun by Tory MP Ann Widdecombe and added: I don't often agree with Ann Widdecombe but on this she is right and BA is wrong. I hope they will see sense and reconsider their policy.

And Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain called the decision to stop Nadia Eweida wearing a tiny cross on a chain with her uniform "loopy".

Another senior MP, Tory opposition defence spokesman Gerald Howarth, said: I am incensed by this. I am writing to the airline to express my dismay and I will consider very seriously whether to fly BA in future. Firstly, this is not a Muslim country, it is a Christian country, and the idea that somehow it has become unacceptable to demonstrate that faith is bizarre. Secondly, the cross is a modest symbol. It is not an aggressive or provocative gesture like a veil or a burqa. It is a quiet demonstration of faith.
 

Based on an article from the Daily Mail

Jack Straw became the latest Cabinet minister to condemn British Airways for its 'inexplicable' ban on staff wearing the cross.

The Leader of the Commons joined nearly 100 MPs in stepping up the pressure from Parliament for the airline to retreat.

Straw said: Like the rest of this House, I strongly supported the right of Sikhs to wear turbans both in private companies and, for example, in the police service and the Army. I strongly supported the right of women of the Muslim faith to wear the hijab - the head scarf -in all circumstances. I therefore find the ban on wearing a cross or indeed a Star of David in equivalent circumstances, as I say, wholly inexplicable.

Leading bishops in England and from around the world added their weight to the revolt against BA - following condemnation by Archbishop of York John Sentamu that the policy was 'flawed nonsense'. Some 13 bishops from England, the Caribbean and Africa and the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland joined the revolt. The bishops of Hertford, Leeds, Bolton, Birmingham, Swindon, Bristol, Blackburn, Norwich, Sheffield, Gloucester, Lichfield and Essex all added their voices.

In a sign of the mounting pressure, a senior BA manager suggested the airline might be forced into a rethink in the future.

Geoff Want, BA's director of ground operations, said the company 'might' change its uniform policy - but insisted there were no plans for a climbdown at the moment.

Pressed in an interview on BBC2's Newsnight to say whether BA would reconsider its action against check-in worker Nadia Eweida.

Want said: We might. But he added: We continually review our policy but on this particular occasion we see no reason to change it at this time.

A reminder of a relevant story from a few days ago in The Telegraph: Unbelievable Force

A leading church group with more than a million Christian members has raised the prospect of civil unrest and even "violent revolution" to protect religious freedoms.

In a startling warning to the Government, senior church and political figures have backed a report advocating force to protest against policies that are "unbiblical" and "inimical to the Christian faith".

The menacing language of the report, which Lord Mawhinney, the Tory peer, Andy Reed, the Labour MP, and the Rt Rev Peter Forster, the Bishop of Chester, helped to produce, echoes comments made by Muslim fanatics.

The report from the Evangelical Alliance says "violent revolution" should be regarded as a viable response if government legislation encroaches further on basic religious rights. The church is urged to come to a consensus that at some point there is not only the right but the duty to disobey the state.

The report, entitled Faith and Nation, comes amid growing concern that people are being prevented from expressing their faith, including BA's recent decision that an employee could not wear a crucifix.
 

So is this: 'excellent news for society as a whole'?

Based on an article from the Daily Mail

British Airways backed down over its ban on workers wearing the cross after widespread criticism.

Airline chief Willie Walsh ordered a rethink of the rule that barred check-in worker Nadia Eweida from wearing a cross at work.

The airline had faced four days of angry condemnation from an alliance of Cabinet ministers, 100 MPs, 20 Church of England bishops and, finally, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Dr Rowan Williams called its stance 'deeply offensive' and threatened to sell the Church of England's £6.6million holding of BA shares.

Just five hours later, the airline capitulated. Chief executive Walsh, the driving force behind BA's determination to stop Eweida wearing the cross, said it will look at ways its rules could be adapted 'to allow symbols of faith to be worn openly’.

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, who had spearheaded the attack on BA, greeted the climbdown with relief. Amen. This is excellent news for Nadia, BA and society as a whole.

The Archbishop of Canterbury finally broke his silence. He raised the stakes further in the dispute by threatening to sell the £6.6million worth of shares that the Church of England holds in BA.

Dr Williams said: If BA is really saying or implying that the wearing of a cross in public is a source of offence, then I regard that as deeply offensive and, in a society where religious liberty and the expression of religious commitment is free, I regard it as something really quite serious.

From Stop Honour Killings

The lawyers representing two women sentenced to death by stoning for engaging in “inappropriate relationships” with men announced that their clients will be retried

According to counsel for Hajieh Esamailvand, the court in the city of Jolfa summoned Hajieh back for additional interrogation. Hajieh’s counsel remains hopeful that competent legal representation and defense during the new trial will lead to the dismissal of the charges against her client.

She goes on to explain that Hajieh’s statements in court during her previous trial was taken to mean that she had committed adultery when, in fact, Hajieh had used the term “zena” to inform the court that she was raped by the man who had murdered her husband. Such an erroneous interpretation of the word “zena,” (which, in Farsi is used to describe adultery, fornication, debauchery, and rape,) led the court to find Hajieh guilty of adultery and sentence her to death by stoning.

Similarly, lawyers representing Parisa Akbari are contesting the sentence of death by stoning issued against their client. The Judiciary of High Council (i.e. Islamic Republic of Iran’s Supreme Court) has ordered a re-evaluation of the charges against Parisa and her husband.

From RFE/RL

A spokesman for Iran's judiciary, Jamal Karimirad, rejected reports claiming that stoning sentences have been carried out recently in Iran.

Karimirad was reacting to a letter by women's rights activists who have called on the head of Iran's judiciary to end the Islamic practice of stoning convicted adulterers to death.

Activists have said that a man and a woman were stoned to death in May despite a moratorium on the practice, and several others face stoning sentences.

Karimirad said some courts might have issued stoning sentences but that the sentences have subsequently been commuted.

A women's rights lawyer Shadi Sadr said that research conducted by fellow activists had shown that the sentence had been handed down by a court in the northeastern pilgrimage city of Mashhad as recently as April against a man and a woman convicted of adultery: In our investigations, we found out about nine women and two men in different Iranian jails who had been sentenced to stoning.
 

From Iranian

Branch 15 of Iran's Supreme Court today ordered the dismissal of charges of "adultery" in cases of Parisa and Najaf Akbari. The order, which is expected to be carried out by the court in the city of Shiraz, where the two women are currently in jail, spares them from being stoned to death.

Instead, the Supreme Court set the women's punishment at 99 lashes each, and additionally ordered Najaf to be transferred to the city of Yazd, where she is to spend the next 5 years in exile from her home-town of Shiraz. In issuing this order, the Court explained that the women's original sentences were contrary to religious and civil laws.

Expressing his happiness with the Supreme Court's ruling and the vacation of stoning sentences against his clients, the women's attorney stated that the authorities of the Islamic Republic appear to be moving away from stoning sentences. If that is in fact the case, he explained, the law needs to be changed in its entirety to reflect this position.

Hajieh Esmailvand and her lawyer are awaiting a similar decision in Hajieh's case. Although Hajieh's hearing was held two weeks ago, and despite all indications that the charges of adultery were to be dismissed in her case, she is still awaiting a formal decision from the court to clear her name and grant her the freedom from which she has been deprived in the past 7 years. Hajieh has maintained her innocence during the entire time.

Based on an article from LA Times

An Italian comedian has given a whole new meaning to the term irreverence with slapstick television skits in which he portrays an unmistakable Pope Benedict XVI, complete with thick white hair and heavy German accent. This pope, however, also goose steps and possesses a giddy obsession with fashion.

The Vatican is not amused.

Avvenire, the official newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference, blasted the parodies by comedian Maurizio Crozza as "failed satire" that bordered on the cowardly. These are vulgar television programs ... that attempt to ridicule figures dear to the Catholic world, Avvenire said.

The pope's personal secretary, Msgr. Georg Ganswein, also spoke out. Such satires, he said, should be yanked from the airwaves. Of course he has never watched them, Ganswein hastened to add, and never will.

Satire is fine, Ganswein said: ...BUT...these things have no intellectual level and offend men of the church. They are not acceptable.

Hundreds of women rights activists last week held a demonstration outside Parliament House, denouncing the government’s “slack approach” on the Women’s Protection Bill (WPB) and demanding a total repeal of the Hudood Ordinance.

The protestors demanded the government grant recommendations of the National Commission on the Status of Women and they rejected the amendments to the original bill, which they claimed were introduced at the behest of mullahs.

They claimed that the government had succumbed to the pressure of mullahs by accepting their amendments, which would knock the bottom out of the bill and make it meaningless.

They held placards and shouted slogans, calling for the elimination of the Hudood Ordinance and condemning mullahs for treading on human rights in the name of religion. They said that the amended WPB would bring no relief to women and that the mullah-recommended amendments would make the situation from bad to worse.

Farzana Bari, an NGO activist and university teacher, said the Hadood Ordinance, sectarian violence and heroin were a legacy of General Ziaul Haq, who entered the power corridors under false pretences and remained stuck to the throne until death.

She said hundreds of women had fallen victim to the Hadood Ordinance since its inception. She said the amended WPB was an attempt to keep women underdeveloped for ever. She pledged that the women would resist it at every stage. Now is the time for women to stand up and resist, she said.

She said women would stage a series of protests across the country if the government did not repeal the Hadood Ordinance.
 

The upper house of Pakistan's parliament has backed the bill amending an Islamic law on rape and adultery.

The new law, which must now be approved by Pakistani leader Gen Pervez Musharraf, allows civil courts to try rape cases.

The senate rejected objections to the bill put forward by Islamist MPs who boycotted last week's lower house vote.

Khurshid Ahmed, a leader of an opposition coalition of religious parties, described the bill as an attempt to promote an alien culture and secularism in Pakistan.

The new law allows for DNA and other scientific evidence to be used in prosecuting rape cases. It also drops the death penalty for people having sex outside marriage.

A woman is raped every two hours and gang-raped every eight hours in Pakistan, according to the country's independent Human Rights Commission.

Correspondents say these figures are probably an under-estimation as many rapes are not reported.

Campaigners have said Pakistan's existing laws make it virtually impossible to prosecute rape.

Israeli gay activists Thursday called off a weekend parade in Jerusalem under pressure of religious leaders and security concerns, exposing deep intolerance there despite an active, open gay scene in other Israeli cities.

The Pride parade, planned for Friday, touched a raw nerve in the holy city, unifying fundamentalist Jews, Christians and Muslims in a common anti-gay agenda. In the end the gathering was reduced to a rally in a closed stadium.

Police planned to post 9,000 officers to protect the Pride march, but after errant Israeli artillery shells killed 18 Palestinian civilians in Gaza on Wednesday, triggering threats of reprisals, police asked gay organizers to scale back their gathering, and they agreed.

For the past week, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews have clashed nearly every night with police, burning trash bins and throwing stones while vowing to prevent the parade from going ahead.

The parade dispute has turned out to be a milestone in the battle for gay rights in the Holy Land, where secular society again finds itself in a head-on confrontation with influential religious conservatives.

Over time we achieved a lot more than was expected, and it puts us in a very good place in the cultured world, said Uzi Even, a nuclear scientist who was the first openly gay member of Israel's parliament. Now, we are being dragged back into the dark world of religion.

Nutter Rabbi Yosef Elnikaveh, a prominent religious leader, said allowing the parade to proceed was surrendering to ''mental illness.''

The mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Hussein, the top Muslim cleric in the Palestinian territories, said being gay is a crime and demanded police punish those involved in the parade. Christian evangelical groups in Jerusalem have called the parade ''provocative'' and demanded the venue be changed.

Jordan's prosecutor charged a father with murdering his 17-year-old daughter by electrocuting her, a court official said, describing the 16th honor crime investigated this year by authorities in this conservative society.

The man's 15-year-old son was also charged in the incident. Most families expect daughters to remain virgins until they are married and some believe girls who mix with men who are not relatives bring dishonor to the family.

The men repeatedly hit the girl on the head with a club, then administered an electrical current to her after she ignored her father's orders not to leave their home.

The man and his son surrendered to officials. They confessed to having hit the girl several times then shocking her to ensure that she had died, claiming they killed her to protect the family's honor.

Under orders from Jordan's King Abdullah II, the state scrapped lenient six-month penalties for men who commit honor killings, replacing them with prison terms of up to 15 years.

But government efforts to introduce harsher laws have been blocked by a conservative, tribal-dominated parliament that regards the tougher penalties as encouraging women to engage in illicit behavior.

Based on an article from Asia News.IT

Christian convicted of blasphemy in Pakistan has been released after 8 years in jail. The Lahore High Court yesterday acquitted Ranjha Masih of all charges after a Faisalabad court condemned him to life imprisonment in 2003.

The Christian community fears for his life outside prison as he has already received death threats.

Masih, 58 years, was arrested on 8 May 1998, the day of the funeral of Bishop John Joseph, who killed himself to protest against the blasphemy law. Right after his burial, local Christians protested against the government. Stones were thrown, and one of them hit a shop sign that featured a verse from the Koran. Police arrested Masih and charged him with blasphemy.

The ‘blasphemy law’, imposes life in prison for anyone desecrating Islam’s holy scriptures. The law has often been used by Muslims to settle scores with non-Muslims.

In 2003, a Faisalabad court sentenced Ranjha Masih to life in prison amid protests by local Muslims who demanded that he be hanged. Throughout his imprisonment, police kept him in solitary confinement “for security reasons”. He will be released thanks to the efforts of the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance of Lahore.

Masih’s problems are not over yet: he has received death threats and the Christian community will keep him in hiding for his safety as soon as he comes out of prison. There have been suggestions that he emigrate to Germany.

From Stop Honour Killings

The Supreme Court of Canada declined an invitation on Thursday to consider whether Muslim cultural and religious beliefs in ''family honour'' should be taken into account as justification for receiving a lighter sentence for killing an unfaithful wife.

The court refused to hear the appeal of Adi Abdul Humaid, a devout Muslim from the United Arab Emirates, who admitted to stabbing Aysar Abbas to death with a steak knife on a visit to Ottawa in 1999.

In an application filed in the Supreme Court, Humaid's lawyer, Richard Bosada, argued Humaid was provoked by his wife's claim she cheated on him, an insult so severe in the Muslim faith it deprived him of self-control.

The concept of ''family honour'' in the Muslim culture means a man is disgraced if his wife has an affair, said the application.

Humaid was convicted of first-degree murder and lost his appeal at the Ontario Court of Appeal, which concluded his defence lacked an ''air of reality.''

The Supreme Court, by convention, did not give reasons for refusing to consider the case, but it normally only takes on appeals it considers to be of national importance.

Under Canadian law, a rarely used, controversial defence called provocation can allow intentional killings to be reduced to the lesser crime of manslaughter if the accused proves the crime was committed in the heat of passion arising from a ''wrongful act or insult'' that would cause an ordinary person to lose control.

Bosada said the high court should take on the case to provide guidance to lower courts ''in this multi-cultural Canadian society.''

Humaid contends his Muslim beliefs should be a factor because he killed his wife after she hinted she was having an affair with a business associate. Abbas was 46 years old when she died of 23 stab wounds to the throat in the fall of 1999, while she and her husband were visiting their son at the University of Ottawa. Humaid testified at his trial he blacked out after hearing his wife's confession and he lost all self-control.

The Ontario Crown, in a Supreme Court court submission, maintains the murder was pre-meditated and Humaid, who had an affair with the family maid, wanted out of his marriage. Humaid also stood to gain financially from the death of his wife, a successful engineer who controlled most of the family wealth.

After having an affair himself, Humaid's argument that he deserves a lighter sentence because he was provoked by his wife's insult is irreconcilable with the principal of gender equality enshrined in the Charter of Rights, says the Crown's submission.

An American scholar, Mahmoud Mustafa Ayoub, testified at Humaid's trial that many Islamic societies permit men to punish wives suspected of adultery and sometimes even kill them. Under Islamic law, punishment for adultery is usually flogging or stoning, Ayoub said. In some Muslim cultures and rural areas, unfaithful women can be killed. But Ayoub acknowledged under cross-examination that Muslims in Canada should not be able to take the law into their own hands when they suspect their wives of infidelity.

Difficult for the legislators, as many aspects of religion are simply worthy of hatred. But of course that does not mean that people should be whipped up into a lynch mob...that is the job of religion...
 

From The Independent

Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, indicated

last night that laws against inciting racial hatred might have to be strengthened after the British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin was unanimously cleared of the offence.

Despite undercover evidence from a BBC documentary which showed Griffin abusing and mocking Islam and the Koran, an all-white jury in Leeds yesterday cleared him and Mark Collett, his party's head of publicity, of stirring up racial hatred.

During the trial, the jury heard extracts from a speech Griffin made in the Reservoir Tavern in Keighley, on 19 January 2004, in which he described Islam as a wicked, vicious faith and said Muslims were turning Britain into a multi-racial hell hole.

At the same event, Collett addressed the audience by saying: Let's show these ethnics the door in 2004.

Indicating the possible change in the race laws, Lord Falconer said last night: I think we should look at them in the light of what's happened here, because what is being said to young Muslim people in this country is that we as a country are anti-Islam, and we have got to demonstrate without compromising freedom that we are not.

The Home Office said John Reid, the Home Secretary, would "think carefully" and consult other ministers about the need for changes to existing laws.

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, said mainstream opinion in this country would be "offended" by some of the statements that had been made during the course of the week-long trial: But if there is something that needs to be done to look at the law then I think we will have to do that. Any preaching of religious or racial hatred will offend ... and I think we have got to do whatever we can to root it out, from whatever quarter it comes. If that means that we have to look at the laws again, I think we will have to do so.

From Asian Tribune

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, the Editor of the Bangladeshi Weekly Blitz and a practicing Muslim, goes on trial for his life on Monday, November 13, on counts of sedition, treason and blasphemy.

Since 2003, he has been beaten, tortured and imprisoned for his work in fostering peace and opposing radical Islamists in his country.

Since 2003, the Bangladesh government and Islamist radicals have targeted Choudhury and his family. After seventeen months of imprisonment and "interrogation," Choudhury was freed in April 2005 due to the efforts of Dr. Richard Benkin and US Representative Mark Kirk. Since then, he has continued publishing his paper despite government blocks on advertisement and other forms of harassment.

Radicals have issued several death threats against him and in July, they bombed his newspaper.

On October 6, 2006, a large group of Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Bahais, and Muslims spent all night with Choudhury to protect him from radicals who threatened "dire consequences" for his actions.

Shortly after that, Choudhury went into hiding after a tip alerted him to impending police and radical moves against him.

From The Guardian

The career of a rising young Iranian actor has been left in tatters by the widespread distribution of a private film showing her having sex.

Police are investigating the woman, who has not been officially named, for a suspected breach of Iran's strict morality laws forbidding sex outside marriage. Unmarried people who break the law are subject to punishment by lashing.

Investigators have also asked Interpol to arrest and extradite the woman's male partner, who is thought to have fled to Dubai.

The man is suspected of distributing the explicit film, which may have been shot using a camcorder with the woman's consent. If he is convicted, he faces up to three years in jail and a £6,000 fine.

Stringent Islamic rules preclude even cursory touching between men and women in Iranian productions, while foreign programmes and films are rigorously censored for illicit inter-gender contact.

The incriminating film is believed to be two years old but began circulating as a DVD and on some websites a few weeks ago.

It came to the attention of the religious police, who are charged with enforcing Iran's Islamic laws. Police have banned the naming of those involved.

From the Bangkok Post

The Thai pop star, Yuenyong Opakul, alias Ad Carabao, has found himself in hot water after his blasphemous remarks sparked a storm of protest from Muslim communities across the country.

Muslim residents in Mahanak put up banners and placards in protest against the musician's remarks published in Hamburger magazine's October edition.

Yuenyong questioned people's failure to respect the truth while adhering to religious icons he said were invented by humans.

The Office of the Chularatchamontri yesterday issued a statement denouncing the magazine for running the interview containing the insulting remark.

The statement slammed Yuengyong for offending Muslims and said he was ignorant of the principle regarding the Islamic faith in God and the Prophet.

Yuenyong handed a letter of apology to the Islamic Central Committee of Thailand (ICCT) yesterday. He said in the letter that he uttered the offensive remarks because he was drunk: I would like to apologise...to all Muslims in Thailand and across the world.

The ICCT said it was satisfied with the apology and would not take action against him.

From Stop Honour Killings

Rapes, honour killings and a plethora of religious edicts against women are not new to Islamic society, and the status of women keeps getting worse.

In a fresh twist, women's faces on billboards across Pakistan, especially in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), are now being defaced. Reason? These multinational companies want to promote obscenity, lewdness and vulgarity, according to religious leader, Shehzada Babar.

The depiction of women sans hijab or headscarf is considered un-Islamic by Muslim radicals and the Taliban, whose influence is growing in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Aatekah Mir, a resident of Lahore, confirms that billboards showing women are being removed/defaced, but says that it is confined to NWFP: It is only in the NWFP that billboards with women are being removed. The provincial government there has this ludicrous bill that forbids music and dance mehfils in public places as well as homes.

The Muttahida Majilis-e-Amal (MMA), which governs the NWFP bordering Afghanistan, had presented a bill in 2005 that banned dance, music and women's photography.

In fact, they had imposed an "unofficial ban" on dance and music after coming to power in 2002. Reports say that the MMA clerics then had set on fire cinema houses and exhibition centres and smashed billboards that displayed females' images.

In early 2003, they banned female sports, ultrasonography of females by male technicians and music in public transport.

Pakistan has never been a progressive Muslim country. It is a theocratic Islamic country and Islam in practice does not believe in liberated women. Pakistan is Talibanised, says Subhash Kapila, a strategic affairs analyst with the New Delhi based think tank South Asia Analysis Group.

Hudood laws won't be sufficient to ameliorate the condition of women in Pakistan. While the initial draft proposed by the government was fairly promising, it has since been watered down to a point where it is meaningless. The compromise reached with the MMA in August 2006 exposed a lack of commitment to change, says Pakistan's rights watchdog.

And very recently, the MMA was quoted as saying that it would launch a movement for an Islamic revolution in the country if the government tried to pass the Protection of Women Bill cleared by a select committee of parliament. Pakistan under its two military rulers relies on Islamic fundamentalist parties, which practice the most conservative form of Islam. Women in Pakistan are thus just chattels, says Kapila.

From Stop Honour Killings

Somalia Islamic leaders have banned Somalis from marrying without the consent or knowledge of their parents, saying such unions violate Islam.

It is against the teaching of our religion and parents do not approve of it, said Sheik Mahad Mohamed Sheik Hassan, chairman of the regional Islamic court in Wanlawien.

The marriage practice of "masaafo" — roughly equivalent to eloping — is common in Somalia because it allows young couples to wed without their parents scuttling the union because they deem the dowry too small or over other objections. Weddings also often cost up to a year's savings for an average Somali.

Mohamedek Ali, a 21-year-old Somali, said the costs were prohibitive and would prevent many marriages: They cannot ban what our forefathers practiced. All of us, including the mullahs were born from elopement marriage."

From Stop Honour Killings

A Saudi court has sentenced a gang rape victim to 90 lashes of the whip because she was alone in a car with a man to whom she was not married.

The sentence was passed at the end of a trial in which the al- Qateef high criminal court convicted four Saudis convicted of the rape, sentencing them to prison terms and a total of 2,230 lashes.

A male friend of the rape victim was also sentenced to 90 lashes for being alone with her in the car.

The court heard that the victim and her friend were followed by the assailants to their car, kidnapped and taken to a remote farm, where the raping occurred.

From The Telegraph

A leading church group with more than a million Christian members has raised the prospect of civil unrest and even "violent revolution" to protect religious freedoms.

In a startling warning to the Government, senior church and political figures have backed a report advocating force to protest against policies that are "unbiblical" and "inimical to the Christian faith".

The menacing language of the report, which Lord Mawhinney, the Tory peer, Andy Reed, the Labour MP, and the Rt Rev Peter Forster, the Bishop of Chester, helped to produce, echoes comments made by Muslim fanatics.

The report from the Evangelical Alliance says "violent revolution" should be regarded as a viable response if government legislation encroaches further on basic religious rights. The church is urged to come to a consensus that at some point there is not only the right but the duty to disobey the state.

The report, entitled Faith and Nation, comes amid growing concern that people are being prevented from expressing their faith, including BA's recent decision that an employee could not wear a crucifix.

The Government's attempt to introduce religious hatred laws has highlighted the growing threat to religious liberty, the report says. Pope Benedict XVI has also said that God is being pushed to the margins by "secular forces".

While it has always been expected that the greatest threat to Britain's security will come from Muslim extremists, the report will cause particular alarm to government ministers as it reveals disquiet among the country's Christian population.

No mention of the thugs actually been locked up or even punished for their shitty incursion.

From Reuters

Malaysia's tourism authorities will open a probe into the controversial raid of a retired Christian American couple by an Islamic vigilante squad.

Retired American policeman Randall Barnhart, and his wife, Carole were raided by a vice squad last month at their rented flat in the northern resort island of Langkawi in Kedah state.

The couple were asleep at 2am. when a six-member team pounded on their door and demanded to inspect their condominium on suspicion of them committing "khalwat", or close proximity.

Barnhart had initially refused to open the door but relented when the officers became aggressive. They had asked to see his "woman" and demanded to look at their marriage certificate.

The New Straits Times said on Friday the Ruler of Kedah state had asked vigilante squad members to be more courteous when carrying out such raids.

Under sharia law, khalwat is the crime of being in close proximity to someone of the opposite sex who is neither a spouse nor a relative.

The law suppsoedly does not apply to non-Muslims in Malaysia, which considers itself an oxymoronic moderate Islamic nation.

Barnhart met tourism ministry officials on Thursday to protest against the incident.

The Star newspaper said Malaysia's Tourism Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor would brief Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's Cabinet on the case.

Local Christians said the episode had given Malaysia a bad name. Just recently, our Prime Minister refuted allegations that Malaysia is a 'police state', the Christian Federation said: An incident such as this, and many more similar actions in the past by over-zealous vigilante groups in the country point to the contrary.

Ted Haggard surely made an impression on Richard Dawkins whilst making his documentary Root of All Evil. Haggard's intensity and crazed looking eyes seemed very unsettling.

Based on an article from the Daily Mail

A powerful leader of the religious right with close links to President Bush resigned yesterday after being accused of paying for sex with a male body-builder.

The scandal could have significant political impact just days before nationwide elections. Conservative Christians are a support base for the Republican Party and Evangelical leaders have been urging the faithful to vote on Tuesday.

Polls show Republicans set to lose control of one and perhaps both houses of Congress. The religious right has also encouraged conservative voters in eight states to support proposed amendments banning gay marriage.

The Rev Ted Haggard, a married father of five who has been called one of the most influential evangelical Christians in the United States, has weekly conference calls with the White House.

With 30 million followers through his National Association of Evangelicals, the president has viewed him as a vital help in opposing same-sex marriages, say Washington insiders.

Haggard dismissed as head of his 14,000-member New Life Church while a church panel investigates, denied the allegations but said he could not continue to minister under the cloud created by the accusations. He also told US television: I never had a gay relationship with anybody, and I'm faithful to my wife. But New Life Associate Senior Pastor Ross Parsley told a meeting of church elders that Haggard had admitted to some indiscretions.

The allegations were made on a Denver, Colorado, radio station by a personal trainer Mike Jones. Jones, who said he is gay, said he was upset when he discovered Haggard and the New Life Church had publicly opposed same-sex marriage: It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex.

He claimed Haggard paid him to have sex nearly every month over three years until August and snorted methamphetamine.

Based on an article from the Daily Mail

Soaring violence against Christians in Iraq, including the alleged crucifixion of a teenage boy in Basra, has prompted the Catholic Church to call for a safe haven to protect minority groups as the country slides toward civil war.

The American Catholic bishops have also asked US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to grant asylum to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians who have fled their homes to escape persecution. They told her that they were deeply alarmed by the "rapidly deteriorating situation of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq".

News agencies said a 14-year-old boy was crucified early last month in Basra. AIN also gave a graphic account of the execution of a priest, Father Paul Alexander which was said to be in retaliation for Pope Benedict XVI recently quoting a 14th century Byzantine ruler who regarded Islam as 'evil and inhuman'.

Father Alexander was snatched from Mosul's Syriac Orthodox Catholic Church on October 9 by extremists who demanded that the Vatican should pay a £200,000 ransom and nail a written apology from the Pope to the priest's church door.

Father Alexander's body was found three days later. He had been disembowelled. His arms and legs were severed, then he was beheaded.

It is the most gruesome in a series of beheadings and other atrocities committed on Christians, including the brutal treatment of a group of nuns journeying from Baghdad to Jordan.

As the war has radicalised Islamic sensibilities, Christians have seen their total numbers slump from 1.2 million before the US-led invasion of March 2003 to about 600,000 today.

John Pontifex of the British branch of Aid to the Church in Need, a charity set up to help persecuted Christians, said: What we are now witnessing in Iraq is a vicious attempt to wipe Christianity from the face of a country. Beheadings, killings, arrests and torture, it is the stuff of nightmares, an era every bit as cruel as the persecution of Christians in Roman times.

Stephen Green of Christian Voice: To even think that there are Christians contemplating violence...it is just not what we do. 

Er Excuse me...remember practically every chapter of world history right up to Northern Ireland

Based on an article from This Is London

The BBC are facing ludicrous accusations of anti-Christian bias after a BBC drama portrayed evangelical extremists murdering Muslims.

One Christian group said the corporation had a "sinister" and "malicious" agenda against their faith, while another claimed the BBC1 Spooks programme could be an "incitement to hatred" against them.

The row comes in the wake of recent revelations that senior BBC executives had admitted that the corporation was guilty of bias against Christianity at a special "impartiality" summit.

Christians were suitably 'outraged' by the episode of the drama, which showed a group of evangelical terrorists who carry out a number of attacks on the Muslim community and attempt to spark a religious war in the UK.

Christian Voice National Director Stephen Green said: This could even be incitement to hatred against Christians. It is completely ludicrous and brings the BBC into more disrepute. Most people watching it will just spot another bit of BBC bias and inaccuracy - nevertheless it shows a worrying mind-set in the people that are producing the programme to even think that there are Christians contemplating violence against any Muslims whatsoever - it is just not what we do.

Religious group Evangelical Alliance has also hit out at the BBC accusing them of trying to smear evangelical Christians as being likely to commit acts of terrorism.

It's head of public affairs Don Horrocks said: This is yet another outrageous example of the BBC's anti-Christian bias. This beggars belief. I do think that there is a sinister and malicious agenda at work here and that they are trying to plant the seed of the idea through fiction that evangelical Christians are just as likely to carry out terrorism as some members of the Islamic faith.

The BBC received 16 complaints about the programme's portrayal of Christianity and media regulator Ofcom got a further two complaints about the issue.

In the programme the Christian terrorist group was seen carrying out a hand-grenade attack on Muslims and planing to blow up a Mosque in Manchester. It featured a video broadcast by the fictional group saying: Britain is a nation under Christ - we will no longer tolerate the Muslims in our ranks - this is a declaration of war against Islam.

A spokeswoman for the show said: Spooks is an award-winning drama series which is based entirely on fiction and we are confident our viewers understand that episodes do not portray real events.