An academic book about religious attitudes to women is to be published this week despite concerns it could cause a backlash among Muslims because it criticises the prophet Muhammad for taking a nine-year-old girl as his third wife.

The book, entitled Does God Hate Women?, suggests that Muhammad's marriage to a child called Aisha is not entirely compatible with the idea that he had the best interests of women at heart.

This weekend, the publisher, Continuum, said it had received outside opinion on the book's cultural and religious content following suggestions that it might cause offence. We sought some advice and paused for thought before deciding to go ahead with publication, said Oliver Gadsby, the firm's chief executive. The book will be released on Thursday.

Continuum's book may cause a backlash because it sets out to be a factual examination of religious attitudes to women. British writer Jeremy Stangroom and his American co-author Ophelia Benson, whose previous books on philosophy and science have received favourable reviews, cite ancient Islamic scholars to support their case. They roundly attack previous attempts to soft-soap the controversial episode in Muhammad's life. In the aftermath of 9/11, the authors argue, a wave of political correctness aimed at building bridges with the Muslim world has meant accusations of Islamophobia have been used to silence debate about the morality of social conduct, past and present.

Through a gruesome catalogue of abuses carried out against women in the name of Islam as well as other major religions, including Hinduism and Catholicism, Stangroom and Benson conclude that most of the world's great faiths are essentially misogynistic.

Aren’t you scared? I get asked this question all the time, most recently in the wake of the news that three radical extremist Muslim men conspired to set fire to the home office of Gibson Square, the London publisher that had been set to publish my novel The Jewel of Medina last October.
...

Whether or not my book is respectful, however, has little to do with the real issue here. For, although the extremists lost in court, they have apparently won where it really counts — in the UK’s book stores.

After Gibson Square’s publisher announced, a couple of weeks after the arson attempt, that he was indefinitely postponing publication of The Jewel of Medina — following in the footsteps of Random House in the US — I awarded world English publication rights to Beaufort Books, my US publishing house whose publisher and small staff have supported my book unwaveringly, despite hate mail, lawsuit threats, and Anjem Choudary’s own assertion that not only I, but my publishers, might deserve to die.

Beaufort publisher Eric Kampmann and associate publisher Margot Atwell headed to the London Book Fair in April with a full display of The Jewel of Medina and confidence that they would find the right distributor to supply stores in the UK with the book. But — no. Everyone, it seems, is too afraid.

...

These three Muslim thugs who tried to torch the British people’s right to read a book would be easy to shrug off as isolated cases, as simple bullies. The fact is, though, that soon after that attack, extremist groups in the UK exerted an organised effort to keep The Jewel of Medina out of British bookstores. Luke Johnson, chairman of Borders UK, wrote in the Financial Times online that his company had received threats that it would “suffer” if Borders UK sold The Jewel of Medina.

Surely, in a civilised society, we cannot allow thuggish behaviour to intimidate us. Otherwise we could all end up being tyrannised by violent and vocal minorities, cowed into submission in pursuit of a comfortable life. How then would humanity and invention progress? Mr Johnson wrote.

...Read full article

The Venice Commission, a Council of Europe body says blasphemy should not be illegal.

The body's constitutional law experts argued that while inciting religious hatred should be a criminal offence, blasphemy comes under freedom of expression.

Blasphemy is part of a person's freedom of expression and should not be made illegal, a Council of Europe advisory body said in a report published Wednesday.

The Venice Commission also noted a distinction between blasphemy and insults prompted by a person's religion.

Despite a majority of MPs in the Dutch parliament wanting to repeal the country’s blasphemy law, the cabinet has decided that it must stay.

The decision follows a high court ruling earlier this year, in which a man was found not guilty of insulting an entire group of people on the grounds of their religion by hanging up a poster saying Stop the tumour that is Islam
.
The Government says that anti-discrimination legislation is inadequate.

Christian TV programmes that mention the Bible’s position on homosexual conduct face being banned from daytime viewing by the Brazilian government.

The government has already proposed that a notice should be broadcast before such Christian programmes, warning viewers that the shows are not recommended for people under the age of 18.

Brazil’s Justice Secretary told a newspaper there that while such programmes would be restricted to after 11pm: the ideal is that they not be shown at any time.

Nutter campaigner Julio Severo said: Catholic radio and TV shows now run the risk of being rated as ‘morally harmful,’ ‘homophobic’ and ‘unsuitable for children and teens’.

If the policy is carried out in accordance with Brazilian President Luiz Lula’s definition of homophobia, the new restrictions will effectively ban public statements on television that identify homosexual behaviour as sinful or unhealthy.

President Lula is also seeking to pass an anti-homophobia law that would ban any public criticism of homosexuals or homosexual behaviour. He recently reiterated his commitment to criminalise words or acts that are offensive to homosexuality.

The BBC has offered to pay £30,000 and apologise to the Muslim Council of Britain after airing claims that it encourages the killing of British troops.

The Corporation caved in after a panellist on the Question Time TV programme accused the country's most influential Muslim organisation of failing to condemn attacks on soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The broadcaster was threatened with legal action over comments by former Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore during a debate about Islamic protests which marred a soldiers' homecoming parade in Luton.

Moore said: The Muslim Council of Britain, which is the umbrella organisation for all Muslim groups in this country, I've gone to them many times, and I said will you condemn the killing and kidnapping of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they won't.

But there is a bigger, another step that they take, they say it is actually a good thing, even an Islamic thing, to kill or kidnap British soldiers.

Faced with the threat of a writ, the BBC made an offer of amends and an apology on the Question Time website. But this has been rejected and the MCB is demanding an apology on air.

The Corporation's decision to pay out will raise eyebrows in Whitehall, where ministers have refused to settle a similar defamation claim over a letter written by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears.

Update: Coughing Up

17th July 2009. See article from islamophobia-watch.com

The BBC has agreed to pay £45,000 in damages to the head of the Muslim Council of Britain over a libel claim in the Question Time programme.

The BBC is paying £45,000 in damages to Abdul Bari – which he will donate to charity – as well as his legal costs.

In an unprecedented effort to crack down on self-serving edits, the Wikipedia supreme court has banned contributions from all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates

Closing out the longest-running court case in Wikiland history, the site's Arbitration Committee voted 10 to 0 (with one abstention) in favor of the move, which takes effect immediately

Wikipedia bills itself as the free encyclopedia anyone can edit. Administrators frequently ban individual 'Wikifiddlers'. The muzzling of Scientology IPs marks the first time Wikipedia has officially barred edits from such a high-profile organization for allegedly pushing its own agenda on the site.

A Christian Singaporean couple were found guilty of sedition for distributing evangelical publications that cast Islam in a negative light.

Ong Kian Cheong and his wife Dorothy Chan had been charged with distributing a seditious publication to two Muslims in October and March 2007 and sending a second such booklet to another Muslim in December that same year, a district court official told AFP.

The publications were found to have promoted feelings of ill-will and hostility between Christians and Muslims, the Straits Times said.

A hearing was set for June 4 for mitigation pleas and sentencing.

23-year-old Yildiz A was stabbed in the stomach six or seven times and her nose and ears and part of her lip cut off, then she was dumped in a field. She managed to crawl to the road and was spotted by a minibus driver who took her to the hospital where she is in intensive care.

According to the newspapers, Yildiz A was married and accused of having a relationship with another man, so a family council was called and it was decided to kill her to cleanse the family's honor.

The woman's husband, Bayram A, ran away, but was soon arrested. Their two children are with the family, although will be taken under protection. Bayram A had gone off to work in construction in Izmir. His relatives accused his wife of having a secret relationship with one of her relatives while her husband was gone.

The husband's relatives called on Bayram A. to return, and held a family council that made a kill decision. Hearing of this, the young woman, Yildiz A, went to the police to ask for protection. They took her under their protection and arranged to send her to the nearby town of Agri, but her husband convinced them that his wife was slandering him. The police returned Yildiz A to her husband.

A 19-year-old girl in Gothenburg has been awarded compensation after having been subjected to genital mutilation in Somalia as an 11-year-old.
The girl was awarded 390,000 kronor ($52,000) in damages for abuse and gross violation of integrity, the Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority has announced.

Then 11-years-old, the girl was taken on holiday to Somalia in 2001. While there she was subjected to genital mutilation.

She was held down by her mother and two other women while her clitoris and inner labia were removed by a man in return for payment. The girl's vagina was then sewn up down to the opening of her urethra. The whole procedure was conducted without anaesthetic.

The girl's mother later explained in her court trial that the girl was taken to Somalia to be cleansed.

The mother was later convicted for the violation in the Court of Appeal and ordered to pay her daughter 450,000 kronor in compensation.

In its decision to award the damages to the 19-year-old the Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority wrote that the genital mutilation resembled torture and was intended to limit her possibilities to have a normal sex life.

The authority will also later consider whether the girl is entitled to further damages for pain and suffering.

A 22-year-old unmarried Bangladeshi woman who was caned 39 times for alleging a neighbour was the father of her son is fighting for her life in hospital, police said.

The case has shocked the nation, with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordering the woman to be shifted from her village home to the capital for proper medical treatment.

Local police chief Moshiur Rahman told AFP that the woman had angered Islamic clerics when she told friends that a neighbour had fathered her six-year-old son. They called her and the alleged father to appear before a makeshift Islamic court, but the man denied the paternity claim, Rahman said: He held a Koran in one hand and swore to the village clerics that he was not the father of the boy. The village court found him not guilty.

They also issued a fatwa that the woman should be caned 39 times for lying. The woman, seriously injured after the caning, was admitted to a local hospital but was later shifted to the country's largest hospital in Dhaka on the orders of the Prime Minister, Rahman said.

Two of the clerics have been arrested for repression of women, he said, and DNA testing had been arranged to determine the father of the child.

Update: Another Kangaroo Court Beating

4th June 2009. See article from straitstimes.com

A man and a woman in Bangladesh have been caned for adultery. The punishment was carried out on the order of village elders in the northeast of the country. Police said two people have been arrested in connection with the incident, although the couple were said to be uninjured.

The village court found them guilty of adultery under Islamic syariah law. The villagers got bundles of 11 sticks and hit them 10 times. They claimed it was a symbolic punishment, local police chief Amal Kumar Dhar told AFP.

Doctors examined the couple but neither was injured, he said, but added police had arrested two people for repression, abuse and mental torture.

Responding to threats from the Taliban, at least 10 girls' schools have shut down near Kunduz in northern Afghanistan.

When the deputy director of Aqtash High School talks of the government, he isn't referring to Hamid Karzai's central government in Kabul. Nor does he refer to the provincial administration in Kunduz. The Taliban are our government, Bashir says: They have taken over our region, their commanders give the orders here.

Bashir is standing in a dusty classroom on the ground floor of his modern school. As recently as just one month ago, he says, some 400 girls were still coming to the school in three daily shifts to learn reading, writing and arithmetic. Figures and formula are still scrawled across the blackboard.

But now, the girls' classrooms have been left to deteriorate. The desks and chairs are still laid out in neat rows, but a film of dust has collected, and Bashir stands helplessly in the middle of the room. Parents in Aqtash are afraid to send their girls to school anymore, after the death threats, he explains. The school director speaks quietly and carefully. He too is afraid, and several of his teachers double as informants for the Taliban. The bearded fighters, he says, would certainly not like it if they knew a reporter was at the school in Aqtash. You should leave quickly if you want to get out of Aqtash alive, he whispers.

...Read full article

The Australian Christian Lobby has accused the Federal Government of breaking its election promise to censor the internet after the policy was softened in the face of relentless criticism.

The lobby's managing director, Jim Wallace, wants the Government to introduce legislation forcing internet providers to block hardcore porn (X18+) on a mandatory basis, in addition to illegal content. Australians would then have to opt in to receive legal softcore (R18+) adult material.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has long said his policy would introduce compulsory ISP-level filters of the Australian Communications and Media Authority's blacklist of prohibited websites.

But he has since backtracked, saying the mandatory filters would only block content that has been refused classification (RC) - a subset of the ACMA blacklist - amid widespread concerns that ACMA's list contains a slew of R18+ and X18+ sites, such as regular gay and straight pornography and other legal content.

"That doesn't meet the election promise as far as we're concerned at all," Wallace said in a phone interview: The promise was clearly about providing a safer internet environment for children and to do that you need to mandatorily block in the first instance pornography and R18+, and then provide an opt-in system for those adults who want to access it.

Iran has arrested more than 100 Satan-worshippers in a raid on a concert in the southern city of Shiraz where people were drinking alcohol and sucking blood, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

One hundred and four members of a Satan-worshipping group were arrested at a party and immoral concert in Shiraz (on Sunday), local Revolutionary Guards chief Abbas Hamidi was quoted as saying by Jam-e Jam newspaper.

The session was held in a garden outside Shiraz and the Satanist ceremony was broadcast live to the world via the Internet, he said: These people drank alcohol, hurt themselves and sucked blood. They even bow to Satan in some ceremonies.

Jam-e Jam carried pictures of drum sets and amplifiers seized in the raid and a group of young men photographed after the arrest sitting on the floor of an official-looking building with their backs to the camera. It said some of the detainees sported tattoos and body art resembling the wings of birds and car emblems.

Iranian authorities sometimes link hard rock and heavy metal music and their icons with devil worship.

Saudi Arabia's religious police want to install surveillance cameras in shopping centres throughout the country in order to watch young people. We will place surveillance cameras in all shopping centres and public places to monitor the behaviour of young people, said General Abdel Aziz al-Hamin, chief of the committee for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice.

Our objective is to correct the mistakes made by some youths, in order to protect their moral integrity, said al-Hamin.

The trial of a novelist accused of inciting religious hatred in his last novel The daughters of Allah opened and adjourned in Istanbul yesterday. Nedim Gürsel, who lives in Paris and is being tried in absentia, faces between one and three years in jail if convicted.

The court heard testimony from the plaintiff Ali Emre Bukagili, a follower of Adnan Oktar who is known for his belief in creationism and rejection of the Darwinian theory of evolution. He said he was offended by the book because it was insulting to the Prophet and the Koran. Freedom of expression has limits.

The public prosecutor has recommended acquitting the author on the grounds that an imminent and clear public order danger as required by the law has not been established. The novel was published in 2008. The case was adjourned to May 26.

Update: Adjourned Again

28th May 2009, See article from nytimes.com

A Turkish author on trial after being charged with inciting religious hatred in a novel based on the birth of Islam said that his book was fiction, but the result of extensive research and consultation with religious leaders, and therefore could not be called blasphemous.

An Istanbul court on Tuesday adjourned the trial of the author, Nedim Gursel, until June 25.

A British woman accused of cheating on her estranged husband in Dubai has spent three weeks in a police cell waiting to face trial.

Sally Antia was arrested for breaching the emirate's repressive morality laws on May 2 this year.

She pleaded guilty to adultery at her first appearance in court last Sunday. However, bail was denied and she is still behind bars. Her alleged lover, who has denied adultery, is also in custody.

Both were told they would remain locked up until they face court for a second time this week.

Human rights campaigners insist Mrs Antia, a Merseyside-born businesswoman, should never have been arrested and must be granted bail immediately.

Her estranged husband has been accused of reporting Mrs Antia to police to improve his chances of winning custody of their children. Vincent Antia, from Lincolnshire, is said to have told police his wife was seeing another man before their divorce had come through - a crime in the United Arab Emirates.

Under UAE law, the maximum punishment for adultery is a year in prison followed by deportation.

Victims of child abuse at Catholic institutions in the Irish Republic have expressed anger that a damning report will not bring about prosecutions.

The report, nine years in the making and covering a period of six decades, found thousands of boys and girls were terrorised by priests and nuns.

The report found: The risk (to children), however, was seen by the congregations in terms of the potential scandal and bad publicity should the abuse be disclosed.

Judge Sean Ryan, who chaired the Commission, concluded that when confronted with evidence of sex abuse, religious authorities responded by transferring the sex offenders to another location, where in many instances they were free to abuse again. There was evidence that such men took up teaching positions sometimes within days of receiving dispensations because of serious allegations or admissions of sexual abuse, the report said: The safety of children in general was not a consideration.

The findings will not be used for criminal prosecutions - in part because the Christian Brothers successfully sued the commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report. No real names, whether of victims or perpetrators, appear in the final document.

Police were called to the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse's news conference in Dublin amid angry scenes as victims were prevented from attending.

The victims were among 35,000 children who were placed in a network of reformatories, industrial schools and workhouses until the early 1990s. More than 1,000 people had told the commission they suffered physical and sexual abuse.

The five-volume study concluded that church officials encouraged ritual beatings and consistently shielded their orders' paedophiles from arrest amid a culture of self-serving secrecy. The commission found that sexual abuse was endemic in boys' institutions, and church leaders knew what was going on. As far back as the 1940s, school inspectors reported broken bones and malnourished children but no action was taken.

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, said he was profoundly sorry and deeply ashamed that children suffered in such awful ways in these institutions.

Comment: Not all sexual abuse

28th May 2009. See article from catholicleague.org, Thanks to Alan

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the report today:

Reuters is reporting that Irish Priests Beat, Raped Children, yet the report does not justify this wild and irresponsible claim. Four types of abuse are noted: physical, sexual, neglect and emotional. Physical abuse includes being kicked; neglect includes inadequate heating; and emotional abuse includes lack of attachment and affection.

Not nice, to be sure, but hardly draconian, especially given the time line: fully 82% of the incidents took place before 1970. As the New York Times noted, many of them [are] now more than 70 years old. And quite frankly, corporal punishment was not exactly unknown in many homes during these times, and this is doubly true when dealing with miscreants.

The Church of Scientology faces being thrown out of France if it is found guilty of organised fraud in a landmark trial which has opened in Paris.

The charges, which also include claims of illegally prescribing drugs, were filed by France's professional pharmaceutical association and two women who accuse the Scientologists of bringing about their financial ruin.

One woman claimed she was psychologically pressured into paying thousands of pounds for lessons, books, drugs and a device called an electrometer which the church says can measure a person's mental state.

The church's main structure in France, the AGES-Celebrity Centre, and its bookshop face charges of organised fraud, along with six of its leaders.

The case has taken ten years to come to court. The trial runs until June 10.

The Afghan government is planning curbs on Internet use, starting with blocking pornography sites, as the country's first fiber optic cable is due to be on-line in weeks.

The communications and information ministries are studying limits on web access because the current free Internet environment is being misused in particular by the youth, claimed communications ministry spokesman Abdul Hadi.

We will mainly set limitations on pornography because it does not fit our Islamic values. In the second step, we hope to be able to also limit websites providing bad information, especially that could mislead our children, he said.

The information ministry confirmed it was drafting legislation to cover Internet use, which would include such curbs, and was also registering .af domains.

The Internet only came to Afghanistan after the 2001 ouster of the Taliban regime in a US-led invasion. The costs of Internet subscription are high compared to other countries in the region but a new fiber optic cable, the first phase of which is due to open next week, is expected to bring down the prices.

Divine intervention might be the last hope for Cardinal George Pell's fight against a new Sydney brothel.

Pell has attacked Sydney City Council's consideration of a brothel opposite historic St Benedict's on Broadway, the city's oldest consecrated Catholic church.

It is not acceptable that a brothel is established so close to St Benedicts and Notre Dame University, Pell said.

The Catholic Church's concerns are contained in one of 20 submissions opposing the brothel,

After learning of the Cardinal's outrage the council suddenly asked the developers to withdraw their application but a spokesman conceded the DA would go ahead if the company ignores the request. The council agreed that there was a very strong possibility the developers would end up appealing against any refusal in the Land and Environment Court.

But Cardinal Pell said the application should never have been accepted. He said. Parking is limited and children who come to this church often arrive by foot.

The proposed brothel would trade as The Lehtorb (brothel spelt backwards) at 139 Broadway, Ultimo, with six rooms, as many workers, a manager, receptionist and cleaner. It would trade between noon and 3am seven days a week.

Parish priest Father Michael de Stoop said most of his parishioners entered St Benedict's through a side entrance, within full view of the brothel's proposed front door.

The following analysis considers the Church of Scientology's official position on gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and queer people (LGBTQ).

According to Scientology, such perverts should either be quarantined and institutionalized, or go through extensive Scientology processing" until once again they have value as human beings. In the Scientology cult's most sacred text, Dianetics, written in the early 1950s, a modern reader is somewhat startled to find this passage:

The sexual pervert (and by this term Dianetics, to be brief, includes any and all forms of deviation in dynamic two [sexuality and procreation] such as homosexuality, lesbianism, sexual sadism, etc., and all down the catalog of Ellis and Krafft-Ebing) is actually quite ill physically.

The cult's founder, science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, felt LGBTQ people were malicious, untrustworthy and incredibly dangerous to society. In his follow-up book, Science of Survival, he establishes a tone scale, ranging from -3 to +4, for classifying categories of people and evaluating human behavior. Perverts, as he classified LGBTQ people, fall at 1.1 on Hubbard's scale. He considered them to be extremely dangerous to society.

At 1.1 on the tone scale we enter the area of the most vicious reversal of the second dynamic. Here we have promiscuity, perversion, sadism, and irregular practices…. People on this level on the second dynamic are intensely dangerous in the society, since aberration is contagious. A society which reaches this level is on its way out of history, as went the Greeks, as went the Romans, as goes modern European and American culture. Here is a flaming danger signal which must be heeded if a race is to go forward…. The person may claim to love others and to have the good of others as his foremost interest; yet, at the same moment, he works, unconsciously or otherwise, to injure or destroy the lives and reputations of people and also to destroy property… No social order which desires to survive dates overlook its stratum 1.1's. No social order will survive which does not remove these people from its midst…. Such people should be taken from the society as rapidly as possible and uniformly institutionalized; for here is the level of the contagion of immorality, and the destruction of ethics.

The only solution Hubbard envisions to this horrifying threat is essentially converting them back to normalcy.

The only answers would seem to be the permanent quarantine of such persons from society to avoid the contagion of their insanities and the general turbulence which they bring to any order, thus forcing it lower on the scale, or processing such persons until they have attained a level on the tone scale which gives them value.

If this didn't work out, they were to be disposed of quietly and without sorrow.

Violence has swept across parts of India’s Punjab as followers of a Sikh sect attacked police stations and set fire to trains after one of its leaders was shot and killed by rivals while preaching at a temple in Austria.

Police and demonstrators clashed in several north Indian cities. One demonstrator was killed and several wounded as police and troops opened fire.

Large crowds defied a curfew that had been imposed late on Sunday night and turned their anger on police and officials following the incident in Vienna when a group of Sikhs wielding knives and a handgun attacked two preachers and their followers from a rival sect. One of the preachers, Sant Rama Nand, the group’s deputy leader, subsequently died from his injuries while its head, Sant Niranjan Dass, required emergency surgery. Around 15 others were hurt.

The dead men belonged to Dera Sach Khand, a Sikh sect of dalits, or untouchables, that has many members in and around the city of Jalandhar.

It appears that the attackers in Vienna were all members of a higher caste Sikh group. They claimed that the Dera Sach Khand preachers were being disrespectful of the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib. A police spokesman, Michael Takacs, said several hundred people were in the temple at the time of the attack and that the scene was like a battlefield. Some reports suggested the attackers may have been angered by the decision to give one of the preachers a ceremonial shawl, a ritual that is considered a high honour in Sikhism.

After the death of the 57-year-old preacher was announced in the early hours yesterday, hundreds of Dera Sach Khand followers armed with sticks, swords, bricks and stones and supported by other local dalit organisations, took to the streets of Jalandhar, burning several vehicles and a bank, stoning buses and blocking railway lines and roads. Sporadic violence was reported from nearby towns.

Ok Ok...no jewellery How about a hair band?

A hospital has defended its decision to ban a member of staff from wearing a Christian cross, saying it was about safety not religion.

Helen Slatter was warned by the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital that she would be sent home if she did not adhere to the trust's uniform policy.

The NHS trust said necklaces and chains could spread infection and were also a possible health and safety risk.

She was called to a disciplinary hearing on Friday where the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust explained the uniform policy to her. A spokesman for the trust said: The issue is not one of religion; the trust employs a uniform policy which must be adhered to at all times. This policy applies to all staff employed by the trust and who wear a uniform on duty. Necklaces and chains present two problems; firstly, they provide a surface that can harbour and spread infections, and secondly they present a health and safety issue whereby a patient could grab a necklace or chain and cause harm to the member of staff.

A fanatical Christian mother from a family who describe themselves as Bible-believing, God-believing, Holy Ghost-filled people – has been convicted of killing her 11-year-old daughter.

A Wisconsin jury found Leilani Neumann guilty of killing Madeline Kara Neumann by praying for her to heal instead of rushing her to the doctor.

According to this report, Madeline died of untreated diabetes March 23, 2008, surrounded by people praying for her. When she suddenly stopped breathing, her parents’ business and Bible study partners finally called 911.

Prosecutors insisted that a reasonable parent would have known something was gravely wrong with Madeline, and that her mother recklessly killed her by ignoring obvious signs of how gravely ill she was.

During closing arguments, Marathon County District Attorney Jill Falstad described Neumann as a religious zealot who let her daughter, known by the nickname Kara, die as a test of faith.

Madeline’s father, Dale Neumann, faces the same charge of unlawful killing and is scheduled to stand trial in July.

Leilani, convicted of second degree reckless homicide, will be sentenced at a later date.

The Church of Scientology runs a program under the orders of leader David Miscavige called the Rehabilitation Project Force, or RPF for short. The RPF is a work program where members of the church are ordered to attend to and wear grey, do back breaking work for no pay and suffer degrading treatment and live and sleep in unsanitary conditions. While the workers often do this voluntarily for fear of losing their salvation, the program remains firmly against the US constitution. Voluntary workers are submitting to a form of indentured servitude to the Church of Scientology and it's upper ranking members such as David Miscavige and high ranking members such as actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta. The US constitutions 13th amendment paints indentured servitude with the same brush as slavery, forbidding both and declaring both abolished and illegal within the United States.

However in the Big Blue building in Los Angeles, RPF members in ragged grey serve celebrities to atone for their sins against the church for no pay. In nearby Hemet many more work for David Miscavige and other leaders of the Church inside an armed compound. The compound has armed guards both at the gates an on patrol in SUV's and motorcycles outside. Vehicles passing by are tracked from a sniper nest in the hills, a powerful loaded rifle pointed at the driver and passengers as they pass the compound. Razor wire tops the fences, angled inwards to keep the victims inside form escaping, the ones who don't want to be there. The ones who are not indentured servants but prisoners and slaves to the Church of Scientology. The stories have been on the net for years, but now TV station KESQ has interviewed some who were kept prisoner and abused inside. Several lawsuits are now underway against the Church of Scientology for keeping members against their will inside the compound and other properties, and for giving less than minimum wage to acting staff members and none at all to those forced into the RPF.

How such a thing can go on in America under the nose of an African American president is anyone's guess. However the media and the courts are finally taking a new look into Scientology and more and more ex members are coming forward to tell their stories.

The Pacific island state of Samoa has banned the movie Angels and Demons, Radio New Zealand International reported.

It quoted censor Lei'ataua Olo'apu, who is Roman Catholic, as saying that the film is critical of the Catholic Church and the ban will avoid any religious discrimination by other denominations and faiths against the church.

A Muslim chef who accused the Metropolitan Police of religious discrimination when told he must handle pork has lost his tribunal case.

Hasanali Khoja was told he would be expected to handle pork products at his new job at the Empress State Building in Earls Court, west London.

The force was it was "pleased" at the tribunal's decision.

Khoja said earlier he was stressed and humiliated at the prospect of handling pork products, which Islam considers to be unclean. He said even wearing gloves or using tongs to cook would not protect him from the risk of splashes.

A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said: We are pleased to have been cleared of allegations of discrimination on the basis of religion or belief against Mr Khoja. She added: Mr Khoja remains a valued member of staff.

Hundreds of Muslims have marched through central Athens, damaging shops and cars, to protest what they said was the destruction of a Koran by a Greek policeman.

The president of the Muslim Union of Greece, Naim Elghandour, said that during police checks at a Syrian-owned coffee shop, an officer took a customer's Koran, tore it up, threw it on the floor and stomped on it.

In response, about 1,000 immigrants, many from Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, marched to central Omonia Square, smashing several shop windows and five cars, a police official said.

Police sources said an internal investigation was launched into the Koran incident. We were told by police we will be given the name of the policeman who did this so we can press charges, Elghandour said.

Update: Explosive Situation

25th May 2009. See article from dawn.com

Unknown assailants tried to burn down a makeshift mosque in Athens injuring five Bangladeshi migrants who suffered burns and respiratory problems in the attack, police said.

The incident followed clashes in Athens between Muslim immigrants and Greek police during protests sparked by allegations that a police officer tore up and stamped on a Koran during an identity check earlier in the week.

Nearly 1,000 Muslims rallied in the city's central Omonia square on Friday in a demonstration organised by leftist, immigrant and anti-racism groups. Violence broke out at the end of the demonstration as around 100 protesters threw projectiles at police, who tried to disperse the crowd with tear gas.

Over seventy cars and five shops were vandalised and the police arrested 46 people. Seven protestors and seven police were injured in the clashes.

A wicked and cruel mother has been jailed for three years after forcing her two young daughters to marry their cousins in Pakistan.

The Muslim woman hoodwinked the pair, aged 14 and 15, into thinking they were going on a family holiday.

But when the schoolgirls arrived they discovered preparations were being made for them to marry their first cousins in a joint ceremony.

Yesterday, in what is being seen as a landmark case, a judge condemned the mother's actions and claimed she had been wholly misguided.

She was convicted of child sex offences and attempting to pervert the course of justice as there is no current law which bans forced marriage.

Judge Clement Goldstone QC told the woman: those who choose to live in this country and who, like you, are British subjects, must not abandon our laws in the practice of those beliefs and that culture. If they do, they will face the consequences.

Manchester Crown Court heard the two sisters were forced to marry their cousins in July 2007. After the ceremony the mother told her elder daughter that unless she consumated the marriage, she would tie her to the bed, blindfold her and strip her and watch to make sure she had sex with her new husband.

She was arrested when her daughters confided in their teachers in February last year, after returning to the UK. Both sisters were taken into care. None of those involved in the case can be identified.

Italian authorities seized a collection of Big Teaze vibrating “duckies” from a local department store following customer complaint that the items were not properly labeled adults-only.

Big Teaze President Tony Levine told XBIZ the Paris vibrating duck and several other items were taken off display in the Coin Street Calzioni women’s lingerie department, and he and his team were alerted by its Italian distributor.

We were somewhat surprised as Europeans tend to be perceived as more open-minded, Levine said: However, I think we more astonished at the fact that it was Paris. We might expect this type of mischief from Red Devil Duckie, but come on now, Paris?

According to Italian news sources, the display of adult items was in violation of a new erotic sales regulation, which among other things prohibits the sale of adult products within 200 meters of a school, place of worship or similar location.

Upon responding to the customer’s initial complaint, authorities found the department store was located close to a church.

The Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign is excited to announce its over-the-border expansion to neighboring Chicago, Illinois with the slogan In the beginning, man created God beginning May 18th.

On May 11th we launched in South Bend, Indiana with You can be good without God, a slogan that challenges the notion that a good moral code requires supernatural direction and religion has a corner on morality. Our Chicago slogan espouses the idea that man created God as well as all religions, and encourages public and critical examination of the merits of religious belief.

The new slogan chosen for a Chicago was entirely paid for by a private donor to the organization. All other donations received up to this point have gone towards ads in South Bend with the original slogan You can be good without God.

In 2003 while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the Willing, President Bush spoke to France’s President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated.

In Genesis and Ezekiel Gog and Magog are forces of the Apocalypse who are prophesied to come out of the north and destroy Israel unless stopped.

Bush believed the time had now come for that battle, telling Chirac: This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.

The story has now been confirmed by Chirac himself in a new book, published in France in March, by journalist Jean Claude Maurice. Chirac is said to have been stupefied and disturbed by Bush’s invocation of Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq and wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.

We Don't Do God...Not!

Based on article from telegraph.co.uk

Tony Blair viewed his decision to go to war in Iraq and Kosovo as part of a Christian battle, according to one of his closest political allies.

The former Prime Minister's faith is claimed to have influenced all his key policy decisions and to have given him an unshakeable conviction that he was right.

John Burton, Blair's political agent in his Sedgefield constituency for 24 years, says that Labour's most successful ever leader – in terms of elections won – was driven by the belief that good should triumph over evil. It's very simple to explain the idea of Blair the Warrior. It was part of Tony living out his faith.

Blair has previously admitted that he was influenced by his Christian faith, but Burton reveals for the first time the strength of his religious zeal. Burton makes the comments in a book he has written, and which is published this week, called We Don't Do God.

In his installation service as the new leader of Catholics in England and Wales, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols called for a greater respect of religious belief.

He said that attempts to marginalise faith must not be allowed to succeed if the country is to overcome its problems of social cohesion.

Secularists, such as Richard Dawkins, who try to rubbish religion are encouraging intolerance, the archbishop told a congregation of 2,000 at Westminster Cathedral.

Archbishop Nichols countered that those who portray faith as a narrowing of the human mind or spirit are wrong. He urged that there should be respectful dialogue and that this needs to go beyond the superficial and slogans. Let us be a society in which we genuinely listen to each other, in which sincere disagreement is not made out to be insult or harassment, in which reasoned principles are not construed as prejudice and in which we are prepared to attribute to each other the best and not the worst of motives.

Archbishop Nichols claimed that the country would benefit from maintaining faith at the centre of public life, adding that it would help build a more cohesive society.

Citizens of the tiny West African nation of Gambia have grown familiar with the unpredictable exploits of its absolute ruler, His Excellency President Professor Dr Al-Haji Yahya Jammeh

The president, it seems, had bec ome concerned about witches, so, to the accompaniment of drums, and directed by men in red tunics bedecked with mirrors and cowrie shells, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Gambians were taken from their villages and driven to secret locations. There they were forced to drink a foul-smelling concoction that made them hallucinate and in some cases killed them.

Amnesty International estimates that at least six people died after being forced to drink the potion.

The objective was to root out evil sorcerers who were harming the country, the villagers were told. Terrified, dozens fled into the bush or across the border into Senegal to escape the dragnet leaving whole regions deserted.

The round-ups occurred from late January until March, but even in recent weeks, the same witch doctors in red, accompanied by others identified as government agents, have circulated in the dirt-poor countryside – demanding that villagers make animal sacrifices, of a red he-goat and a red rooster, to root out the sorcery in their midst.

Child Witches in Congo

Thanks to Alan
Based on article from abcnews.go.com

The fate of children accused of witchcraft in the Congo is often nothing short of horrific.

ABC News' Nightline gained exclusive access to four churches, where we saw scores of children -- including toddlers -- who were denounced as witches. The accusers were powerful and often politically connected pastors, who some say get paid to perform so-called deliverance ceremonies, or exorcisms, which can be unimaginably brutal.

Arnold Mushiete, a social worker for Our House, a small, Catholic organization funded entirely by donations, which helps children accused of witchcraft, was our guide into this frightening world. He said a new breed of Christian pastors are manipulating the faith: Our work is to repair what they have destroyed and to give another image of Jesus, not one who tortures children.

Accusing children of witchcraft is a relatively new phenomenon in the Congo. Experts say it's the result of a toxic combination of causes, including decades of war, an economy in collapse, and a new breed of Christian pastors who profit by telling impoverished parents that all of their problems -- economic, medical and emotional -- are caused by the family's weakest members.

Unwanted children are often accused of witchcraft as a pretense for abandoning them. Save the Children estimates 70 percent of the estimated 15,000 street children in the capital city of Kinshasa have been accused of witchcraft.
Why would a parent ever believe their child is a witch? Mushiete says in a culture where death and divorce have destroyed families, parents are easy prey for greedy, ruthless pastors.

In an attempt to silence a Christian human rights activist living in England, Iranian authorities arrested and interrogated his Muslim father for six days before releasing him yesterday .

Abdul Zahra Vashahi, a retired 62-year-old, was arrested in Iran’s southwestern city of Bandar Mahshahr and interrogated about the human rights activities of his son, a Christian convert who has been living in England since 2003. His son, John (Reza) Vashahi, converted to Christianity while in England and in 2008 founded the Iranian Minorities Human Rights Organization (IMHRO).

In February the elder Vashahi had received a call from local authorities telling him that if his son didn’t stop his activities, they would arrest him instead.

The younger Vashahi said the Iranian government started putting increased pressure on his family, whom he has not seen in six years, since he founded IMHRO.

The activist is an active member of Amnesty International, and through his own organization he publicizes Iran’s human rights violations of minorities, especially Christians. He has also started a blog called Jesus for Arabs.

The Anglican Bishop of Leicester has called on the Government to outline what steps they are taking to deal with trafficking at the London 2012 Olympics.

Bishop Timothy Stevens raised the issue of trafficking labour and prostitution at question time in the House of Lords.

Lord Brett, for the Government, replied: We are on our guard: we are forewarned, we are responsible for the Olympic Games, and this matter is at the forefront of our strategy.

We have already been successful but it is still right to ask what we are doing.

The Metropolitan Police will have responsibility for this in the London area and we are strengthening provision for them in the next 12 months to ensure that they are prepared.

Muslim clerics are seeking ways to censor online behaviour in Indonesia, saying the exploding popularity of social networking sites like Facebook could encourage illicit sex.

Around 700 clerics, or imams, gathering in the world's most populous Muslim nation were considering rules forbidding their followers from going online to flirt or engage in practices they believe could encourage extramarital affairs.

The clerics think it is necessary to set an edict on virtual networking, because this online relationship could lead to lust, which is forbidden in Islam, said Nabil Haroen, a spokesman for the Lirboyo Islamic boarding school that is hosting the event.

Though followers could still be members of the networking site, guidelines dealing with surfing the web and Islamic values are urgently needed, he said.

Update: No Facebook For youngsters

23rd May 2009. See article from thejakartaglobe.com

Muslim clerics on Friday declared the popular social networking site, Facebook, forbidden for students under the age of 17 and banned when used for immoral purposes.

Clerics from across Java and Madura islands said Facebook was haram, or forbidden, when used for flirting or gossiping.

Gus An’im Mahrus, a spokesman for Lirboyo Islamic boarding school said: We decided Facebook is haram when it is used for certain things such as flirting and gossiping between males and females, especially for those who are already married as it may lead to affairs. And it is forbidden in Islam for its bad impact.

We have decided to ban Facebook among our [10,000] students who are under 17, he said. Teenagers under the age of 17 are considered immature and unable to deal with moral temptations.

An’im said the pesantren clerics did not need the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), the country’s highest authority on Islamic affairs, to declare a fatwa on the issue: We are independent. We have issued this warning to Muslim communities and all pesantren students across Java and Madura. They can spread this message to people around them.

Update: No communications between the sexes on Mobile Phones and Networking Sites

23rd May 2009. See article from thejakartaglobe.com

Many have been shocked to learn that 1,700 Muslim clerics of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) — the largest Muslim organization in Indonesia — have issued an edict banning communication between sexes using mobile phones, and online social networks such as Facebook.

NU spokesman Abdul Muid Shohib said communication using mobile phones was prone to adultery, especially between the sexes.

Communicating through mobile phones could lead to extramarital affairs, Abdul told The Jakarta Post through his mobile.

The only communication allowed between different sexes is that which spreads Islamic teachings, he said.

The leader of an Indoenesian religious group went on trial for blasphemy, with prosecutors accusing him of forcing the group members to perform ritual orgies and banning his followers from observing Muslim prayers.

Agus Imam Solihin has incited hatred and committed blasphemous acts against one of the religions observed in Indonesia, the prosecutors said, reading out the indictment at the South Jakarta District Court.

The defendant has claimed to the followers that he was the manifestation of God after he received spiritual guidance from the country’s first president, Sukarno, in a dream in 1999, the indictment says.

The cult, known as Satria Piningit Weteng Buwono, had 35 followers, including five couples and their children.

Sometime in 2003 at his residence in South Jakarta, Agus forced four couples to perform sex orgies witnessed by him and two teenage girls, with an aim to test the couples’ loyalty to the defendant, said prosecutor Deddy Sukarno.

The teachings by the Satrio Piningit Weteng Buwono group deviate from Islamic teachings, and therefore could potentially incite hatred and hostility, says the indictment.

Hundreds of Muslims have marched through central Athens, damaging shops and cars, to protest what they said was the destruction of a Koran by a Greek policeman.

The president of the Muslim Union of Greece, Naim Elghandour, said that during police checks at a Syrian-owned coffee shop, an officer took a customer's Koran, tore it up, threw it on the floor and stomped on it.

In response, about 1,000 immigrants, many from Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, marched to central Omonia Square, smashing several shop windows and five cars, a police official said.

Police sources said an internal investigation was launched into the Koran incident. We were told by police we will be given the name of the policeman who did this so we can press charges, Elghandour said.

Geert Wilders will definitely be prosecuted charged with inciting hatred against Muslims and Islam, news agency ANP writes.

A request by Wilders’ lawyer Bram Moscowicz to have the decision to prosecute quashed has been rejected by the Dutch supreme court.

Amsterdam appeal court said in January Wilders should stand trial for hate speech and discrimination. The public prosecution department had said earlier there were not sufficient grounds to prosecute the MP.

Wilders said he expected a political trial. I am being prosecuted for something millions of Dutch people are thinking... Freedom of speech is being sacrificed on the altar of islam. But I am ready to fight back with my head held high’.

Nurulla Zhamolov, the senior religious affairs official in Karakalpakstan Region in north-western Uzbekistan has banned the Bible, the Mel Gibson film The Passion of the Christ, and other religious literature, Forum 18 News Service has learnt.

The bans state that the material – which also include a hymn book, a Bible Encyclopaedia, a Bible dictionary, and a children's Bible - is banned for import, distribution or use in teaching.

The material was confiscated during police and NSS secret police raids and it remains unclear what further activity the authorities may undertake following the bans, or how widely they will be used.

No officials in the region or the capital Tashkent were willing to discuss the raids and the country's harsh censorship of religious literature, which applies to religious literature of all faiths.

An Islamic group in West Sumatra province, Indonesia, has issued threats against Dominikus Supriyanto, the only Catholic to win a seat in the district legislature in recent general elections, warning him that he should convert to Islam if he wants to retain the seat.

On April 23, after results were announced, a group identifying itself as the Islamic Forum of West Pasaman attacked Supriyanto’s home, slinging stones and breaking several windows. Supriyanto, who was in the house at the time, said the attackers also shouted threats and demanded that he become a Muslim if he planned to stay in politics.

Supriyanto reported the incident to police and requested protection. After a brief investigation, police concluded that the attackers had most likely acted on behalf of unsuccessful election candidates.

Supriyanto is determined to retain his seat. I was elected not just by Christians and Catholics, but by Muslims, he told Compass: I’m going to remain Catholic no matter what happens.

Members of the Islamic Forum, meanwhile, have pledged to demonstrate publicly against Supriyanto during his inauguration in July.

Irish Minister for Injustice Dermot Ahern has said he is bemused by recent criticism of his ludicrous proposal to include an offence of blasphemy in new defamation legislation due to be debated before an Oireachtas committee.

Ahern was responding after the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said the Government’s plan to introduce the blasphemy law would be in violation of international agreements on media freedom. OSCE representative on freedom of the media, Miklos Haraszti, said new court cases that might emerge as a result of criminalising blasphemy would have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.

Ahern insists he is obliged to take account of the offence of blasphemy, which is provided for in the 1937 Constitution. A spokesman for Ahern said he had two options, either to amend the Constitution, or amend the law.

The Minister will propose an amendment to the 2006 Defamation Bill at the Committee stage in the Oireachtas tomorrow.

Under the Minister’s amendment, the offence of blasphemy can only be prosecuted following a decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions. The offence will also no longer be punishable by a jail term.

That amendment will state that it shall be a defence where a prosecution is taken under the section on blasphemy for the defendant to prove that a reasonable person would find general literary, artistic, political, scientific or academic value in the material to which the alleged offence relates.

Haraszti welcomed the Government’s plan to decriminalise defamation, but said the proposal to create the offence of ‘blasphemous libel’ risked jeopardising OSCE media freedom commitments. It would therefore be unfortunate to introduce at the same time a new crime of 'blasphemous libel'.

Haraszti has written to Ahern and to the Oireachtas committee debating the Bill, urging that it be passed without the blasphemy provision.

Katie Price a.k.a Jordan faces the prospects of being jailed after the busty model was caught sunbathing in Maldives - naked.

She broke strict Muslim laws by shedding her clothes to soak up the sun - a crime that can land tourists in jail, reports the Mirror.

Foreign Office travel advice warns: Nudism and topless sunbathing are prohibited throughout the Maldives including on resort islands. The Maldives is a Muslim country and serious violations of law may lead to a prison sentence.

Carla Bruni has issued a scathing attack on Pope Benedict XVI saying that she has allowed her Catholic faith to lapse because of his approach to contraception in Africa.

France's First Lady said that the Church's teachings had left her feeling profoundly secular.

She departed from her post's traditional religious neutrality to accuse the Pope of damaging countries like Africa with his stance on birth control.

The Italian-born former supermodel risked angering believers in France and beyond by declaring that the Pontiff's proclamations showed that the Church needed to evolve.

Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy said: I was born Catholic, I was baptised, but in my life I feel profoundly secular. I find that the controversy coming from the Pope's message – albeit distorted by the media – is very damaging. In Africa it's often Church people who look after sick people. It's astonishing to see the difference between the theory and the reality. I think the Church should evolve on this issue. It presents the condom as a contraceptive which, incidentally, it forbids, although it is the only existing protection," she told Femme Actuelle, the women's magazine.

The comments will cause Mr Sarkozy embarrassment in a country where, despite the separation of Church and State, a majority of the population was born Catholic.

Good idea but maybe could backfire?

A young Saudi woman has launched an online campaign using YouTube, Facebook and Flickr to get Saudis to discuss, and possibly reconsider, the ban on women drivers in the Kingdom.

As an article published last month in the English-language Saudi newspaper Arab News explained, the project, called We the Women, was started by Areej Khan currently studying design in the United States. According to Arab News, she started thinking about how onerous the ban was.

The core of the campaign is a set of stickers, in the form of speech bubbles and bumper stickers, which Saudi men and women are encouraged to download from Flickr, fill in with their thoughts, and then display. Some people are also taking pictures of what they write on their stickers and then adding those photographs to the project’s Flickr set of Declarations.

Printed at the foot of each sticker is the simple message: To drive, or not to drive, that is the question.

According to Arab News, there is apparently wide support in Saudi Arabia for ending the ban: Although there are no specific statistics on the number of people who are for or against women driving, most women believe it is their God-given right to drive.

Ms. Khan is studying at at the School of Visual Arts in New York, which has supported her project with a scholarship award.

Christian Eshiett was a rambunctious pre-teen who spent a lot of time cavorting with his friends in southern Nigeria. He would skip school and run away from home for days, frustrating his grandfather, who oversaw the boy's care.

I beat him severely with canes until they broke, yet he never shed a tear, said Eshiett Nelson Eshiett: One day, I took a broom to hit him and he started crying. Then I knew he was possessed by demons. ... Nigerian witches are terrified of brooms. From that day two years ago, Christian, now 14, was branded a witch. The abuse intensified.

The teen is one of the so-called witch children in Eket, a city in oil-rich Akwa Ibom state of Nigeria. They are blamed for causing illness, death and destruction, prompting some communities to put them through harrowing punishments to "cleanse" them of their supposed magical powers.

Children accused of witchcraft are often incarcerated in churches for weeks on end and beaten, starved and tortured in order to extract a confession, said Gary Foxcroft, program director of Stepping Stones Nigeria, a nonprofit that helps alleged witch children in the region.

Many of those targeted have traits that make them stand out, including learning disabilities, stubbornness and ailments such as epilepsy, he added. The states of Akwa Ibom and Cross River have about 15,000 children branded as witches, and most of them end up abandoned and abused on the streets, he said.

...Read full article

Top secret military intelligence briefings prepared by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and often hand-delivered to George W. Bush featured Crusades-like Bible quotes above triumphant photos of the U.S. military effort in Iraq.

Less than one month after U.S. and coalition forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, a Worldwide Intelligence Update reached then-President Bush with the following quote on the cover of the briefing, above photos of jubilant Iraqi crowds in newly liberated Baghdad: Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.

One week earlier, on April 3, 2003, another of these reports reached Bush, and its cover contained a passage from the book of Proverbs: Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.

Revelations of these top-secret briefings containing explicitly Christian messages appeared today on GQ magazine’s Web site.

These cover sheets were the brainchild of Major General Glen Shaffer, a director for intelligence serving both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense. In the days before the Iraq war, Shaffer’s staff had created humorous covers in an attempt to alleviate the stress of preparing for battle. Then, as the body counting began, Shaffer, a Christian, deemed the biblical passages more suitable.

Many inside the Pentagon, including one Muslim analyst, were offended by the biblical quotes, while others worried that the briefing cover sheets, if leaked, would do serious damage as the U.S. and its allied coalition of mostly Western troops prosecuted a war in an Islamic nation.

A US couple who refused chemotherapy for their 13-year-old son on religious grounds have been ordered to have the boy re-evaluated to see if he would still benefit from the cancer treatment.

A judge in Minnesota found that Daniel Hauser had been medically neglected by his parents, Colleen and Anthony Hauser, who belong to a religious group that believes in using only natural healing methods practised by some American Indians.

Judge John Rodenberg allowed Daniel to stay with his parents, noting that they love him and had acted in good faith. But he gave them until Tuesday to get an updated chest X-ray and select an oncologist.

The State has successfully shown by clear and convincing evidence that continued chemotherapy is medically necessary, he said in a written judgment, adding he would not order chemotherapy if doctors find the cancer has advanced to a point where it is too late.

Calvin Johnson, an attorney for Daniel's parents, said the family is considering an appeal. For now, he said, Daniel is following the order and will have X-rays on Monday.

Update: On the Run from a Possible Cure

21st May 2009. See article from telegraph.co.uk

olleen Hauser and her son Daniel, who has Hodgkin's lymphoma, have not been seen by the authorities since leaving their Minnesota home on Monday after a doctor's appointment revealed that the boy's tumour had spread.

A judge in New Ulm, Minnesota, has ordered Mrs Hauser's arrest for being in contempt of court after ruling last week that she and her husband were neglecting their son. He also called for Daniel to be placed in foster care.

The family have refused chemotherapy on religious grounds. They say they are Roman Catholic but are also members of a Missouri-based sect called the Nemenhah Band, which favours natural healing methods such as alternative medicines and herbal remedies.

A Sikh man acting with a warped sense of honour carried out an attack on a female witness and the priest who conducted the wedding ceremony of his sister after finding out she had married a man of a different faith, a court has heard.

Sandip Singh Rooprai allegedly poured petrol through the letter box of the Bristol home of the priest and set it alight, then firebombed the car and house in Swindon of the witness at the marriage.

Jurors were told he believed his family had been dishonoured in the Sikh community after his 22 year-old sister, Pardip, married Hindu Gaurav Kapoor without their permission.

The court heard that they had married hurriedly at a Hindu temple because she feared her parents were about to take her to India for an arranged marriage.

The trial, at Winchester Crown Court, continues.

Utah's Governor, Jon Huntsman, has signed the most sweeping changes to the state's liquor laws in 40 years into law. Some crazy laws were scrapped but were replaced with others.

In the name of economic development and the name of travel and tourism, and so that we don't have to explain whenever a company comes into town for the first 30 minutes of our discussion why we have some of these onerous rules on the book, we're going to sign, Huntsman said at.

Bars will no longer have to be private clubs beginning July 1, eliminating a decades-old headache for anyone who has ever sought a cocktail here.

The move is being made in an effort to make the state seem a little less odd to outsiders and boost the state's $6 billion a year tourism industry. Tourism officials have long complained that Utah's notoriously quirky liquor laws have given Colorado a competitive advantage in luring the lucrative ski and convention market.

Tourists in search of a beer and a bite to eat after hitting the ski slopes frequently walk out of bars once told they're for members only. A separate membership, costing at least $4, is required at every bar.

It's always been the knock on Utah. We've got the best snow, we've got the best access, we have the nicest people. There's nothing that compares to our product. The only knock that anybody could ever come up with is that 'Your liquor laws are strange, quirky, weird,' said Nathan Rafferty, president of Ski Utah, the ski industry's marketing arm.

The new law will also allow restaurants to take down partitions known as Zion Curtains that separate bartenders from customers in restaurants. Currently, bartenders or servers must walk drinks around the bar before they're allowed to serve them.

The private club system and the Zion Curtain as they're known today got their start in 1969 after the Mormon church told its members to vote down a proposal that would have allowed the sale of liquor by the drinks in restaurants. The church is still highly influential here and the changes to the state's liquor laws would not have happened if the church had opposed them.

As part of a compromise, the state will impose tougher drink drive and underage drinking penalties. Utah will also become the first state in the country to require bars to scan the ID of anyone who appears younger than 35 before being allowed to enter.

Information obtained through the ID scan, including name, age and address, will be kept on site for seven days so it can be accessed by law enforcement, despite concerns that keeping the information is a violation of privacy.

The compromise Huntsman signed into law will also prohibit new restaurants from mixing cocktails in public view because some lawmakers are worried that children will be enticed to drink alcohol if they see it poured from bottles.

Huntsman increased the maximum amount of liquor allowed in the standard cocktail from one ounce to 1.5 ounces last year by agreeing to other rules that are unique to Utah. Among them, customers can't have more than 2.5 ounces of liquor before them at any time. Customers in Utah also can't order a margarita and a shot of tequila at the same time because it contains the same primary liquor, but they could order a margarita and a shot of bourbon, for instance.

A rabbi in the Israeli city of Tiberias has called for a boycott of stores that display mannequins in bathing suits, saying they elicit sorrow and damage the souls of passers-by.

Rabbi Rafael Cohen, chief of the northern city's kosher division, said the stores would face the wrath of the religious community and lose their kosher certification if they failed to comply, according to the Maariv daily.

Cohen said the mannequins and obscene photographs showing models in swimsuits or underwear elicit sorrow among the passers-by on the road. He has threatened to publish a list of stores that continue such displays, saying residents of Tiberias should not set foot in stores of that kind, and that will cause them irreversible damage.

Modest mannequins, he said, are all right: But there are mannequins that are really revolting, mannequins in bathing suits that damage our souls.

It is an issue that has long divided Scottish communities the length and breadth of Lewis and Harris. But the debate over whether to have Sunday ferries breach the last major stronghold of Sabbatarianism in the Outer Hebrides looks set to be settled within months.

It emerged last night that equality laws could force ferry operators to start Sunday sailings to and from Stornoway, in Lewis. The state-owned ferry company Caledonian MacBrayne said it had received legal advice that the existing practice of not providing seven-day sailings was likely to fall foul of the Equality Act 2006.

The sailings could begin as early as October, at the start of the winter timetable.

Churchgoers last night promised to fight the move. Rev Iain D Campbell, chairman of the Lewis branch of the Lord's Day Observance Society, said: It is very difficult to see who is being discriminated against at a human rights level just because this particular shop is closed on a Sunday. We are dependent upon the public company which serves the island and we want to support that company. But we also want to defend a way of life which has been well served by CalMac in the past, observing the Sabbath as a day of rest.

Supporters say a seven-day service would bring social and economic benefits to the island and that Sunday travel should be a matter of individual choice. They argue that, as CalMac provides similar services elsewhere in the isles, seven-day crossings for Lewis are overdue.

A cryptic blog post on the Westboro Baptist Church’s website hints that their mission is coming to an end:

BECAUSE IT’S ALMOST TIME TO LEAVE…THAT’S WHY DUMMY!

We are particularly urgent about it, because the time is shortly to come when we will grant you your wicked wish, Doomed america!

Let us see how that is shortly now to play out, my angry little sodomite-loving friends. It’s about time for us to leave this place.

When we’re done, we will leave your filthy land and be placed safely out of the reach of the horror that will then land upon you swiftly and certainly – in one hour.

We pray it to be any day now, for the promises of our God are sure and certain. We finished our job in Napa County – one of the few we have left – and then went to tell the Saints of our God-blessed exploits and our joy.

We gotta go, peeps! We gotta go! And when we do, it’s time for this filthy nation to receive of all the plagues that your Creator has promised. The reason there is such urgency in those words … such passion in the irresistible call from our Saviour, Husband, and Friend … is because when that time comes for this rebellious nation – which is spiritually called Babylon and has become literally Babylon by the inexplicable and forcible snatching of that Mesopotamian land where ancient Babylon sat – it is going to be very fast and very violent, such that all mankind is utterly and simply amazed. Check out the words, fools … it’s all about the words!

Westboro recently lost a massive lawsuit and are bordering on bankruptcy. Their protests have resulted in a backlash from parties well beyond gays and lesbians. Their dynamic leader Fred Phelps is in bad health and some claim near death. Now they want to end their mission and go be with God.

Update: Should We Ignore Them

17th May 2009. See article from blog.beliefnet.com. Thanks to Alan

The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas is at it again. This time the target is Jews.

Combining ancient and contemporary forms of anti-Semitism, they continue their traditional combination of hate-mongering and apocalyptic doom. But with only 71 members, I really wonder if it even makes sense to pay them any attention at all. What do you say?

Should groups like this be covered? Are we better off ignoring them? Is that something that decent people can afford to do?

Wherein lies the proper balance between the necessary monitoring of hate-groups and turning such monitoring into a lucrative fear-mongering business of its own?

A presumably muslim minicab driver has been found guilty of helping try to firebomb the home of a publisher days before the release of a novel about the marital life of the Prophet Mohamed.

Abbas Taj was waiting in his car as two accomplices poured diesel through the letter box of the four-storey home of Martin Rynja, who had vowed to publish The Jewel of Medina after the American-based giant Random House postponed publication due to concerns that the book would lead to acts of violence by Muslim extremists.

Taj arrived outside the home of the publisher in Islington, at 2am on 27 September last year and watched Abrar Mirza and Ali Beheshti try to set light to the house, which is also the publisher's office.

The three men are to be sentenced in July.

serving the Devil

What to do if you're a Christian in love with an atheist? Religious-right pooh-bah Pat Robertson offers relationship advice:

There is no fellowship between an atheist and somebody who is a believer in God. . . . You've got to go find somebody else. Really.

I mean either he changes and gives his heart to the Lord, or you go down the road with somebody else. But there is no fellowship between Christ and Belial.

I mean, he's going to be serving the Devil. You're going to be serving God. Just that simple. And there'll be conflicts and fighting all the time. There is no middle ground. There is no peace in that situation.

See article from thinkprogress.org

Maine just became the fifth state to allow legal same-sex marriage. On the Christian Broadcasting Network, Pat Robertson was interviewed about the topic and responded:

We haven’t taken this to its ultimate conclusion. You got polygamy out there. How can we rule that polygamy is illegal when you say that homosexual marriage is legal. What is it about polygamy that’s different? Well, polygamy was outlawed because it was considered immoral according to biblical standards.

But if we take biblical standards away in homosexuality, what about the other? And what about bestiality and ultimately what about child molestation and pedophilia? How can we criminalize these things and at the same time have constitutional amendments allowing same-sex marriage among homosexuals.

You mark my words, this is just the beginning in a long downward slide in relation to all the things that we consider to be abhorrent.

Comment: Marriage between Christians and Atheists

15th May 2009, thanks to Wynter

I mean, he's going to be serving the Devil. You're going to be serving God. Just that simple. ...or so says the fun living, assassination promoting, homophobe and anti-erm, just about everything Pat Robinson in relation, to relations between Christians and atheists)

Now, Robinson has, I presume, read the Bible (you know, for Christians) so one can only assume that either he is getting forgetful in his old age (some of his more recent outpourings do suggest senility) or he is one of what seems like a growing number of far-right, predominantly (though not exclusively) American evangelicals who seem to have a greater allegiance to division and the George Bush with us or against us doctrine than their own good book.

Delving into the Bible one is drawn to Paul's letters to the Conrinthians, an oft-quoted series of writings that talk about issues of the day. Paul's thoughts on marriage are very simple...

• 7:12 - I (not the Lord) say to the rest of you: If a brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she is willing to live with him, he must not abandon her.
• 7:13 - And if a woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he is willing to live with her, she must not abandon him.
• 7:14 - For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified because of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.
• 7:15 - But if the unbelieving partner leaves, let him go. In such cases the brother or sister is not under obligation. God has called you to live in peace.
• 7:16 - Wife, you might be able to save your husband. Husband, you might be able to save your wife.

...Paul does later say that widows should only marry those in the Lord but the key is to remember that Paul's letters are full of his own advice (he views marriage as something that should only be done if you are unable to resist temptation but that it otherwise detracts from serving God as it means you also serve your partner) but he does specifically stipulate when what he is saying is the word of God (7:35 - I'm saying this for your benefit, not to put a noose around your necks, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to the Lord). As he is talking of marriage it is therefore clear that if God had explicitly said that marriage between believers and non-believers then he would have mentioned it.

Paul is clearly saying that marriage between Christians and atheists can be difficult and he advises against it but does not forbid it. ...so what does Robinson make of this? Well, he ignores it as it clearly does not conform to his own bitter view of life that sees everything non-Christian as an attack. Or maybe he has been elevated above Paul in the canon of Christian thought.

As a non-believer myself (I refute the term atheist for the same reason as Jonathon Miller; there is no name for people who don't believe in ghosts), I don't have much time for Robinson and his utterances and neither does my Christian wife. One thing we do share is mutual love and respect ­ the type of respect that allows us to allow each other the freedom to worship or not as we see fit and disagree as we see fit. Yes there are difficulties but that too is part of marriage, I love my wife because of who she is and not because of some idealised notion.

In Pat Robinson's world difference is opposition; in our world difference is interesting and, in a concept entirely alien to Pat, part of what brings and keeps us together. Thankfully we still appear to be the norm but if Pat and his cohorts get their way the world is going to end up much worse off than it already is.

(all Bible quotes taken from 1 Corinthians, New International Version)

An Egyptian court banned porn websites, calling them venomous and vile.

According MENA news agency, the Administrative Court in Cairo issued the ruling in a case filed by Islamic lawyer Nizar Ghorab, who argued sites with adult content undermined and destroyed Egyptian social values.

In its ruling, the court, which oversees government-related cases, said, Letting these Web sites (operate) ruins moral values, reports the BBC: Freedoms of expression and public rights should be restricted by maintaining the fundamentals of religion, morality and patriotism.

Additionally, the court warned government Web agencies that Internet providers ignoring the ruling and allowing access to the sites would be unconstitutional and in violation of law.

Ghorab, called the judgment a victory over vice and corruption. Thank God we won, now the government should stop these electronic dens of vice immediately.

Judge Mohammed Attiya told the court, freedoms and public rights are not absolute, they are limited by the respect of the family which is the base of the society.

A Sri Lankan couple sentenced to death by stoning in Saudi Arabia received a reduced sentence following an appeal filed by the Sri Lankan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

They were given a reduced sentence of 700 lashings and six years in prison for committing adultery, Deputy Foreign Minister Hussain Bhaila said.

The two suspects had been living together without being formally married.

A Muslim catering manager who was asked to handle pork sausages and bacon is bringing a claim for religious discrimination against the Metropolitan Police.

Hasanali Khoja was told he would be expected to handle pork products when he started a new job at the Empress State Building in Earls Court, west London.

An informal agreement has been reached but Khoja, who launched his claim last year, wants it to be formalised. His lawyer, Khalid Sofi, said the informal agreement to excuse Khoja from handling pork products was made in June last year after he spent a period on special leave from his job.

Khoja, who has worked for the force since 2005, had previously worked at Hendon Police College in north west London, but was excused from touching pork products due to his religion.

An employment tribunal in Watford will consider his claim in a hearing which is expected to last two weeks.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: The Metropolitan Police is defending the claim.

A bomb made by jail inmates to blow up Muslim prisoners came near to exploding outside a prayer meeting.

The device, made with fireworks and detonators smuggled in with a fishing rod, was put in a room where worshippers wash their hands and feet for before prayers.

But a prison officer spotted it, picked it up and carried it into the middle of the playing field. A bomb disposal unit called to Ranby Prison in Retford, Notts, confirmed the bomb was a viable device primed to go off.

The whole prison was put into lock-down as police were called in and an inmate was arrested after explosives dogs searched the cells.

A Prison Service spokesman said: As a precaution the package was destroyed in a controlled explosion. There were no injuries to staff or prisoners and no damage.

Saudi Arabia’s morality police are launching a programme to combat witchcraft and sorcery, the official SPA news agency reported.

The religious police, also known as the muttawa, will create teams specially trained to eradicate the practices, deputy commission president Ibrahim al-Hoiml said.

The plan is aimed at developing people to work in the field on cases of witchcraft and sorcery to protect the society and raise public awareness, he said.

Saudi clerics are supposedly concerned about the operations of self-described fortune-tellers, mystics, magicians and others. Supposedly they often pitch their services to women seeking to put spells on men or to have children, and to people suffering from diseases. Some are especially popular with immigrant workers from Africa.

Nearly all the residents of Koge in Papua New Guninea watched as Julianna Gene and Kopaku Konia were dragged from their homes, to be hung from trees and tortured for several hours with bush knives. No one came forward to help. In the eyes of the villagers, the women were witches. They deserved to die. The finger of suspicion fell on the women after a local man died in a car accident.

A shocking increase in witch-hunt deaths in Papua New Guinea has prompted the government to launch a parliamentary commission of inquiry with a view to toughening the law. Joe Mek Teine, the chairman of the nation's law reform commission, has publicly declared that sorcery killings are getting out of hand.

Most witch hunts happen in the Highlands, the remote mountainous interior wracked by centuries of tribal wars and blood feuds. Contact with the outside world was only established in the 1930s, when some of the many ethnic groups were still living stone-age existences. Although there are no official statistics on sorcery killings, more than 50 were reported to the police in just two Highland provinces last year.

Belief in black magic is so ingrained that the government legally recognises sorcery, under the 1976 Sorcery Act. It permits white magic (healing or fertility rites for example) but the so-called black arts are punishable by up to two years in jail. This has resulted in murderers alleging the use of black magic as provocation and securing reduced sentences.

Branding someone a witch is a crime, but Detective Blacky Koglame estimates that fewer than 1 per cent of cases end up in court. Even when witnesses do come forward, he admits the police simply do not have the resources to investigate: And anyway, arresting people is very hard. Everyone in the community is usually involved, so you can't just go in looking for suspects, as you'd have to arrest the whole village, and that's impossible.

In one area deep in the Highlands a team of eight witch hunters claim to have tortured and killed 18 people between them. The leader of the group, a man with a reputation as a violent local gangster said: It is part of my culture, my tradition, it's my belief. I see myself as a guardian angel. We feel that we kill on good grounds and we're working for the good of the people in the village.

Witch hunts nearly always occur after a death or an illness of a community member. Natural causes for death or illness are just not accepted, said Pastor Jack Urame, a researcher at the Melanesian Institute and one of the country's leading experts on sorcery killings: So whenever someone dies in a village, a person must blamed.

A new fatwa published in Egypt determines that the source of all the existing pigs in the world is Jews, who were cursed by Allah. The new edict was issued by Sheikh Ali Osman from the Egyptian Waqf ministry.

Due to their Jewish roots, Sheikh Osman says, it is permissible to slaughter all the pigs. The religious scholar was quoted as saying by a Jordanian newspaper that he personally believes the source of the pigs is Jews and thus the consumption of pork meat is banned in Islam.

Sheikh Osman said his fatwa is being supported by the heads of al Azhar, but they fear to publicly confirm it. He said he still wait for response from al azhar fatwa committee to get an official approval for his new edict.

A Washington, D.C. based Muslim group, hosted its 10th Anniversary event earlier this week. It was moderated by the self-proclaimed European spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood. Both Hillary Clinton and Congressman Keith Ellison were expected to speak at the event.

The nonprofit Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy is celebrating its 10th anniversary with its conference titled, How to Improve U.S.-Muslim Relations: Challenges and Promises Ahead.

During the gathering, Maldives Foreign Minister Ahmed Shaheed received the Muslim Democrat of the Year award for his work in the past 15 years to strengthen and promote democracy and human rights in the Maldives.

Foreign Minister Shaheed on receiving his award, Muslim Democrat of the Year: I’m very happy to be named Muslim Democrat of the year. For now I’m very happy to be in a 100% Muslim country having achieved homegrown democracy. It’s not something that was imposed on us. The movement for democracy grew in the country…we’re still trying to complete the revolution here.

However the claim to be 100% muslim underlies one the most undemocratic and unfree states in the world:

Article 9 Section D of the Maldives constitution  states that a non-Muslim may not become a citizen of the Maldives.

This denial of citizenship to non-Muslims is an extraordinarily harsh measure which places the Maldives among the worst countries in the world in regards to the legal foundation for freedom of religion and belief, said Joseph K. Grieboski President of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy

serving the Devil

What to do if you're a Christian in love with an atheist? Religious-right pooh-bah Pat Robertson offers relationship advice:

There is no fellowship between an atheist and somebody who is a believer in God. . . . You've got to go find somebody else. Really.

I mean either he changes and gives his heart to the Lord, or you go down the road with somebody else. But there is no fellowship between Christ and Belial.

I mean, he's going to be serving the Devil. You're going to be serving God. Just that simple. And there'll be conflicts and fighting all the time. There is no middle ground. There is no peace in that situation.

See article from thinkprogress.org

Maine just became the fifth state to allow legal same-sex marriage. On the Christian Broadcasting Network, Pat Robertson was interviewed about the topic and responded:

We haven’t taken this to its ultimate conclusion. You got polygamy out there. How can we rule that polygamy is illegal when you say that homosexual marriage is legal. What is it about polygamy that’s different? Well, polygamy was outlawed because it was considered immoral according to biblical standards.

But if we take biblical standards away in homosexuality, what about the other? And what about bestiality and ultimately what about child molestation and pedophilia? How can we criminalize these things and at the same time have constitutional amendments allowing same-sex marriage among homosexuals.

You mark my words, this is just the beginning in a long downward slide in relation to all the things that we consider to be abhorrent.

An Islamic court in the Somali town of Kismayu ordered the amputation of the hand of Mohamed Omar Ishmael in front of hundreds of the inhabitants of Kismayu town.

The victim was accused of night time burglary and has stolen different kinds of items including Jewelries, a bag containing clothes, curtains and mattress.

The hacking of Ishmael’s hand took place at the freedom park in the hub of Kismayu town and hundreds of the residents of Kismayu town have gathered at the scene where the event was taking place in order to witness the action said Somaliweyn correspondent in the town of Kismayu.

This will be the second time the Islamists in the town of Kismayu have chopped off the hand of somebody accused of theft. Other atrocities have been carried out by the Islamists in the town of Kismayu including the stoning to death of Asha Duhulow, a young girl aged 13 years, who was accused of having sex with men.

A snapshot of the stated views and beliefs of Muslims living in Britain today has been reported by the first-ever study of Islamic interfaith relations across the world. The reseach is a collaboration between Gallup and the Coexist Foundation. British Muslims were found to identify more strongly with the UK than the rest of the population, and have a much higher regard for the country's institutions.

However, the poll also found that the vast majority of Muslims have extremely conservative views on moral issues such as homosexuality and the death penalty, which differ dramatically from those held by the rest of the UK population. The wide-ranging study, entitled The Gallup Coexist Index 2009, was based on data collected through polls of residents in more than 140 countries. More than 1,500 interviews were conducted in the UK alone.

Perhaps the survey's most surprising finding was that more than three-quarters of British Muslims (77%) said they identified "very strongly" with the UK, compared to just half (50%) of the general public.

Professor Ziauddin Sardar, a London-based scholar who specialises in the future of Islam, said that British Muslims with Pakistani or Middle Eastern heritage are all too aware of the troubles in their homelands and can see the UK's benefits better than those who have lived here for generations. They look at the stability of Britain and appreciate it deeply, he said.

Not a single British Muslim said homosexuality was morally acceptable, compared to 58% of the general public who believed it was. In other European countries with large Muslim populations such as France and Germany, the difference was far less pronounced: more than a third of French Muslims said they did not have a problem with homosexuality.

British Muslims were found to have faith in the police, with 76% saying they trusted them compared to 67% of the general public. They were also found to be more likely to have confidence in the Government, the judicial system, financial institutions and the media. British Muslims and their parents have sometimes had personal experience of societies which are not democratic and where the rule of law is not always followed, said Professor Sardar: They are not yet disillusioned with the systems of governance, in the way that those who have lived here for generations might be. There is still a lot of expectation.

Extra-marital sex was deemed morally acceptable by only 3% of Muslims, compared to 82% of the general public. And while 15% of the general public considered adultery morally acceptable, only 2% of Muslims felt the same way. The attitudes of Muslims in France and Germany is very different, where 48% and 27% had no problem with sex outside wedlock. This discrepancy is likely to be caused by the fact that British Muslims mainly originate from rural parts of conservative Islamic countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, whereas French and German Muslims tend to be from Morocco, Algeria and Turkey, where the culture is different.

A Muslim dentist refused to treat patients unless they wore traditional Islamic dress, it was alleged. Omer Butt ordered women to put on head scarves or he would not register them or their families at his NHS-funded clinic, it was claimed.

The GDC heard how Butt believed it was his duty to stop Muslim patients committing what he believed was Al-Kaba'ir, a religious sin. He even put a laminated sign on the wall of his waiting room telling patients they would have to adhere to his strict dress code or find another dentist.

John Snell, for the GDC, said: He sought to impose a dress code on patients attending his practice. He required that women cover their hair with a head scarf, or hijab, and that male patients remove any gold jewellery.

If he had simply expressed a preference, without imposing any compulsion to adhere to this dress code, there may be no cause for complaint. However, he insisted - and those who did not comply were refused treatment.

He made compliance with Islamic dress code a condition of treatment, which is entirely inappropriate under the auspices of the National Health Service. Patients should have access to NHS treatment regardless of their religious observance, or otherwise.

Butt denies charges of misconduct for his treatment of two patients at the clinic. If found guilty he faces being removed the dental register. In September 2007 Butt was formally reprimanded by the GDC for similar behaviour and found guilty of serious professional misconduct.

The hearing continues.

Nutters have hit out at Hertford newspapers which they claim are fuelling the exploitation of vulnerable women by running personal services advertisements.

The St Albans Review banned all "adult" advertisements in July 2008 after being persuaded of a mythical link between the ads and women trafficked for sex.

But other local publications continue to take money from such advertisements.

Bishop of Hertford Christopher Foster said: It is now over nine months since the Newsquest group of newspapers banned personal services ads in its titles –a move which The Right Reverend Christopher Herbert commended before his retirement as Bishop of St Albans last year.

I share his view. Since Newquest took its ethical stance, at least one other major newspaper owner has joined the three our four who recognise that these ads can support sex-trafficking. I call on all newspaper owners who have yet to take this step to keep in tune with the prevailing mood and to ban these ads in their titles. I also ask that the public look at where newspapers stand on this issue when they place advertisements in them.

Detective Superintendent Mark Drew said: Hertfordshire Constabulary have commended the Newsquest group of newspapers. [But] we do not believe that Hertfordshire has a significant problem with prostitution or people trafficking.

In a surprising decision, the grand Imam of Al Azhar - the Mosque-University in Cairo which is the highest theological authority on Sunni Islam - Sheikh Sayyed Mohamed Tantawi, has issued a fatwa authorising abortion for women who are victims of rape, on condition that they are women of good reputation, chaste and pure.

Tantawi said: let us suppose that a young woman, known for her chasteness and purity, is raped while going to university or at work or anywhere else and becomes pregnant. There is nothing in Sharia law to stop her going to the doctor at the start of her pregnancy, seeing as every woman realises she is pregnant during the first weeks or months, to remove the traces of this aggression, and protect her honour and dignity.

The fatwa has caused controversy among the Islamic experts at Al Azhar, many of whom have expressed their strong opposition. One of the members of the commission for fatwas, Mohamed Crema, maintained in a debate on television programme 'Al Hayat' that this religious advice will open the doors to abuses. Women of easy virtue or young sinners could say that they have been raped said the indignant Crema: to get rid of a pregnancy which is the fruit of an unlawful sexual relationship.

There has also been high-level discussion within the Vatican about whether to urge a boycott of the film, according to Italian media reports. It took that step with The Da Vinci Code, but the film enjoyed staggering box office takings of $758 million and some Vatican insiders fear their high-profile opposition backfired.

Let's be careful not to play their game... by giving them free publicity, said Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, the Vatican economics minister, who still made clear his derision for the book as a manipulation in anti-Christian key of people, events and history.

So in its first pronouncement on the film, Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano described Angels and Demons as harmless entertainment which hardly affects the genius and mystery of Christianity.

While the gigantic and smart commercial operation is filled with inaccuracies and stereotyped characters, the camera work is splendid, Howard's direction dynamic and alluring and the reconstruction of St Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel is magnificent.

An editorial in the paper added: It would probably be an exaggeration to consider the books of Dan Brown an alarm bell but maybe they should be a stimulus to rethink and refresh the way the Church uses the media to explain its positions on today's burning issues.

Hindu groups protesting the recent release of Hanuman: Boy Warrior for the PlayStation 2 have apparently run out of patience with Sony.

A press release issued by head whinger Rajan Zed seems to indicate that Sony will not intervene in Hanuman's distribution. Bhavna Shinde of Forum for Hindu Awakening is quoted in the release:

So now we are left with no other alternative except to intensify our protests. Lord Hanuman is a highly revered Deity for us Hindus and we cannot accept any more denigration of Him...

We are shocked at the stubbornness of Sony Corporation not to withdraw the PlayStation2 game Hanuman: Boy Warrior despite our repeated requests. Sony Corporation is held in high esteem the world over with high ethical principles. We were expecting that Sony would not hurt the feelings of the one billion strong Hindu population for a minor product like this game.

If Jesus were in Ireland today, under the new law, wouldn’t he be one of its first victims, held in Portlaoise, perhaps, while lawyers debated whether he should be deported to Israel, or the Palestinian Authority, or tried here? Muslims might find their mosques under close inspection, too

WE can only speculate as to why Justice Minister Dermot Ahern is proposing to introduce a new crime of blasphemous libel punishable by fines up to €100,000. Is it to salve his conscience for having to implement other policies which offend his personal sense of what is right and wrong? Is it a government ploy to distract attention from more pressing matters? Who knows?

...Read full article

Angry protests are a common sight in Pakistan but in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore this week, several hundred protesters gathered on a scorching day to take on a very different target: the Taliban.

I will fight them to my last breath and the last drop of my blood in my body. I'm not scared, vowed newspaper publisher Jugnu Mohsin.

She was leading a crowd of several hundred students, artists, writers and others, chanting the Taliban is the enemy of Islam in Urdu.

Public protests against the Taliban started cropping up in various Pakistani cities after a video emerged showing militants publicly flogging a teenage girl. The Taliban's recent declaration that the Pakistani government and judicial system are unIslamic has also outraged many educated Pakistanis.

Students and others in Lahore fear that the Taliban's version of sharia -- which forbids girls from attending school, as well as music, poetry and dance -- is slowly creeping into Lahore, the center of Pakistani culture.

They're here in Lahore, this is the thing, said Jamal Rahman, who plays guitar for the Lahore-based band, "Lal" which means "Red": Little groups of the Taliban are going around and intimidating people, causing fear, telling women to cover up and if they don't they'll shoot them.

It is unclear if the protests and rallying cries from Rahman and the others in Lahore are the start of a mass movement or simply the swan song of Pakistan's wealthy, urban elite who could be the first to leave if the suicide bombers and insurgents succeed in further destabilizing the country. Either way, their message is a sign that more Pakistanis believe the Taliban's threat is directed at them, and not just a reaction to the so-called U.S.-led war on terror.

What the protestors are up against

See article from dailytimes.com.pk

It is un-Islamic for anyone to be photographed, Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) chief Sufi Muhammad has said.

Talking on TV, he said any duplicated image of a person, whether a still picture or video was un-Islamic. Referring to the various systems of governance, he said democracy, communism, socialism and fascism were all un-Islamic.

Focusing on democracy, he said it was un-Islamic, as infidels invented it: I would not offer prayer behind anyone who would seek to justify democracy. How can people who believe in democracy be expected to enforce the ideals of sharia.

On the status of women in a Taliban-run society, he said women were not allowed to come out of their house for any reason other than to perform Haj. However, he added, a female patient was allowed to visit a male doctor to seek a cure for her ailments.

From the Dutch Newspaper Algemeen Dagblad:

In the city of Gouda 2 Moroccans have been arrested over the stoning Dutch girls.

On Monday afternoon, two girls riding on their bicycles were first verbally attacked and called cancer-ho and other insulting illnesses by islamic youth. They started bicycling faster to get away from that area, but the muslims followed them and caused them to stop. They then started throwing stoned at them, hitting the heads of the girls. They also took the bicycles from the girls and threw these on the girls.

At least 5 muslim boys were involved, but only 2 young ones were arrested by the police in the age of 13 and 15.

I am a Muslim woman and, like my late mother, free, independent, sensuous, educated, liberal, contrary and confrontational when provoked, both feminine and feminist. I style and colour my hair, wear lovely things and perfumes, appear on public platforms with men who are not related to me, shake their hands, embrace some I know well, take care of my family.

I defend Muslims persecuted by their enemies and their own kith and kin. I pray, fast, give to charity and try to be a decent human being. I also drink wine and do not lie about that, unlike so many other "good" Muslims. I am the kind of Muslim woman who maddens reactionary Muslim men and their asinine female followers. What a badge of honour.

Female oppression in Islamic countries is manifestly getting worse. Islam, as practiced by millions today, has lost its compassion and integrity and is entering one of the darkest of dark ages. Here is this month's short list of unbearable stories (imagine how many more there are which will never be known):

...Read full article

Individuals banned from the UK have been named for for the first time, the Home Secretary announced. The list covers people excluded from the United Kingdom for fostering extremism or hatred between October 2008 and March 2009.

It follows the Home Secretary’s introduction of new measures against such individuals last year, including creating a presumption in favour of exclusion in respect of all those who have engaged in spreading hate.

The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith also announced today that the government is now able to ban European nationals and their family members if they constitute a threat to public policy or public security.

In the period from 28 October 2008 to 31 March 2009 the Home Secretary excluded a total of 22 individuals from coming to the United Kingdom. It is not considered to be in the public interest to disclose the names of six of these individuals. The remaining 16 individuals are:

Considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by seeking to foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence:

• Abdullah Qadri Al Ahdal. Preacher
• Yunis Al Astal. Preacher
• Wadgy Abd El Hamied Mohamed Ghoneim. A prolific speaker and writer.
• Safwat Hijazi. Television preacher.
• Nasr Javed
• Abdul Ali Musa
• Samir Al Quntar
• Amir Siddique. Preacher.

Others

• Stephen Donald Black Set up Stormfront, a racist website. Considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by promoting serious criminal activity and fostering hatred, which might lead to inter-community violence in the United Kingdom.
• Eric Gliebe. Has made web-radio broadcasts in which he vilifies certain ethnic groups and encourages the download and distribution of provocative racist leaflets and posters. Considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by justifying terrorist violence, provoking others to commit serious crime and fostering racial hatred.
• Mike Guzovsky. Leader of a violent group and actively involved with military training camps. Considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by seeking to foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs and to provoke others to terrorist acts.
• Fred Waldron Phelps Snr and Shirley Phelps-Roper. Pastor and leading spokesperson of Westboro Baptist Church. Considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the United Kingdom.
• Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky. Leaders of a violent gang that beat migrants and posted films of their attacks on the internet. Considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by fomenting serious criminal activity and seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts.
• Michael Alan Weiner (also known as Michael Savage). Controversial daily radio host. Considered to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence.

Under the unacceptable behaviour policy, the Home Secretary may exclude from the UK any non-British citizen, whether in the UK or abroad, who uses any means or medium including:

• writing, producing, publishing or distributing material
• public speaking including preaching
• running a website
• using a position of responsibility such as teacher, community or youth leader

To express views which:

• foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs
• seek to provoke others to terrorist acts
• foment other serious criminal activity or seek to provoke others to serious criminal acts or
• foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.

Update: Savage Defamation

7th May 2009, thanks to Alan

A US radio talk show host say he will sue the British government for defamation after being placed on a list of people banned from entering the UK. Conservative political commentator Michael Savage, real name Michael Alan Weiner, is one of 22 people barred for fostering extremism or hate.

The body of a man believed to be homosexual has twice been dug up from a Muslim cemetery in Senegal.

The man, in his 30s, was first buried on Saturday before residents of the western town of Thies dug up his body and left it near his grave, police say.

His family then reburied him, but he was once more exhumed by people who did not want him buried there. His body was dumped outside the family house.

A police officer told the AFP news agency that the body was eventually buried away from the cemetery. The state-owned Le Soleil newspaper reports that it was buried within the grounds of the family home.

An annual list of countries named as the worst violators of religious freedom expanded to include two new countries – Iraq and Nigeria.

This year, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended to the Obama administration a total of 13 countries that it should designate as countries of particular concern (CPCs).

Iraq was added in December because of the ongoing, severe abuses against minorities and the government’s tolerance of the violence, particularly against Iraq’s smallest and most vulnerable religious minorities, including Chaldo Assyrians and other Christian groups.

Nigeria, meanwhile, which has been on the commission’s watch list for seven years, was recommended to be a CPC because of evidence found by USCIRF during a recent trip to the country of the government’s toleration of systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom and beliefs.

Thousands of people have been killed, displaced or somehow affected by ongoing sectarian violence in Nigeria, reported Commissioner Leonard Leo. The Nigerian government has also allowed destruction of churches and mosques to go with impunity.

Commissioner Elizabeth Prodromou, who reported on Pakistan, highlighted how the Pakistani government does not provide adequate protection to religious minorities, and how perpetrators of religious violence are seldom brought to justice. She also noted how anti-blasphemy laws have been abused and can be used by extremists against minorities because allegations can be made without evidence. And Prodromou noted how women and girls in Taliban-controlled areas are denied equal rights and education. Since 2002, USCIRF has recommended for the State Department to designate Pakistan as a CPC. But the State Department has not followed the commission’s recommendation.

Included in this year’s report, which covers the period from May 2008 through April, are: Burma, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

On the commission’s Watch List, meanwhile, are Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Laos, Russia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Venezuela.

A Spanish court has sentenced a Mauritanian to 17 years in prison after she forced her 14 year old daughter to marry an older man and have sex with him, sparking protests from Mauritanians in southern Spain.

Hawa Mint Cheik El Bou fainted outside a courtroom in the southern city of Cadiz after being told of the sentence against her. A crowd of fellow immigrants carried signs calling for their customs to be respected.

She was convicted of being party to rape, coercion and making threats. Her husband was sentenced to 18 months' jail and the man who married their daughter received 13 years and six months.

Proceedings started when Hawa's Spanish-born daughter, then 14, told authorities that her parents had taken her to Mauritania and forced her to marry a 40-year-old man and have sex with him before they all returned to Spain. In Spain, she was forced to sleep with him again, she said.

The girl's parents have not yet been jailed while appeals proceed, but the other man has been in custody since 2007.

The president of an association of Mauritanian immigrants said Spain should respect Mauritanian and Islamic customs but also that people in Spain should obey Spanish law.

UK catholic leaders have attacked Angels and Demons, the film adaptation of Dan Brown's book.

The Rt Rev Malcolm McMahon, the Bishop of Nottingham, warned that the film could stir up anti-Catholic sentiment.

This is so outlandish, it's total rubbish, said Bishop McMahon, who is one of the Church's most senior bishops: It's mischievous to stir up this kind of anti-Catholic sentiment. It's a gratuitous knocking of the Church and I can't see any reason for it.

Bishop McMahon said that Catholics were getting tired of the sensational stories and plot lines contained in Brown's novels and subsequent film adaptations: I don't think that Catholics will be interested in seeing this as it's so far removed from the truth.

Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights in the US, accused Howard and Brown of smearing the Catholic church with fabulously bogus tales. Donahue is exasperated by the way that he says Brown and Howard blend fact, fiction and conspiracy theory. I have never dealt with two more disingenuous people, he told The Daily Telegraph: They wouldn't dare treat any other religion like this.

Howard responded in forthright fashion: Let me be clear: neither I nor Angels & Demons are anti-Catholic. And let me be a little controversial: I believe Catholics, including most in the hierarchy of the Church, will enjoy the movie for what it is – an exciting mystery, set in the awe-inspiring beauty of Rome.

There has also been high-level discussion within the Vatican about whether to urge a boycott of the film, according to Italian media reports. It took that step with The Da Vinci Code, but the film enjoyed staggering box office takings of $758 million and some Vatican insiders fear their high-profile opposition backfired.

Let's be careful not to play their game... by giving them free publicity, said Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, the Vatican economics minister, who still made clear his derision for the book as a manipulation in anti-Christian key of people, events and history.

A professor at the American University here recently ordered copies of The Diary of Anne Frank for his classes, only to learn that the book is banned. Inquiring further, he discovered a long list of prohibited books, films and music.

Even a partial list of books banned in Lebanon gives pause: William Styron's Sophie's Choice; Thomas Keneally's Schindler's List; Thomas Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem; books by Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and Isaac Bashevis Singer. In fact, all books that portray Jews, Israel or Zionism favorably are banned.

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The Taliban have demolished 11 houses of the Sikh community in the Orakzai Agency for refusing to pay ‘Jazia’.

The action was ordered by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan chief for Orakzai Agency, Hakeemullah Mehsud, after the deadline given to the Sikh community for payment of Jazia passed.

The Taliban had asked the long established Sikh community living in the tribal area earlier this month to pay annual Jazia because Sharia had been enforced in the area and every non-Muslim had to pay protection money.

A local jirga ruled that the Sikh community should annually pay Rs.15 million ($187,000) as protection money. Earlier reports had said the Taliban had demanded Rs.50 million but that this had been reduced.

The Sikh community comprising 30 to 35 families shifted from the Feroze Khel area to the nearby Merozai in Lower Orakzai Agency because they could not arrange Rs150 million demanded by the Taliban.

Update: Taliban attack christians in Karachi

4th May 2009. Based on article from asianews.it, Thanks to Alan

Irfan Masih, the 11-yeaar-old boy wounded on 22 April during a Taliban attack against Christians in Tiasar Town near Karachi, has died.

On 22 April a gang of armed muslim extremists attacked a group of Christians in Tiasar Town, a Karachi suburb, setting six homes on fire and seriously injuring three Christians. One of them was Irfan Masih.

The Taliban attacked the Christians because they were wiping off insulting graffiti from the walls of local homes and the local church. The Taliban had scribbled words that incited hatred and violence, like Taliban are coming, Long live Taliban and Be prepared to pay Jizia (Tax for non-Muslims) or embrace Islam.

Christian activists have complained that police from the nearby Surjani station stood idly by when the attack took place.

As an explanation of their inaction, the agents said that both Christians and Muslims opened fire.

However, only Christians were hurt or killed. Five Muslims were arrested, caught brandishing weapons used during the attack.

India's Censor Board Screening Committee has now seen the film Angels and Demons and have not issued sertificate.

They have referred the film to a Revising Committee with the censor Sharmila Tagore and a panel of 4 catholic bishops.

Here is a press statement from Christian Secular Forum:

We have represented to the Censor Board, that in matter pertaining to Catholicism, the opinion of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) should be binding. The Censor Board has therefore asked for 4 representatives of the Catholic Bishops to see the film. The CBCI has also already written to the Censor Board calling for a ban on Angels & Demons. The ball is now in the Catholic Bishops' court. If after seeing the film, it recommends a ban - Banned it will it be.

We are also given to understand that the Censor Board wants the Church to settle for a Disclaimer.

Update: Angels & the CSF

3rd May 2009. Based on article from hindu.com

In a statement on Saturday, Joseph Dias, general secretary of the Christian Secular Forum (CSF) urged Catholic bishops to call for a boycott of the film.

It also filed a complaint with the Commissioner of Police, Mumbai, urging him to take action against officials of Sony Pictures on various counts.

The CSF submitted a memorandum to Central Board for Film Certification chairperson Sharmila Tagore, calling for wider consultations to further scan the film and ensure that it did not hurt the sentiments of Christians. Scenes depicting violence in churches should be removed and care should be taken while dubbing the film in other languages.

The earlier revision committee, which recommended a disclaimer and an A certificate, was based in the capital and not comprehensive enough, said Dias. If the film was not cut adequately to remove the objectionable scenes, the CSF would consider legal options, he warned.

Suspicion that move to up-date Ireland's Defamation Act is an attempt by a desperate government to divert voters’ attention

The government’s plan to create a crime of blasphemous libel, punishable by a fine of up to €100,000, should be of concern to anyone who values freedom of expression. The stealthy manner in which Dermot Ahern, the minister for justice, inserted the blasphemy clause into the Defamation Bill was itself a cause of concern, with his justification unconvincing.

The new offence of publishing or uttering blasphemous matter is defined as anything grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion. The offender must intend to cause such outrage.

Ahern’s justification is that the Irish constitution states that the publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious or indecent material is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law. The Defamation Act of 1961 is outdated, Ahern argues, and he needs to modernise it.

He does not. The justice minister’s protestations that the mention of blasphemy in the constitution “cannot be ignored” ring hollow.

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Atheists fight to keep God out of Irish law

See article from guardian.co.uk
See also Atheist Ireland

Atheist Ireland says the proposed legislation combines the oppressive religious thinking of 1950s Catholic Ireland and Islamic fundamentalism.

Co-founder Michael Nugent said they intended to launch a roadshow in the republic to kick-start their campaign.

This new law will treat religious beliefs as more valuable than secular beliefs and scientific thinking, Nugent said: The bill's first test of blasphemy is that religious adherents express outrage. Instead of encouraging outrage, we should be educating people to respond in a more healthy manner when somebody expresses a belief that they find insulting. More worryingly, this law would encourage the type of orchestrated outrage that Islamic fundamentalists directed against Danish cartoonists.

Under the proposed law, Ding Dong Denny O'Reilly, a spoof Irish republican extremist who sings in a Celtic shirt, could be prosecuted for his song The Ballad of Jaysus Christ, Nugent said.

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Other than that it is a ruse to distract the public’s attention from the Government’s handling of the economic crisis, it is difficult to arrive at any insight into why the Minister for Justice has proposed the introduction of a new crime of blasphemous libel.

Perhaps some lobby group has been beavering away, tormenting the Minister and his department. If so, one could readily imagine such a group: wearing its religiosity like a shield against the world, beleaguered in its piety and defensive about its beliefs. But if we succumb to the anxieties of these who wear their religiosity as a suit of armour against reality, we succumb also to the taunts of the ignoramuses who tell us that religion is (at once!) a dangerous and a dying phenomenon.

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Pashto female singer Shamim Aiman Udas was killed on Sunday, police said.

Her husband Usman reported at Paharipura Police Station that the singer’s brothers Alamgir and Ismaeel were not happy with her having singing profession despite their disapproval.

They (allegedly) opened fire on her near Koochi Plaza and killed her.

Police registered a case against the two accused.

5 teachers and 40 pupils were overcome by fumes during a school ceremony in the capital of northern Parwan province.

Afghan officials said they were awaiting the results of blood tests to determine what had happened, but there were unconfirmed local reports a bottle had been thrown into the playground beforehand

One teacher at Sadiqi Padshah School in Charikar, who did not wish to be named, said the whole school had been standing in the playground listening to staff speeches when students began to collapse: We didn't know what was happening, all the children just went down and we took them to hospital. Victims were treated for severe headaches and streaming eyes after the attack on Sunday morning, 40 miles north of Kabul, but the provincial governor said all had made a full recovery.

Taliban-led insurgents opposed to the central government or girls' education continue to attack schools and teachers. In 2008, there were 292 attacks on schools, with 92 people killed and 169 injured.

The Lahore High Court has imposed a ban on songs of two local female singers and sought a reply from Central Board of Films Censors and other respondents. Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry also issued notices to the singers to appear in court on May 25. The judge issued this order on a petition filed by Asif Mehmood Khan.

The petitioner had submitted that departments concerned and criminal elements were violating the law and the constitution and spoiling the morality of people by not checking the display of immoral songs. He said respondent female singers namely Naseebo Lal and Nooro Lal with the help of other respondents were making and singing indecent and immoral songs.

He said the protection given by the government to these singers under the Motion Picture Ordinance 1979 was illegal and against the values of Muslim society.

The petitioner pleaded that the impugned certification passed by the chairman and the secretary of the Central Board of Film Censors was illegal.

The petitioner handed over to the court video CDs and audio cassettes of supposedly indecent songs sung by the singers. He pleaded that the certification and exhibition of these songs was against the law and moral values of society.

The petitioner said that the Holy Quran prohibited vulgarity in songs and poems. He said vulgar songs created enmity in the hearts of religious scholars and ulema against the government as they thought that the government was patronising vulgarity.

He said the respondents had launched, cinematographed, advertised, published and exhibited these songs without any lawful jurisdiction and these songs were a threat to society’s values and morality.

The petitioner prayed the court to impose a complete ban on all audio/video songs of the two respondent female singers.

Update: Seeing Entertainment as Vulgarity

23rd July 2009. Based on article from dawn.com

Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry of the Lahore High Court has sought reports from the Punjab government and the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) on measures to prevent ‘vulgarity’ in the name of culture as CDs of ‘obscene’ dances and dramas were being played unabatedly on cable TV networks.

The judge sought the reports after a law officer said during the hearing of a case against singers Naseebo Lal and Nooran Lal for singing ‘vulgar’ songs that cable TV channels were also spreading ‘obscenity’ in society by playing ‘immoral’ videos of dramas and dances but Pemra had not taken any action against them.

The court also directed the police to launch a crackdown on the elements involved in the business of spreading ‘vulgarity’ observing that as per constitution of Pakistan Islam and Sunnah was the supreme law of the land and no immoral activity could be allowed under it.

The Madonna of Orgasm Church (Orgasmens Madonnas kyrka) has suffered a disappointing reversal following a Swedish court ruling that the church’s name is unacceptable and offensive.

The church’s founder, artist Carlos Bebeacua has been fighting a lengthy legal battle in his bid to have the Madonna of Orgasm Church registered as a faith community in Sweden.

Founded by Bebeacua in the early 1990s, the Madonna of Orgasm Church is centered on a similarly named painting by Bebeacua which sparked protests during the 1992 World’s Fair in Seville, Spain.

The orgasm is God, the orgasm should be worshiped, Bebeacua once told the Kvällsposten newspaper. Bebeacua hoped that registering the Madonna of Orgasm Church as a faith community in Sweden would encourage more people to consider the orgasm as God.

In November 2008, he achieved an important victory when the county administrative court overruled Sweden’s Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency (Kammarkollegiet), which had refused to register the Madonna of Orgasm Church because its name was offensive. But Kammarkollegiet appealed the ruling to the Administrative Court of Appeal, which has just overturned the lower court’s decision.

According to the appeals court, the name of Bebeacua’s Madonna of Orgasm Church violates what is considered acceptable praxis and therefore can be denied registration as a faith community: In the opinion of the administrative court of appeal, the intention of such a combination of words, even in relation to the registration of a community for religious activities, must be to offend, not only for those within the wider circles of the general public who have Christian leanings, but also in society in general.

Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari has remitted the sentences of three prisoners, who had been sentenced to amputation of a hand and a leg.

According to a statement issued by presidential spokesman, the president ordered the remission on the advice of the prime minister, on clemency petitions filed by Muhammad Ashraf, Zafar Ali and Khalid Javaid.

The three convicts are currently confined in District Jail Sargodha. The petitioners were sentenced by a special court in Lahore on November 11, 1992. The execution of the sentence was suspended by the then president on June 1, 1994.

The Centre for Legal Aid & Settlement (CLAAS) is calling on the Pakistani Government to ban forced conversions after a group of Muslim men raped a 14-year-old Christian girl and forced her to convert to Islam.

The schoolgirl Shaj Taj said that she was bundled her into the back of a car while she was on her way to school in December 2008.

They allegedly took her to a hotel where she was raped before being forced at gunpoint to add her thumb print and signature to documents declaring her supposed conversion to Islam and marriage to one of her kidnappers.

I tried to make noise but they pointed gun on me and threatened me that they will kill my father in jail and my school-going younger brother if I make the noise, she told Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan.

Shah Taj was freed from her abductors by police after being held for around one month and a case was filed against the three men. The perpetrators then allegedly tried to prove their innocence by presenting the forged documents as legitimate certificates of marriage and conversion to Islam. Police have detained two of the attackers, but a third is still on the run.

CLAAS Coordinator Nasir Saeed made an urgent appeal to the Pakistani Government to pass legislation banning forced conversions. He commented: The forced conversion of a non-Muslim minor to Islam is a trend that is spiralling out of control, especially since the recent imposition of Sharia law and the increasing Talibanisation of Pakistan.

Attending a reading and writing class could end in mutilation or murder for Afghan women — and simply leaving their homes could mean death. Christina Lamb returns to Afghanistan seven years after the fall of the Taliban and finds a country still rife with the persecution of females.

On a stony hillside overlooking the ancient city of Herat stands the graveyard of its most illustrious citizens. But there is one tombstone at which many women stop and genuflect. It is that of a 25-year-old woman called Nadia Anjuman, and the flowery Persian engraving describes her as a poet who risked her life to keep writing under the Taliban. What it doesn’t say is that she was killed by her own husband.

Nadia’s death is seen by her friends and women across Afghanistan as symbolising the betrayal by the international community of all their promises to free Afghan women — given as one of the main reasons for ousting the Taliban regime 7 years ago. What happened to Nadia should make the world bow its head in shame, says her friend and fellow writer Leila Razeqi: Your prime ministers and presidents promised freedom to us Afghan women. That someone like Nadia is under the soil and her husband walks free should make you ask what is really going on here.

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