A gay couple says they were detained by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints security guards after one man kissed another on the cheek on Main Street Plaza.

They targeted us, said Matt Aune: We weren't doing anything inappropriate or illegal, or anything most people would consider inappropriate for any other couple.

Aune and his partner, Derek Jones were cited by Salt Lake City police for trespassing on the plaza, located at 50 East North Temple, according to Sgt. Robin Snyder.

The church contends the couple was asked to stop engaging in inappropriate behavior just as any other couple would have been. They became argumentative and used profanity and refused to leave the property. They were arrested and then given a citation for criminal trespass by SLPD.

Though Salt Lake City sold the property to the church in the late 1990s, it remains a popular pedestrian thoroughfare, and a site where couples often pose affectionately for photos.

The pair crossed the plaza holding hands, Aune said. About 20 feet from the edge of the plaza, Aune said he stopped, put his arm on Jones' back and kissed him on the cheek.

Several security guards then arrived and asked the pair to leave, saying that public displays of affection are not allowed on the church property, Aune and Jones said. They protested, saying they often see other couples holding hands and kissing there, said Jones.

We were kind of standing up for ourselves, Jones said. It was obviously because we were gay.

The guards put Jones on the ground and handcuffed him, he said. Aune said he was also cuffed roughly, and suffered bruises and a swollen wrist. The injuries did not require medical treatment, Snyder said.

Police arrived about 10:30 p.m. They spoke with the couple and two security guards before issuing the citations, Snyder said. The pair was banned from LDS Church Headquarters' campus for six months, Farah confirmed.

The kiss happened on a former public easement given up by city in 2003 in a controversial land-swap deal. The easement became private property, allowing the church to ban protesting, smoking, sunbathing and other offensive, indecent, obscene, lewd or disorderly speech, dress or conduct, church officials said at the time. In exchange, the city got church property for a west-side community center.

Aune said he was one of those who protested the transfer at the time: They claimed in 2003 this would never happen, they were never going to arrest anyone. It's clear now they do have an agenda.

Update: Kiss In

16th July 2009. See article from sltrib.com

Protesters are planning a second kiss-in near the Salt Lake City Temple to support two gay men who said they were stopped by LDS Church security after one man kissed the other on the cheek.

The event will take place at noon Sunday 19th July, according to a listing on Facebook. At 12:15 p.m., organizers will sound a whistle or bell as a signal to step onto a former public easement and kiss.

Located next to Temple Square, Main Street Plaza was public land sold by the city to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about 10 years ago. The sale allowed the church to ban speech and actions it disagreed with from the area between Temple Square and the Church Office Building.

Update: Kiss and Shout

21st July 2009. See article from 2news.tv, thanks to Alan

A mass-kissing protest near the Mormon church temple Sunday drew a shouting match between gay activists and a group of faithful Mormons.

For the second consecutive weekend, about 100 people gathered to stage a "kiss-in" to protest the treatment of two gay men cited for trespassing July 9 after they shared a kiss on the plaza owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both gay and straight couples exchanged kisses during the protest.

Demonstrators were greeted at the south entrance by a group of faithful Mormons carrying large signs that denounced homosexuality, prompting a heated verbal exchange.

Police say no one was arrested or cited, despite a large group exchanging kisses by a reflecting pool at the plaza's center.

Update: Church Henchmen on CCTV

31st July 2009. Based on article from sltrib.com, thanks to Alan
See video on YouTube

Matt Aune puts his arm around his partner, Derek Jones, pulling him close as four large men in dark suits gather around them July 9 on the Main Street Plaza.

The couple argue with the LDS Church guards, who yank the two men apart and put them in handcuffs. Jones falls to the ground.

Newly released security-film footage shows this scuffle, which ensued after Jones and Aune were stopped after they kissed on the church-owned plaza. The Salt Lake Tribune obtained the film through an open-records request with Salt Lake City.

It's as violent as I remember them being, Aune said. I'm kind of wondering where the kiss is though.

Salt Lake City prosecutor Sim Gill dropped the trespassing case Wednesday, saying that signs on the downtown plaza did not properly notify visitors that they were entering private property "at will," meaning they could be ejected at any time for any reason.

Supporters of the couple have staged two "kiss-in" demonstrations at the Main Street Plaza, and a similar rally -- part of a nationwide event -- has been scheduled for Aug. 15 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at downtown's Washington Square.

Jones and Aune said this week they are ready to move on and do not plan to file a lawsuit over the matter.

Update: Signs of Discrimination

3rd October 2009.  See article from google.com, thanks to Alan

New signs at a Mormon church-owned plaza in downtown Salt Lake City put visitors on notice: Anyone can be asked to leave for any reason. T

he change follows a much-publicized incident this summer in which two men were cited with trespassing on the plaza after sharing a kiss. City prosecutors did not pursue the charges, saying signs at the plaza failed to adequately warn the couple they were entering private property.

Church spokesman Scott Trotter says the new signs include extra text at the suggestion of the Salt Lake City prosecutor's office. They now say the church reserves the right to refuse access to anyone. City prosecutor Sim Gill says the new signs provide clarity. He says with the new signs in place, visitors who refuse to leave could be prosecuted for trespassing.

From the beginning, the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign said it knew it was going to win the fight against the Bloomington Public Transportation Corporation.

After two months, the campaign was given the OK to run the ad You Can Be Good Without God.

We're all elated we won, of course, said Charlie Sitzes, spokesman for the bus campaign: We knew we were going to win the lawsuit.

The decision comes just a week before the lawsuit was supposed to hit federal court in Indianapolis, Sitzes said. On May 9, the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign filed a federal lawsuit against the Bloomington Public Transportation Corporation because it rejected the campaign's advertisement proposal. The ad was rejected by Bloomington Public Transportation Corp. because, as its policy reads, Statements of position in support of or in opposition to controversial public issues shall not be accepted.

Egypt's Islamic Legislation Authority has issued a fatwa against the country's prominent writer Sayed Kemny, triggering angry reactions from Islamic scholars, activists and rights groups.

In the fatwa against him, Kemny was called an infidel and a criminal because he doubts Islam.

Gamal Al Banna, a leading progressive Islamic thinker, said such fatwas give a bad impression of Islam and did not encourage a debate over the role of religion in daily life: We need to understand better how words are taken because this sort of thing is wrong and must be ended. What should happen is a discussion about the work, not the man. Simply condemning the writer for his words will not create a society that thinks deeply about their faith.

Kemny is known for his secular writings and his calls for an end to the use of Sharia.

The fatwa, issued last week, was in response to a letter sent to the Islamic Legislation Authority inquiring about the religious consequences for someone who denounces Islam in his books, and comes one month after the author was handed Egypt's 2009 State Incentive Prize in Sociology.

The authority argued that Kemny's writings violated Egyptian law, and that the writer should never have been awarded the prize.

The author and publisher of an Indian textbook, that carries a picture of Mohammad, were arrested in Uttar Pradesh for hurting the religious sentiments of people, police said.

Karan Singh, author of Udayimaan Bhartiya Samaj ke Shikshak (Teachers in Emerging Indian Society), and R.P. Singh, owner of Lakhimpur-based Govind Prakashan, were arrested in Lakhimpur, near state capital Lucknow.

Karan Singh is a retired professor of the Ram Manohar Lohia Awadh University.

According to officials, a case under the Section 295 A (acts intended to outrage religious feelings by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has already been registered against the author and the publisher.

Following an uproar among Islamic scholars and the clergy over a picture of Prophet Mohammad in an officially prescribed textbook of Ram Manohar Lohia Awadh University, officials seized about 700 copies of the text books. The textbook is prescribed for the B.Ed course run by the university.

Meanwhile, Muslim clerics have demanded constitution of a screening committee to check publication of such books in future.

Religious nutters have called for a boycott of the popular Cheltenham Greenbelt Festival because of its alleged pro-gay agenda.

The Anglican Mainstream church has blasted the festival - which is attended by up to 20,000 people every year - because it described itself as gay-friendly.

This is an environment where it is accepted that practising homosexuality is a valid, completely acceptable expression of the Christian point of view, complained Canon Dr Chris Sugden, speaking on behalf of the traditional assembly to thisisgloucester.co.uk.

I think leaders of youth clubs and families should think very seriously about whether they want their young people to be in this environment, he continued.

The event, which is supported and sponsored by the Church Mission Society, will be held at Cheltenham racecourse next month. High profile musical acts such as Royksopp and Athlete are also offering their support; both are due to perform at the festival.

Several gay and lesbian Christian groups have spoken out against the claims, including Rev Sharon Fergusson of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, who believes the Anglican Mainstream is making a big deal out of nothing.

The festival runs from August 28-31. More details can be found at greenbelt.org.uk

A group of Sudanese women has been flogged as a punishment for dressing "indecently", according to a local journalist who was arrested with them.

Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, who says she is facing 40 lashes, said she and 12 other women wearing trousers were arrested in a restaurant in the capital, Khartoum.

She told the BBC several of the women had pleaded guilty to the charges and had 10 lashes immediately. Khartoum, unlike South Sudan, is governed by Sharia law.

Several of those punished were from the mainly Christian and animist south, Ms Hussein said. Non-Muslims are not supposed to be subject to Islamic law, even in Khartoum and other parts of the mainly Muslim north.

She said that a group of about 20 or 30 police officers entered the popular Khartoum restaurant and arrested all the women wearing trousers.

I was wearing trousers and a blouse and the 10 girls who were lashed were wearing like me, there was no difference, she told the BBC's Arabic service. Ms Hussein said some women pleaded guilty to get it over with but others, including herself, chose to speak to their lawyers and are awaiting their fates.

Under Sharia law in Khartoum, the 'normal' punishment for "indecent" dressing is 40 lashes.

Update: Sudan Flayed by France

18th July 2009. See article from news.bbc.co.uk

France has condemned the flogging of several women in Sudan, who were being punished for wearing trousers.

The foreign ministry called on Khartoum to abandon the prosecution of several others charged with the same offence.

Update: Sudanese authorities don't like the publicity from flogging ladies wearing trousers

30th July 2009. Based on article from freemedia.at

The public order police in Sudan have filed a complaint against female journalist Amal Habbani, editor of the Tiny Issues column in Ajrass Al Horreya newspaper over a 12 July story entitled Lubna…A Case of Subduing a Woman's Body, in which she defended Lubna al-Hussein, one of 13 women reportedly arrested – and in some cases flogged - earlier this month for wearing trousers in a Khartoum restaurant.

According to a press release issued by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), Amal is being charged under Article 159 of the 1991 Criminal Code, which deals with defamation. If convicted, she could face a fine of 10 million Sudanese pounds or almost $3 million Euros.

The International Press Institute (IPI) calls on the Sudanese authorities to immediately drop all charges against Amal Habbani, said IPI Director David Dadge: Such unjust cases weaken the credibility of the Sudanese judiciary and undermine the rule of law in the country. The Sudanese government must accept that the media has a legitimate right to criticise cases where there are concerns about the fair administration of justice.

A Republican state senator from Tennessee–who is married and the father of two– has admitted to police that he had sex with a 22 year old female intern.

State Senator Paul Stanley only recently sponsored legislation designed to prohibit gay couples in his home state from ever adopting children. He has also opposed family planning services, explaining that his faith and church require him to promote abstinence. And Stanley has run as a pro-family candidate in his campaigns for the Tennessee State Senate.

On Thursday, Stanley resigned his chairmanship of the Tennessee State Senate's Commerce committee.

Stanley himself admitted to police that he had had a sexual relationship with the intern and had taken nude pictures of her in provocative poses, according to a sworn affidavit police made public yesterday. The couple also filmed a video of themselves having sex together.

Stanley went to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation alleging that boyfriend of the intern was attempting to blackmail him. The boyfriend has been charged with attempting to extort the state legislator of $10,000, after Stanley worked undercover with police to nab the boyfriend. A grand jury also continues to investigate the matter.

In less than one month, just in the Upper Egyptian province of Beni Suef, Copts in three hamlets and villages, came under attack by Muslim mobs, masterminded and incited by the State Security, according to various eye-witnesses and Coptic Church sources. Muslim vigilante mobs took the law into their own hands, under the pretext that Christians are praying without a licence and went on a vandalizing of Christian places of worship spree, in addition to assaulting Christians and looting their homes.

Events of the latest incident took place on 7/17/09, after Friday prayers in the mosque of village of El-Foqaii, Beba, Beni Suef. A mob of 3000-4000 Muslims, marched the village streets chanting We will bring the Church down, We will bring Shenouda to the ground(meaning Coptic Pope Shenouda III).

Before hearing or knowing anything, a few children started hurling stones at Coptic homes, then we heard someone say 'wait until you see the adults coming'. We knew there was a conspiracy against the Coptic Association and our homes, Sobhy Fawzy, village school teacher and eye-witness told Raymond Youssef of Copts United advocacy in a video interview. We decided to go home and lock ourselves in. We preffered to die as martyrs in our homes .. What else could we do?? Where could we go? We just prayed imploring God's help. It was only God's grace that saved our lives from this barbaric attack.

Fawzy said: They surrounded the small one -storey building liscenced as a Coptic association. A few could climb over the iron gates of the Association and caused damage inside, while others went on a rampage against homes of Christians living nearby.

They broke the wooden doors and crashed into the homes and looted whatever they found. They took away the golden jewelry the women were wearing and looted cash savings,leaving women and children heavily traumatized.

Mahgoub Youssef, one of the vigilante mob was interviewed on TV and he said bluntly that Egypt was a Muslim country with a Muslim President and that Copts cannot pray without a permit from security! He said that the Muslims men after Friday prayers went to the 'association' to stop Christians from praying there. It does not matter if they have no church nearby, Muslims in the West also have to travel 3-10 hours to pray!

Reports began trickling out of Bangladesh this spring about an anti-Hindu violence in the heart of its capital carried out in three stages: March 30, April 17, and April 29. A community of approximately 400 Hindus was reportedly going about its business when hundreds of Muslims suddenly descended on them and demanded they quit the homes where they and their families had lived for the past 150 years. Witnesses also report that police watched passively while attackers beat residents and destroyed a Hindu temple.

And although every Hindu, as well as the international community, should have reacted with horror and outrage, neither did.

The Bangladeshi Government denied that any such thing happened, and local police captain Tofazzal Hossain declared, No demolition of temple occurred. There was no temple there, only a few idols. Yet, sources for the charge — Global Human Rights Defence at The Hague and the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, Christian Unity Council, as well as several local human rights groups and newspapers — are highly credible, prompting our two-month investigation that confirms something terrible did occur, even if not exactly as described by initial reports.

For while not all 400 Hindus were made homeless, a significant number were, which is tragic enough, especially since many remain so months later. Nor has the Bangladeshi Government even bothered to deny that Hindus were beaten, some religious desecration occurred, or that police were present during the attacks. We also confirmed that the area attacked was located directly behind the Sutrapur Police Station in Dhaka and the Shiv Mandir only about 18 m from it; yet, the police did nothing to stop its destruction.

This is not about one terrible event, but about a system of legalised ethnic cleansing that has proceeded non-stop for decades and which places every one of Bangladesh's 13,000,000-15,000,000 Hindus at risk. For despite Government protestations to the contrary, normal legal protections are suspended for Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh who are often subject to arbitrary actions by the Muslim majority.

The Palestinian Islamist Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip have enacted a new law obliging all women to cover their hair with the Muslim hijab.

Sunday, July 26, modesty patrols were out on the streets and beaches of the Gaza Strip enforcing the new edict. They also inspected cars to ascertain that unmarried couples were not alone together. Female attorneys were earlier ordered to wear dresses in court.

Any comments?

The Pope has condemned a disgusting taxpayer-funded exhibition in which visitors are invited to write their stories back into the Bible

Visitors were offered pens by gallery bosses so they could write comments on the text - leading to a host of puerile and 'obscene' remarks.

Pope Benedict's anger over the show, organised by council-funded arts body Culture and Sport Glasgow, was expressed by a senior Vatican priest.

The adviser to the Pope said: It is disgusting and offensive. They would not think of doing it to the Koran.

Public complaints about the exhibit at the prestigious Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow have forced organisers to put the vandalised Bible on show in a locked case, while still allowing visitors to write comments on blank sheets of paper. The staff moderate the comments and insert acceptable pages into the bible.

The Made In God's Image exhibit is the work of Glasgow artist Anthony Schrag.
He wanted gays and transsexuals who felt left out of religion to write their way back in to the holy text.

Schrag worked with members of the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) in Edinburgh on the project. But MCC minister Jane Clarke who devised the exhibit said: I had hoped people would show respect for the Bible. I am saddened some have chosen to write offensive messages.

Writing our names in the margins of a Bible was to show how we have been marginalised by many Christian churches, and also our desire to be included in God's love.

As a young Christian I was encouraged by my church to write my own insights in the margins of the Bible I used for my daily devotions - this was an extension of that idea. I still have that Bible, although it's rather tatty now.

She added: It was never my intention to offend anyone - believers and non-believers alike. I had hoped that people would show respect for the Bible, for Christianity and indeed for the Gallery of Modern Art. I am saddened that some people have chosen to write offensive messages.

After fighting for the removal of the book Baby Be-Bop from a Wisconsin, library, the Christian Civil Liberties Union and three other plaintiffs have sued over the book, seeking the right to publicly burn or destroy by another means the book and asking for $120,000 in damages because they were exposed to it in a library display.

Describing the novel by celebrated author Francesca Lia Block as explicitly vulgar, racial, and anti-Christian, the complaint by Braun, Joseph Kogelmann, Rev. Cleveland Eden, and Robert Brough explains that the plaintiffs, all of whom are elderly, claim their mental and emotional well-being was damaged by this book at the library, specifically because Baby Be-Bop contains the word 'nigger' and derogatory sexual and political epithets that can incite violence.

Kids' Right to Read Project interviewed Francesca Lia Block, the author of Baby Be-Bop:

Kids' Right to Read Project: Your books, including specifically Baby Be Bop, Girl Goddess #9: Nine Stories, I was a Teenage Fairy, and Witch Baby, have all received widespread acclaim and are well-regarded by book-lovers everywhere. How does it feel for those same books to have appeared at the center of censorship controversies?

Francesca Lia Block: I'm a bit surprised in one way, because the message of all of them is love, tolerance and self-expression. On the other hand, I am not surprised because the message of all of them is love, tolerance and self-expression.

...Read full interview from ncac.org

A Saskatchewan marriage commissioner who refused to marry a same-sex couple has lost his appeal of a human rights ruling.

Orville Nichols was approached by a gay man who wanted to get married in 2005 . At first, Nichols congratulated the man, identified in court documents only as "M.J."

When M.J. told Nichols his partner was another man, Nichols told M.J. he wouldn't do the ceremony because gay marriage is against his religious beliefs.

M.J. filed a human rights complaint, which was heard in 2007.

A tribunal set up by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ruled that Nichols did not have the right to refuse service based on his personal beliefs, and ordered him to pay M.J. $2,500 in compensation.

Nichols appealed that ruling, arguing that his religious beliefs should be protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

But in a 39-page decision dated July 17, Court of Queen's Bench Justice Janet McMurty dismissed Nichols' argument, concluding that the human rights tribunal was correct in its finding that the commission had established discrimination and that accommodation of Mr. Nichols' religious beliefs was not required.

A report detailing the alleged sexual abuse of 450 children by Roman Catholic priests in the Archdiocese of Dublin has been handed to the Irish Government.

It is the second report this year to examine the extent of abuse perpetrated by members of the Catholic Church in Ireland and will undermine further its position in a country that only a few decades ago conformed rigidly to standards set by the Vatican.

The Report of the Dublin Archdiocese Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was delivered to Dermot Ahern, the Justice Minister, who must decide if and when to make its findings public.

The commission was established in 2006 and has investigated how allegations of child sex abuse made against a representative sample of 46 priests were handled by 19 bishops in Dublin from January 1975 to April 2004.

The report is likely to produce evidence of how bishops sought to cover up the activities of paedophile priests by moving them from diocese to diocese, thereby facilitating the abuse of children over a wider area.

The commission investigated nineteen bishops, seven of whom are dead. Its report is expected to name fifteen priests, eleven of whom have been convicted.

Update: Publication Delayed

1st August 2009. See article from nytimes.com

Injustice Minister Dermot Ahern announced Friday that he wants to publish the report but not if this would allow priests responsible for 'horrific acts of depravity' to escape justice.

Attorney General Paul Gallagher has concluded that the report, if published now in full: 'might prejudice some current criminal proceedings.

North Korea has publicly executed a Christian woman accused of distributing Bible and 'spying' for foreign countries, South Korean activists said Friday.

Ri Hyon-ok, 33, was accused of spying for South Korea and the United States, organizing dissidents, the Associated Press reported. She was executed in the northwestern city of Ryongchon bordering China on 16 June.

The Investigative Commission on Crime Against Humanity report included a copy of Ri's government-issued photo ID and said her husband, children and parents were sent to a political prison the day after her June 16 execution.

Officially North Korea guarantees freedom of religion. The government has authorized four state churches: one Catholic, two Protestant and one Russian Orthodox. However, they cater to foreigners only, and ordinary North Koreans cannot attend the services. And practically no Korean dare to practice their faith.

The execution would mark a harsh turn in the crackdown on religion in North Korea.h. North Korea is ranked number one for seven years in a row in the annual Open Doors Watch List 2009 as the country that has the worst persecution of Christians. If the regime discovers a person is a Christian, the believer can be thrown into a labor camp, tortured, or even publicly executed to dissuade others from following the faith.

It is believed that tens of thousands of Christians are currently suffering in North Korean prison camps, according to Open Doors. The regime is suspected of detaining more political and religious prisoners than any other country in the world.

Christian Concern for our Nation are probably wishing they lived in Ireland right now. In their latest mailshot they urge readers to complain to the BBC about 'blasphemy' on Radio 4's Now Show:

The BBC Radio 4's Now Show has allowed a blasphemous satirical tirade against the Lord Jesus and the Word of God. We urge you to complain to the BBC at the offence caused to Christians and the corrupting effect of this kind of behaviour on a vulnerable audience.

They also helpfully provide a pdf transcript of Marcus Brigstock's tirade, in which he opines uncontroversially that the Bible contains:

acts of wanton genocide, infanticide, fratricide, straight murder, rape, pedophilia, enslavement, brutality and frankly, a level of sexism that would make John McCririck go woo steady, now give the little ladies a break

Bauchi, a city in Nigeria was awash with bloodbath  as scores of religious fundamentalists were killed after a failed attack on a police station.

Official estimates put the death toll at 32, but the figure is not less than 150, according to correspondents who said they counted the bodies.

A group called “Boko Haram” (“education is sin”), which has been campaigning for the imposition of Sharia'h on the 36 states of the Nigerian federation, was said to have sparked off the crisis when its members launched an attack on the station.

Reuters news agency quoted a member of the group, who was wounded during the initial attack on the station, as saying the group wanted to clean the (Nigerian) system which is polluted by western education and uphold Sharia'h all over the country.

The police has (have) been arresting our leaders; that is why we decided to retaliate, said the man, who gave his name only as Abdullah, according to the news agency.

Meanwhile, the state Governor, Mallam Isa Yuguda, has described the fundamentalists as militants, urging Nigerians to see it as a national issue. Their plan is to attack everybody, he said, while announcing a curfew from 9pm to 6am: Governors should brace up and clean their states of this rubbish.

Boko Haram were said to be reacting to the refusal of the Bauchi State government to allow a free atmosphere to publicly practise their religion as well as win more souls to the sect.

The sect members, in their hundreds, trooped to the Dutsen Tanshi Police Station in the early hours of the day and attacked it, chasing away the few policemen on duty and forcing themselves into the station before destroying anything they could lay their hands on.

After a distress call by the policemen to the Command headquarters, a reinforcement of armed policemen, including men from the mobile unit, was drafted to the area to ward off the fundamentalists during which some of them were killed and several others injured.

Update: 150 Die as Violence Spreads

30th July 2009. See article from thisdayonline.com

The bloody clash between the police and members of an Islamic fundamentalist group known as Boko Haram (“education is sin”), which left many dead in the early hours of Sunday in Bauchi, has spread to other states in the North.

President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, who was in Ilorin, Kwara State, yesterday to inaugurate the multi-billion naira Ganmo power sub-station completed by the Governor Bukola Saraki administration, has directed all the national security outfits to combine forces to immediately contain further spread of the religious crisis.

Over 150 people have been left dead, while indigenes of the area are said to be fleeing their homes. By yesterday, the attack by the group had spread to Borno, Yobe, Gombe and Kano States.

Update: 300 Die as Sect Leader is Shot

1st August 2009. Based on article from theglobeandmail.com

Nigerian authorities have collected hundreds of bodies from the streets of the northern city of Maiduguri following days of clashes with members of a radical Islamic sect.

State government and Health Ministry officials piled the corpses, some of them swollen after lying in the streets for days, onto open trucks as police and soldiers patrolled.

As of yesterday, we had more than 200 dead bodies, Aliyu Maikano, northeastern zone disaster management officer for the Nigerian Red Cross, said Friday, adding that bodies were still being collected.

The toll in Maiduguri brings to at least 300 the total number of people killed in violence in several northern Nigerian states since Sunday.

The authorities are hoping the killing of sect leader Mohammed Yusuf, whose Boko Haram movement wants a wider adoption of Islamic sharia law across Africa's most populous nation, will bring an end to the uprising by his followers.

MYusuf was shot dead while in police detention late on Thursday. Officials have said he died in a shootout while trying to escape, but rights groups have condemned what appeared to have been an execution-style killing.

As part of their Sewa Week (a week for which the National Hindu Students Forum holds various service based activities, the QMW Hindu Society organized to use the Queen Mary University of London's Multi-Faith Centre every day from 6pm-8.30pm for one week, to recite the Hanuman Chalisa.

The Multi-Faith Centre is also booked by Islamic Students Society from 12pm to 6pm for the entire year. After 6pm the Islamic Students Society had another room allocated to them which they could use until late.

From the outset of the week, the Hindu students were prevented from being able to access the Multi-Faith Centre by the Islamic students who refused to vacate the centre.

To justify not being willing to share the centre with other faith groups they said that there is no demand for the use of the Multi-Faith Centre by other faith communities and they cannot therefore allow Hindus to use the premises even though they have a valid booking for its use.

The Hindu society committee sent letters to the Principal, Chancellor and the Students' Union (SU) of the university. The Students' Union sent letters to the Islamic students asking them to respect bookings made my other students.

On Thursday, after three days of being prevented from entering the Multi-Faith Centre, security guards accompanied the Hindu students to ensure that the rooms were vacated as scheduled. Far from gaining entry to the Centre, they were verbally threatened by a group of Muslim students who far outnumbered them.

Rather than tackle this unacceptable behaviour resolutely, the security guards and Students Union suggested that the Hindu students should use an alternative room to conduct their prayers and forget about the booking. The Hindu students society rightfully rejected this offer as a wholly unsatisfactory solution to a serious breach of their rights.

The QMW Hindu Society together with the NHSF contacted and got the support of various other students at QMW and other Hindu groups, who turned out together in larger numbers on Friday.

On Friday, once again, the QMW Islamic Students Society refused to vacate the Multi-Faith Centre at 6pm, and placed a group near the door to prevent anyone from entering. The QMW Hindu Society and other supporters, including non-Hindu students, decided to start their program outside the doors of the centre and sang the Hanuman Chalisa loud and proud. Gradually the Islamic Society members emptied out of the Centre over a long period, and the Hindu Students Society moved into the Centre for the first time in the week.

A scene from an animated film shown to visitors at the new Acropolis Museum that depicts Christian priests destroying parts of the Parthenon has been deleted following protests by the Greek Orthodox Church.

The creator of the segment, Greek-born French filmmaker Constantin Costa-Gavras, has demanded that his name be taken off the film credits in protest.

The priests used to destroy ancient temples. Now they want to remove scenes from a film, Costa-Gavras told Greece's Mega TV channel: This is the kind (of censorship) that used to happen in the former Soviet Union.

Costa-Gavras' 1-minute, 40-second segment depicting the damage done to Parthenon over the centuries — from marauding Germanic warriors in 267 A.D. to the removal of a large part of the frieze by British diplomat Lord Elgin in early 19th century.

The animated segment showed figures clad in black climbing up ladders and destroying part of the Parthenon frieze; the scene referred to well-documented episodes of destruction that took place in the early Byzantine period (5th-8th centuries A.D.), when Christians often demolished monuments and temples belonging to the old pagan era.

Church officials contended the film misrepresented the attitude of the Greek Orthodox Church toward Greece's ancient heritage.

Greek media reported the segment was excised after the intervention of Culture Minister Antonis Samaras.

A religious court in Malaysia has sentenced a Singaporean Muslim model to a fine and corporal punishment for drinking a glass of beer in a nightclub.

The penalty, six lashes plus MYR5,000 fine was regarded as "fair" by the Judge who said that the cane is provided for in the law and therefore it is open to the Court to included it in the sentence. He added: The rotan is aimed at making the accused repent and serves as a lesson to Muslims.

The offence was committed by 32 year old Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno. If she does not pay the fine, she will face three months in jail.

Update: Debating Barbaric Punishments

25th July 2009. Based on article from cnews.canoe.ca, thanks to Alan

 A Malaysian woman sentenced to flogging for drinking beer has accepted the Islamic court's order, saying she wants the punishment to be carried out soon, news reports said

I will accept this earthly punishment, the national news agency Bernama quoted her as saying. I want to advise youngsters to learn from my experience, not to repeat my mistake and cause shame to yourself and family.

Based on article from straitstimes.com

Datuk Abdullah Mohd Zain, religious adviser to the Premier, has brushed aside criticisms that an Islamic court ruling to cane a woman for drinking beer is harsh, saying she had broken the law.

Abdullah told The Straits Times that Muslim women leaders who criticised the court's decision did not know that syariah caning is not as brutal as the civil court's corporal punishment. Criticisms are normal, but it is not fair for non-Muslims to criticise the syariah law. The Muslims criticise it because they do not know how the caning is done.

Under an Act on Islam in Malaysia that was passed in 1984, the female offender must sit when being caned. The officer will use a smooth branch or rotan that is slightly thinner than those used to whip men in a civil court punishment. The officer must not raise his hand higher than his shoulder to ensure that the caning is moderate.

But women leaders including Islamic law experts, social activists and politicians condemned the punishment, the first time that a woman would face judicial caning. Women's Aid Organisation executive director Ivy Josiah said: We are mortified that a court would even consider imposing caning on a woman, especially when women are exempted from caning under the penal code.

Kartika, a Singapore permanent resident, was caught by the Islamic authorities for drinking beer while on a holiday with friends in Cherating, Pahang, two years ago. She pleaded guilty last year. She was also fined RM5,000 (S$2,000).

Her father clarified that Kartika was a hospital worker in Singapore, and not a model as reported by the media.

Comment: Nastier and nastier

26th July 2009, thanks to Alan

Nosing around a bit, beginning with a Google search for the poor woman's name, makes this nasty business look curiouser and curiouser, and nastier and nastier.

For instance, her husband was drinking with her. He has identified himself as a Muslim. He isn't getting flogged, and wasn't even charged. He is (1) a bloke, (2) a Singaporean citizen, while his wife is a Malaysian citizen albeit normally resident in Singapore. Some discussion indicates that "Muslim" effectively means ethnic Malay. It probably wouldn't have helped the poor woman if she had said, Not guilty. I'm not a Muslim any more. I think Mohammed was a fraud and the Koran is full of unbelievable shite. In fact, she might have been in even worse doo-doo for "apostasy".

The government spokeswanker, Datuk Nutter Abdullah Mohd Zain, reaches egregious levels of stupidity when he whines that it's not fair for non-Muslims to criticize shariah injustice. I don't need a freaking doctorate in a comparative theology or jurisprudence to recognise a vile, barbarous system when I see it.

I see that there's some debate about whether the woman is or isn't a model. If the judge wants to enjoy a quiet J Arthur over a model being caned, why doesn't he just download a suitable product from one of the many excellent spanking web sites, or even engage the CONSENSUAL services of a lady like Max Mosley's friends.

Incidentally also on the New Straits Times site are two cases of men engaged in sexual activity with under-age girls, neither of whom is getting flogged or even a custodial sentence. South East Asian "justice" needs very big scare quotes.

'They're taking control. Anat Mishal, a shopkeeper, was shaking with anger as she described her feelings about the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community that has been gobbling up more and more of this central Israeli town.

It started with women handing out slips of paper to people like me, telling me I couldn't wear blouses like this, she said motioning to her sleeveless top, ideal for days like these: 35 degrees outside, and not much cooler inside Ms. Mishal's small grocery.

Then, one Friday night, a few weeks ago, I left my two kids alone - teenagers. They were playing music, not too loud, and this Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] neighbour comes and pounds on the door shouting 'goyim' and demanding they turn off the music, he said, referring to a Hebrew term for non-Jews. It really scared them.

Ms. Mishal is far from alone in feeling this anger, as the Haredi population is exploding and spreading into parts of Israel long considered secular. With this growth has come an upsurge in violence as these fundamentalist Jews confront secular Jews and their more traditional municipal governments.

It's clear that Israel's Haredim are determined to change the way this country is run.

Two men appeared in a UK court charged with attempted murder after a man was stabbed, beaten with bricks and had sulphuric acid forced down his throat during an apparent honour attack.

The 24-year-old victim, believed to be a Danish man of Asian origin, is in a critical but stable condition in Broomfield hospital, Chelmsford, Essex. He is thought to have been blinded, to have suffered up to 50% burns and to have had his tongue destroyed in the attack, which took place in Leytonstone, east London, on 2 July.

Police have refused to comment on reports that officers have warned a married Muslim woman – who was allegedly having a relationship with the victim – that her life was now at risk.

The two suspects, who are aged 19 and 25 and come from east London but cannot be named for legal reasons, were remanded in custody after appearing at Waltham Forest magistrates court. They will appear at the Old Bailey on 30 September. Seven men were originally arrested, although five were released on bail. One of them, a 16-year-old, was later rearrested.

A Saudi man has been arrested following an in-depth confession of his sexual exploits on a Lebanese talk show. He was arrested for publicising vice, police said

Abdul Jawad, an employee of Saudi Airlines, recounted to the Red Line TV show's audience explicit details about his sex life, which ultimately landed him in jail for violations of Saudi Arabian law.

While being interviewed on the talk show, Jawad described how he slept with a neighbor at the age of fourteen, and his use of the Bluetooth functionality of his cellphone to pick up women in Saudi Arabia, as they are forbidden to interact with men in public.

Jawad also shared with the audience a recipe for an aphrodisiac.

Red Line is a talk show on Lebanon's satellite TV channel LBC that addresses a variety of social and political issues. The show airs in other Arab countries, and is popular in Saudi Arabia.

English-language daily Arab News reported that about 100 people filed complaints to Saudi officials after Jawad's segment on Red Line was aired.

Under Saudi Arabia's strict Wahhabi interpretation of Sharia law, it is forbidden to speak publicly about what the authorities determine to be vice. Pre-marital sex is also prohibited under shariah law, but Jawad could only be convicted of engaging in pre-marital sex if he were to attest to it in a Saudi court.

According to Arab News, Jawad plans to file a lawsuit against the producers of Red Line, claiming his remarks were taken out of context.

The program presents anomalies and deviancy in society that are unacceptable and immoral and should be punished according to sharia, Ahmad Qasim Al-Ghamdi, Mecca head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the religious police, said.

The performances of Amos Kenan's play Friends Talk about Jesus, scheduled at the Arab-Hebrew Theater of Jaffa, Israel, have been cancelled due to opposition from Jaffa locals.

The play was rejected by the state censorship board in 1972, when it was written, but was staged in February by the Tel Aviv University Department of Theater Arts, under the direction of Ro'i Hertz Russo.

Some Christian Arabs living in Jaffa claim the play portrays Jesus in a negative light, as well as depicting Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a prostitute.

Kenan's satirical play deals with the nature of being Israeli and with the occupation. In it, Jesus dies, returns to life and dies again, and is shown in various ways: as a child whose home is destroyed by the army, as a young man who is concerned about the security situation and as a reserve duty soldier who is sent to war. After the play was banned by the censor it was also banned by the High Court of Justice.

Igal Ezrati, one of the Arab-Hebrew Theater's two artistic directors, related that when the news of the play's production became public, it set off protests, and he was asked not to stage it.

I got phone calls saying, 'You should be ashamed of yourselves,' because the play hurts the feelings of Christians in Jaffa and throughout the world, the theater's head, Mohammed Desouki, related: I talked to Igal Ezrati and together with the theater management we decided to cancel the show so as not to hurt anyone's feelings.

Almost 150 women living in the Maldives face a public flogging for indulging in extra-marital sex after being convicted by the Muslim country's conservative courts. Around 50 men also face the punishment.

Amnesty International's Maldives specialist, Abbas Faiz, called flogging a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment which is banned by international human rights law. The practice is humiliating and leads to psychological as well as physical scars for those subjected to it for years. [It is] a form of torture. The most recent official statistics available to the group date from 2006 and show that a total of 184 people were sentenced to flogging for extra-marital sex under a penal code that includes elements of Sharia law. Of those 146 were women, with the majority of the punishments still to be carried out.

In the Maldives the issue of flogging has become a political battleground following the whipping of the teenager earlier this month outside a government building in the capital, Male. Reports said that the women required hospital treatment after she was flogged in front of a jeering crowd of men.

Since the case was publicised there have been a number of demonstrations in support of flogging, some calling for the deportation of a British journalist, Maryam Omidi, who published reports of the incident in the local Minivan News.

Reports suggest that in recent years, many mosques in the Maldives have fallen under the influence of foreign, conservative imams. The previous president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who had been Asia's longest-serving ruler and who positioned himself as the country's defender of Islam, had sought to use the religion to bolster his dwindling. The government in turn said that more conservative forms of the religion had been able to spread as restrictions on freedom of expression were lifted.

Last night, presidential spokesman Mohamed Zuhair told The Independent the government was committed to fulfilling its obligations to international treaties that prohibit torture. He added: The president is holding meetings with all concerned parties to try and deal with this.

A juror in the trial of an Oregon couple acquitted of manslaughter in their daughter's pneumonia death says she felt the pair were loving people who didn't mean to harm the 15-month-old girl.

But the jury did convict Carl Worthington of criminal mistreatment, a misdemeanor, for not taking his daughter, Ava, to see a doctor. He faces a maximum of a year in jail when he is sentenced on July 31.

Raylene Worthington was acquitted of the same misdemeanor charge after six days of jury deliberations that resulted in a deadlock at one point.

Juror Santos said she and others felt Carl Worthington was more accountable for the decisions about the child's care. The Worthingtons are members of a small church that favors faith healing over doctors. During the trial, the defense made a point of noting that in families of the Worthingtons' church, the Followers of Christ, husbands make all important decisions.

The Founder of Britain's oldest Sharia court has said that harsh Islamic punishments, such as the amputation of limbs, will make Britain a safer place.

The Daily Times quoted Sheikh Suhaib Hasan, secretary of the Islamic Sharia Council, as saying that the enforcement of Sharia law was something to bring you more peace and security.

Hasan, president of an East London Sharia court, admitted that that he doesn't expect Britain to implement Islamic criminal laws as it is not a Muslim country.

Acknowledging the controversy surrounding any notion of support for hardline Islamic law in Britain, he said he was merely expressing his point of view as a devout Muslim.

Irish President Mary McAleese has signed the Defamation Bill 2006 and the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009 into law.

McAleese presided over a three hour meeting of the Council of State which discussed the constitutionality of both measures last night.

The Defamation Bill has been at the centre of controversy as it includes a definition of the crime of blasphemy.

However McAleese has decided against referring either bill to the Supreme Court to test their constitutionality and has now signed them to enable them become law.

Our daughter / sister, Roxanne Hillier has been in prison in the UAE since 16th May. She and her boss were found guilty and convicted to 3 months and 6 months, respectively for having sex out of wedlock, this is despite the fact that the medical tests were negative. They were also found guilty of being alone in a room, despite the fact that the police broke into the locked bedroom and found Roxanne alone there. Her boss was caught elsewhere with tools in his hands.

Roxanne lost her appeal and was sent back to prison to complete her full sentence, while her boss was acquitted on the charge of having sex with her and was released immediately.

How can she be guilty of having sex with him, yet he is innocent and did not have sex with her?

We ask that you please log into her petition site Free Roxanne Hillier from prison in the UAE Please sign the petition and send it on to everyone in your address book. Also please put the word out to everyone you can. We desperately need all the signatures that we can get to make a difference.

We also ask that you please log into Roxanne's support wall, where you can leave her a note of support. These messages are printed and given to Roxanne and help to keep her spirits up and keep her sane. The Facebook Support wall is called Friend support for Roxanne Hillier

We (her family) thank you for reading this and would also like to thank all those that have already done so, from the bottoms of our hearts. Roxanne is innocent and has been unfairly imprisoned.

Kind regards,

Freddie, Ina and Maxine Hillier.

Update: Roxanne Freed

24th July 2009.

Our prayers were answered this morning and Roxanne was suddenly released (we believe) by an order from His Highness, Sheik Sultan Bin Mohammed Al-Quasimi, Ruler of Sharjah.

We, the Hillier family would like to thank you all for your support in signing this petition. Words cannot express our gratitude to each and every one of you.

This petition is now officially closed. Please visit Facebook Friend support for Roxanne Hillier where we will keep an update for the time being.

Actor Stephen Fry has launched a scathing attack on Irish politicians over their decision to criminalise blasphemy.

The star stunned fans on his Twitter networking page when he left a post blasting the State and comparing it to the UK.

Bollocks to Ireland for being as crap as Britain, it read.

Fry was quick to clarify the message in a later post, stating he was referring to politicians and not the nation as a whole: When I say 'Ireland' I mean the politicians who are trying to vote this in [the blasphemy bill] not the country itself obviously.

Fry is just one in a long line of high-profile media personalities to have criticised Justice Minister Dermot Ahern for his proposal to add a new crime in an amendment to the Defamation Bill.

Ahern wants to define blasphemy as matter: That is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion [and] intended to cause outrage.

A religious court in Malaysia has sentenced a Singaporean Muslim model to a fine and corporal punishment for drinking a glass of beer in a nightclub.

The penalty, six lashes plus MYR5,000 fine was regarded as "fair" by the Judge who said that the cane is provided for in the law and therefore it is open to the Court to included it in the sentence. He added: The rotan is aimed at making the accused repent and serves as a lesson to Muslims.

The offence was committed by 32 year old Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno. If she does not pay the fine, she will face three months in jail.

Iran Solidarity is calling for people across the world to stand with the people of Iran on July 25 and every day.

Since its establishment last week, over 1,000 individuals and organisations
have joined Iran Solidarity, including Nazanin Afshin-Jam, Mina Ahadi,
Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Taslima Nasrin. Its successful launch at
the House of Lords on July 13 was hosted by Dick Taverne and chaired by
Fariborz Pooya, head of the Iranian Secular Society. Speakers included the
philosopher AC Grayling, campaign organiser Maryam Namazie, and human rights
campaigner Peter Tatchell. You can see footage of the launch here:

Iran Solidarity is calling on people everywhere to step up their support for
the people of Iran by joining July 25 demonstrations at embassies of the
Islamic regime of Iran in cities across the globe. The global day of action
is being sponsored by human rights activists, Amnesty International USA,
Reporters without Borders and others.

A member of Iran's notorious Basij militia who ran afoul of his superiors when he released two teenaged pro-democracy protesters says he was tasked with taking the virginity of young females sentenced to die.

Under Iranian law, a female cannot be executed if she is a virgin. Thus, prison officials forced young women into a brief “marriage” before their sentence was carried out.

In an exclusive interview with the Jerusalem Post, the unnamed male described how, as an 18-year-old Basij recruit, he was tasked with taking the virginity of girls who were sentenced to die:

I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their 'wedding' night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die.

I remember hearing them cry and scream after [the rape] was over. I will never forget how this one girl clawed at her own face and neck with her finger nails afterwards. She had deep scratches all over her.”

As the MV Isle of Lewis nudged its way out of Stornoway harbour silent protestors held placards bearing the fourth commandment, Remember the Sabbath Day, To Keep it Holy and hellfire and brimstone ministers warned of the dangers of a secular society.

The cause of all the controversy on the God-fearing Isle of Lewis was the first Sunday ferry to the Scottish mainland.

Church leaders said the island had experienced a seismic shift in its culture and traditions with the launch of the controversial service. The staunchly Presbyterian island is one of the last areas of the country where the Sabbath is widely regarded as a day of rest.

Church leaders have resisted Sunday sailings for two decades but lost the battle when the ferry carrying 80 vehicles and nearly 400 passengers left Stornoway bound for Ullapool.

The Free Church of Scotland - the Wee Frees - claim the move will destroy a way of life, while supporters say it will drag Lewis and neighbouring Harris - which have had Sunday flights for seven years - into the 21st century.

There was no direct action yesterday, but around 20 silent protestors marked the occasion. They were outnumbered by 200 islanders who gathered to cheer the vessel out of port.

Prof Donald Macleod, principal of the Free Church college in Edinburgh, accused the firm of "bullying" the islanders. He warned: It's going to have a domino effect on church attendance and will change the community from a Christian civilisation to a secular, humanist society.

A Saudi Arabian princess who had an illegitimate child with a British man has secretly been granted asylum in this country after she claimed she would face the death penalty if she were forced to return home. The young woman, who has been granted anonymity by the courts, won her claim for refugee status after telling a judge that her adulterous affair made her liable to death by stoning.

Her case is one of a small number of claims for asylum brought by citizens of Saudi Arabia which are not openly acknowledged by either government. British diplomats believe that to do so would in effect be to highlight the persecution of women in Saudi Arabia, which would be viewed as open criticism of the House of Saud and lead to embarrassing publicity for both governments.

The woman, who comes from a very wealthy Saudi family, says she met her English boyfriend – who is not a Muslim – during a visit to London. They struck up a relationship. She became pregnant the following year and worried that her elderly husband – a member of the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia – had become suspicious of her behaviour, she persuaded him to let her visit the UK again to give birth in secret. She feared for her life if she returned to Saudi Arabia.

She persuaded the court that if she returned to the Gulf state she and her child would be subject to capital punishment under Sharia law – specifically flogging and stoning to death. She was also worried about the possibility of an honour killing.

The woman has been granted permanent leave to remain in the UK after the Immigration and Asylum tribunal allowed her appeal.

Based on article from independent.co.uk

By claiming asylum in Britain, the Saudi princess is seeking to avoid the fate of another member of her royal family who was executed after admitting adultery.

Princess Mishaal bint Fahd al Saud, the 19-year-old great-niece of the late King Khalid, was shot several times in the head in 1977. Her death is thought to have been ordered by her grandfather, Muhammad bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, the King's older brother. She was unmarried but had confessed that she had committed adultery.

The killing became the focus of an international outcry in 1980 when the docu-drama Death Of A Princess was shown on television. Saudi authorities tried to get the film suppressed and, when that failed, they expelled the British ambassador to Riyadh, withdrew 400 members of their royal family from Britain and cancelled millions of pounds worth of exports.

Two incidents of abduction of Coptic girls to force them to convert to Islam took place within one week in Upper Egypt. In both cases the Egyptian security predictably played a key role in the outcome of the cases.
 

Irene Hanna Labib, 20-years old, disappeared on 7/1/2009 from Sahel Tahta, Sohag Governorate.

After carrying out their own investigations, the well to do Labib family discovered that Irene was abducted by Muslim Hisham Saad Mohamed, who works as a waiter in the IT institute where she studies.

Her brother Girgis Labib went and met with the abductor Hisham, who confessed to Irene being in his possession, said Reverend Sawires Rady pastor of St. Shenouda Church, Sahel Tahta in Sohag. The Labib family filed a report with the police and accused Hisham Mohamaed of abducting their daughter. The police detained Hisham and Irene's brother Girgis, who was subsequently released after taking a pledge not to harass Hisham.

Hisham was released three days later after promising security to bring back Irene at 8 pm of the same day, but he has subsequently disappeared. Reverend Sawires said the abductor never kept his promise and I now ask security to bring back the abducted girl as they know her whereabouts.
 

The family of 21-year old pharmacy student Rania Tawfik Asaad from Samalut, Minya Governorate, were successful in getting back their daughter, one week she disappeared on 6/27/2009; she was held by her abductor in the small village Of Taha Bosh, Nasser district, in the Beni Suef Governorate.

Rania was approached by Muslim army officer Mohamed Sayed Farag, 29 years old, who posed as a Copt called Mina who was living in Cairo. After a brief courtship, the army officer proposed to her and asked her to meet his elderly mother. According to Ayman Eid of Free Copts advocacy Rania knew the true identity of her abductor only when she arrived at a secluded house in Beni Suef.

Mohamed was also discovered to be a member of the Islamic Welfare Association, which is affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood. He asked Rania to convert to Islam and marry him, but she refused. After a great ordeal her family discovered her whereabouts and learnt that she was forced to convert to Islam by the Association and married Captain Mohamed two days after her abduction.

Her father reported the incident to security and accused the army officer of abducting his daughter. According to an eyewitness who asked to remain anonymous, the State Security had made a deal with Rania's father to bring her back on condition of dropping all changes against the army officer, as he would be subjected to trial by the armed forces and due to the negative publicity to the reputation of the Defence Ministry, in return for his daughter's safe return.


The Egyptian Al Fagr (the Dawn) independent newspaper was the first to report on the lucrative business of the 'brokers' of Islamization of Christians, in its May 19th 2008 issue, taking the city of Alexandria as an example.

Al Fagr reporter Tamer Salah-el-Din highlighted how the operation which is funded by Muslim businessmen is carried out with the collusion of State Security and Mosque sheikhs. The 'trading rates' cashed by brokers for each Christian male and female conversion to Islam, at the time of writing his report, was 7000 Egyptian pounds for the male and 6000 for the female. The rates for Coptic girls fluctuate depending on how good-looking she is and her family's social status.

Coptic Pope Shenouda III openly protested on December 17th, 1976 about this problem and in spite of the multiplicity of incidents, not one single person accused of abduction of Coptic girls was brought to justice.

The nut cases from the Westboro Baptist Church have moved on from picketing military funerals to American Idol runner up, the very happily gay Adam Lambert.

Members of the church were spotted holding their usual anti-gay signage outside of the HP Pavilion as the Top 10 finalists performed as part of the annual Idols Live Summer Tour. According to reports the nutters specifically targeted Lambert and suggested among other things that he would catch Aids and die.

Idol finalist Michael Sarver said that Lambert wasn't affected by the demonstrators outside. Adam is just fine, shakes it off and so should we Sarver posted to his Twitter account: We are together in this thing. You mess with one you mess with all ten. We are strong and we are 1. For those outside protesting I say do not judge less ye be judged yourself. Guys don't mind these people, we are a strong family.

Two Iranian women jailed in Iran's notorious Evin prison for converting from Islam to Christianity may be executed for apostasy, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports.

The two women, Marzieh Amirizadeh, 30, and Maryam Rustampoor, 27, were arrested in March, although they converted to Christianity about 10 years ago, Javadzadeh said.

Recent judicial revisions in Iran outlaw the death sentence for apostasy. But until the provisions are finalized, there is still a danger they will not be followed.

The President has convened the Council of State to review the Government's controversial new Criminal Justice Amendment Bill. She will also seek the council's views on the new Defamation Bill, which aims to reform the libel laws and which also introduces a new offence of blasphemous libel.

Mary McAleese has decided to seek the views of the 22-member Council of State before deciding whether to refer the legislation to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality.

The Council of State is an advisory group which includes the Taoiseach, the Tanaiste, the Ceann Comhairle of the Dail, the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad, the Chief Justice, the President of the High Court and the Attorney General.

An Iranian singer and composer who has been likened to Bob Dylan has received a five-year jail sentence in absentia for disrespecting religious sanctities, according to Iranian television.

An Iranian Koran scholar filed a complaint against Mohsen Namjoo, who also plays a traditional Persian lute, for the way he had performed using verses from Islam's holy book.

The scholar, Abbas Salimi, accused Namjoo of an insulting, sneering performance of Koranic verses with musical instruments.

It quoted the singer's brother and lawyer as dismissing the accusation, saying he did not mean any disrespect. Press TV said Namjoo, who apologized a few months ago for the incident, was abroad but did not say in which country.

Iran's Fars News Agency quoted a judge on Monday as confirming that Namjoo was found guilty subsequent to an investigation of the complaint against him.

In a 2007 profile, New York Times said Namjoo's playful but subtly cutting lyrics about growing up in an Islamic state had made him the most controversial, and certainly the most daring, figure in Persian music today.

Ultra Orthodox Jews clashed with police using horses and water cannon in Jerusalem in rioting over the arrest of a mentally ill Hasidic woman who authorities say was starving her child.

Ultra-orthodox communities often resent interference.

The child is in hospital.

Update: Blood Libel

19th July 2009. See article from jpost.com

Haredi protests on the streets of Jerusalem over the arrest of a pregnant woman suspected of abusing her three-year-old son escalated throughout Thursday, culminating in late-night riots in which hundreds clashed with police on Jerusalem's main north-south Road One.

Dozens were arrested and seven policemen were injured - some of them with head wounds from rocks. Police used water cannons to disperse rioters who tried to block the road.

The escalation saw several hundred haredim pelt police with stones at the end of a prayer vigil in Mea She'arim, police said. At the vigil, one of the rabbinical leaders of the radical anti-Zionist Toldot Aharon hassidic sect to which the mother belongs, Rabbi Yitzhak Kershenbaum, reportedly declared that his followers would fight to the last drop of our blood to secure the mother's release and clear her name of what the community has charged is a blood libel.

Update: Blood Libel

21st July 2009. See article from jpost.com

Haredi protests on the streets of Jerusalem over the arrest of a pregnant woman suspected of abusing her three-year-old son escalated throughout Thursday, culminating in late-night riots in which hundreds clashed with police on Jerusalem's main north-south Road One.

Update: Moving Hospital

23rd July 2009. See article from haaretz.com, hanks to Alan

Sheba Medical Center said that they received a request from Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem to transfer the toddler allegedly starved by his mother there for continued treatment, in a bid to end an unofficial Haredi boycott on the hospital.

Following improvement in the boy's condition, Hadassah is considering the releasing the child to Sheba so a ban on the hospital declared by the ultra-Orthodox Eda Haredit would be lifted.

Groups opposing missionaries have put up three anti-Christian hoardings in Bastar district in central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, warning the Christians not to preach about Jesus Christ in the area.

One of the anti-Christian hoardings in Bastar District of central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. It is put up allegedly by Hindu extremist groups called the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or literally World Hindu Council and Bajrang Dal, a youth wing of the VHP, who are known for their anti-Christian stance in the past.

Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) news reported that the Hindu extremists are allegedly from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or literally World Hindu Council and Bajrang Dal, a youth wing of the VHP, who are known for their anti-Christian stance in the past.

The signboard put up in three different places said, Preaching about Jesus Christ is strictly prohibited in the area, and a penalty of 1,130 Indian rupees (about 23 U.S dollars) will be imposed on those found guilty.

Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) said the hoardings stand against the constitution of India where religious freedom to profess, practice and propagate has been granted equally to all the citizens of India.

As refugees displaced by conflict in northwest Pakistan make their way home, they are afraid that their children will now depend on Islamic religious schools as their only option for education.

At least 270 schools, used by the Pakistani army as military posts, were destroyed in the crossfire and by bomb attacks in Malakand agency during the recent military offensive in North West Frontier Province.

More than two million displaced people have begun leaving refugee camps and other shelters in the Peshawar valley region of the province.

Now there is renewed fear that Islamic schools or 'madrassahs' will be the only system of education left to fill the vacuum which could lead to a new generation who could be trained for the Taliban.

Pakistan's largest spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, has produced a full dossier (photo) on this new phenomenon describing the connection and roles played by different religious education organisations in Pakistan and how they play a role for the networking of Jihadis.

A small crowd gathered in Lewiston, Maine, to discuss witchcraft influences and overtones of the teen wizard series.

Watch out, Harry Potter fans — the Rev. Doug Taylor and his Jesus Party are battling for your souls.

There is a battle raging for the minds of our children, and it's a moral battle, said Taylor, founder of the local ministry that aims to reach out to area youth: J.K. Rowling has truly bridged the gap between magical make-believe and paganism.

Taylor hosted a protest Tuesday on the eve of the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth instalment in the wildly popular movie franchise. Armed with a movie of his own, the documentary Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged — Making Evil Look Innocent, Taylor resurrected his public stand that parents and schools should closely examine the occult influences found in the books and ban them.

In keeping with his tradition, Taylor opened the evening by tearing the pages from a hard-covered copy of a Harry Potter book.

Harry Potter teaches witchcraft to children through children, author Robert McGee said in the documentary: It's teaching children that witchcraft is something attainable. When a child is captured by witchcraft, they rarely choose to get out until much later in life, after they've led a very miserable life.

I would not look foolish tonight if every church in town would take a stand against witchcraft, Taylor said as he ripped the book: And because nobody else will, that's why I do it.

The Anglican Bishop of Chester has supported the Government's move to make it illegal for people to pay to use trafficked prostitutes.

The plans came under fire in the House of Lords from both main opposition parties and cross-bench peers including Lord Lloyd of Berwick, a retired Law Lord. If the provision becomes law, it will make the matter a criminal offence even if the person did not know, or had no reason to know, that the prostitute they were using had been the subject of force.

Lord Lloyd argued against the strict liability nature of the offence and said it would be obviously unjust to convict a defendant who had no means of knowing he was using a controlled prostitute.

But Bishop Peter Forster argued that the offence was only a semi-strict liability as the man has chosen to pay for sex and was therefore not innocently caught up.

He added: I would not want to say that we presume the guilt of any man who pays for sex but any person paying for sex needs to take extreme care to make sure that they are not complicit in the exploitative activities to which we have referred.

Bishop Forster said there had been an inexorable growth in prostitution in our country, for which the figures are alarming. As I understand it, about 80 per cent of active prostitutes in London come from abroad. Not all of them are trafficked, of course, but a significant proportion are.

I approach this matter not on the basis of a moral view that I have...BUT..simply on the basis of how you protect women in our society. A key issue is how we frame the law around prostitution to give the maximum protection to women in our society.

The issue turns on whether we need a whole culture shift in the area of prostitution. I think that the Government take the view that we do.

There is a growth in prostitution and those who are engaged in it are now increasingly exploited in the most dreadful way.

In those circumstances, I think that the Government are right to say that something has to be done—something which targets the worst examples and aims to achieve a culture shift.

He said he admired the Government's courage for taking this matter on and said that the measure without the strict liability provision would be a dead duck.

On the 30th of June 2009, the security officers at Cairo International Airport have detained an activist blogger, Wael Abbas, who frequently writes about torture cases and police abuse in Egypt. Abbas was also frisked and the officers confiscated his laptop computer and other belongings.

Actually confiscating personal devices such as mobiles, laptops, cameras, portable hard-drives during social peaceful protests, in the airports and different other places became a remarkable trend followed by the Security Services.

Such devices may contain personal information, pictures and files which should not be uncovered without judicial warrant. Further over Bloggers, Human Rights Defenders and Political Activists, especially in the Arab region, are highly subjected to this kind of threats, intimidations and violations.

Consequently, a group of Egyptian bloggers ,including Abbas, and human rights activists, came-up with the idea of designing a Badge to be used on Blogs and Websites having the following title: No to Illegal Confiscation of Personal Devices.

A Facebook Event was created to circulate the badge and to invite people to support:

How can you help?

• Add the badge to your blog/website.
• Write articles about the issue of illegal and extrajudicial confiscation of personal belongings.
• Invite your friends to do the same.

Support the Cause, Put the Badge and Spread the Word.

Update: Jailed

17th December 2009. See article from indexoncensorship.org

Egyptian journalist, blogger and human rights activist Wael Abbas has been sentenced to six months in prison according to his Twitter page. In his tweet he says I was sentenced to 6 months in prison in absentia, I don't know yet what for, will update you. His family home was raided yesterday and searched by plain clothed police while the activist was attending a bloggers' conference in Beirut.

Update: Acquitted

21st February 2010. See article from advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org

The Egyptian appeal court has acquitted blogger Wael Abbas after being sentenced to six months by a lower court. The sentence came last November after an altercation on April 2009 between Abbas and his neighbor and Ahmed Maher Aglan and his police officer brother Ashraf Aglan, for accessing the internet. The two brothers raided Abbas's houses, assaulted him verbally and physically then sued him for damaging an internet cable.

It is known that Wael Abbas has become a target for interior ministry and its officers for more than two years because of his persistent endeavors to broadcast the so called torture clips. Officers have repeatedly orchestrated Abbas without being deterred by prosecution.

Update: Unacquitted

21st February 2010. See article from advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a court decision to sentence the popular and award-winning Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas to six months in prison and calls on Egyptian authorities to put an end to years-long harassment leveled against him.

In November 2009, Abbas was sentenced to six months in prison and a fine of 500 Egyptian pounds (US$90) on a charge of damaging an Internet cable, Abbas' defense lawyer Rawda Ahmed told CPJ. A Cairo appeals court tossed out the conviction in February, calling the charges unfounded.

Ahmed said the Ministry of Interior then brought the case to the Economic Court with a new charge of providing telecommunications service to the public without permission from authorities. According to local news reports, the Economic Court sentenced Abbas  to six months in prison and a fine of 500 Egyptian Pounds (US $90). Neither Abbas nor his lawyer was notified of the new proceeding.

This sentence was issued through a twisted legal path and reveals an invisible hand manipulating the case. The case was closed and we already proved to the courts that the charges brought against my client were fabricated, Ahmed told CPJ. Abbas remained free today; Ahmed said the new conviction would be challenged.

An 18-year-old woman was flogged in public outside the Maldives Injustice Building and sentenced to a year of house arrest for having extra-marital sex.

The woman received 100 lashes after confessing to having extra-marital sex with two men on separate occasions earlier this year. She was taken to hospital after the lashing.

Judge Abdulla Mohamed, chief judge of the Criminal Court, said the courts could not prosecute the two men as Rahma was unable to provide any details about the first man and the second man denied his involvement.

Latest statistics from the department of judicial administration's website reveal that in 2006, out of 184 lashed for extra-marital sex, 146 were women.

Speaking to Minivan News MP for Galolhu Eva Abdulla said, It seems a bit disproportionate considering there always has to be two people involved. She further pointed to other forms of corporal punishment in Sharia law, which were not practiced in the Maldives: We don't cut off the hands of all those who steal and we don't implement the death sentence so why do we continue with these very inhumane practices, especially when the statistics show that the victims are women.

But, Judge Abdulla said more women were sentenced than men because while men were able to deny the crime, pregnancy often implicated women. Without a confession, extra-marital sex cases are very difficult to prosecute, he said, as they required the testimony of four witnesses.

Flogging is dispensed with a leather paddle called a duraa in the Maldives. On why floggings were public, Abdulla said the method was prescribed in the Qur'an and its purpose was to act as a deterrent: Because the public should know this lady or man have done these things and they will stay away from these things.

Four members of the Jewish Defense League, attacked and vandalized a book store in France owned by a pro-Palestinian Arab couple.

The four Jewish Defense League (JDL) members, age 16–26, were arrested after allegedly breaking into the store wearing masks, smashing computers with clubs and setting fire to the books and merchandise.

Supporters of the store owners then held a rally outside the store, saying that supporters of Palestinian rights refuse to be intimidated by the strong-arm tactics of the JDL.

The US branch of the Jewish Defense League has been described by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US as a terrorist organization, due to the group's use of violence to achieve political objectives.

IThe group was founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane, a right-wing extremist who openly advocated the extermination of Arabs. In addition to founding the JDL, he is also credited with founding the Kach movement, a terrorist group that is banned in Israel for carrying out multiple acts of violence.

The French Jewish Defense League claims that they are not connected to the US Jewish Defense League, but they have the same name and philosophy.

Olivia and Nicholas Zamour, who own the bookstore that was vandalized, told the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahranoth, We saw here today for the first time solidarity of hundreds of people for the Palestinian nation, against the pro-Israeli French government.
They also said, about the JDL, This is a fascist organization that does not hesitate to attack people and places. They have no fear because, until today, no steps have been taken against them. However, all of this is going to change. Three years ago, they attacked our bookstore in the middle of the night and broke windows. This time they did it in the middle of the day, fearlessly.

US Pharmacists are obliged to dispense the Plan B pill, even if they are personally opposed to the morning after contraceptive on religious grounds, a federal appeals court has ruled.

In a case that could affect policy across the western US, a supermarket pharmacy owner failed in a bid to block 2007 regulations that required all Washington pharmacies to stock and dispense the pills.

Family-owned Ralph's Thriftway and two pharmacists employed elsewhere sued Washington state officials over the requirement. The plaintiffs asserted that their Christian beliefs prevented them from dispensing the pills. They said that the new regulations would force them to choose between keeping their jobs and heeding their religious objections to a medication they regard as a form of abortion.

Ralph's owners, Stormans Inc., and pharmacists Rhonda Mesler and Margo Thelen sought protection under the 1st Amendment right to free exercise of religion and won a temporary injunction from the U.S. District Court in Seattle pending trial on the constitutionality of the regulations. That order prevented state officials from penalizing pharmacists who refused to dispense Plan B as long as they referred consumers to a nearby pharmacy where it was available.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has now lifted the injunction, saying the district court was wrong in issuing it based on an erroneous finding that the rules violated the free exercise of religion clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The 9th Circuit ruling means that the requirement that pharmacies stock and dispense Plan B takes immediate effect, said Joyce Roper, an assistant attorney general for Washington state.

The three 9th Circuit judges said that the right to freely exercise one's religion "does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability. Any refusal to dispense -- regardless of whether it is motivated by religion, morals, conscience, ethics, discriminatory prejudices, or personal distaste for a patient -- violates the rules.

In a continuation of the ongoing Egyptian wave of arson attacks on Coptic places of worship, the Church of St. Abaskharion Kellini, in the village of Ezbet Bassilious, Beni Mazar, was burnt down at noon on July 11 by Muslim village inhabitants. No one was injured.

A source in Bani Mazar Diocese told Free Copts advocacy the fire was instigated and directed as usual by State Security, aiming to prevent prayers in new churches throughout both the Upper Egyptian provinces of Minya and of Beni Suef.

The Church was officially inaugurated on July 3 by the Bishop of Beni Mazar and was licensed for prayer. It was closed on that same day by State Security for security reasons and to avert a sectarian crisis, and was placed under continuous guard.

Eyewitnesses named three Muslim village inhabitants Ahmed Abdelghani, Ahmed El-Qatawy and Eid Sayed Ahmad of torching the Church after spraying it with kerosene, according to Mikhael Fares of Copts United advocacy.

The Fire brigade arrived two hours late, after the Church roof had completely collapsed, eyewitnesses said. Only the holy alter was untouched by the fire.

Copts United reported that when some Christian villagers of Ezbet Bassilious went to the police station to file a report on the incident, and named the suspects, they were detained and threatened to change their statements.

No protest - indeed no story in my career - has distressed me in the way I was distressed at a protest in Jerusalem on Saturday involving several hundred ultra-Orthodox Jews.

This particular protest has been going on for weeks. Orthodox Jews are angry at the local council's decision to open a municipal carpark on Saturdays - or Shabbat, the day of rest for Jews.

I was aware that earlier protests had erupted into violence on previous weekends - Orthodox Jews throwing rocks at police, or setting rubbish bins alight, even throwing dirty nappies or rotting rubbish at anyone they perceive to be desecrating the Shabbat.

But I never expected their anger would be directed at me.

I was mindful I would need to dress conservatively and keep out of harm's way. But I made my mistake when I parked the car and started walking towards the protest, not fully sure which street was which. I suddenly found myself in the thick of the protest - in the midst of hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in their long coats and sable-fur hats.

They might be supremely religious, but their behaviour - to me - was far from charitable or benevolent.

As the protest became noisier and the crowd began yelling, I took my recorder and microphone out of my bag to record the sound.

Suddenly the crowd turned on me, screaming in my face. Dozens of angry men began spitting on me.

Spit like rain

I found myself herded against a brick wall as they kept on spitting - on my face, my hair, my clothes, my arms.

It was like rain, coming at me from all directions - hitting my recorder, my bag, my shoes, even my glasses.

Big gobs of spit landed on me like heavy raindrops. I could even smell it as it fell on my face.

I wasn't even sure why the mob was angry with me. Was it because I was a journalist? Or a woman? Because I wasn't Jewish in an Orthodox area? Was I not dressed conservatively enough?

In fact, I was later told, it was because using a tape-recorder is itself a desecration of the Shabbat even though I'm not Jewish and don't observe the Sabbath.

...Read the full article

The new blasphemy law will send Ireland back to the middle ages, and is wretched, backward and uncivilised, Prof Richard Dawkins has said.

The scientist and critic of religion has lent his support to a campaign to repeal the law, introduced by Atheist Ireland, a group set up last December, arising from an online discussion forum. The law, which makes the publication or utterance of blasphemous matter a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine, passed through the Oireachtas last week.

In a message read out at Atheist Ireland's first AGM, Prof Dawkins said: One of the world's most beautiful and best-loved countries, Ireland has recently become one of the most respected as well: dynamic, go-ahead, modern, civilised – a green and pleasant silicon valley. This preposterous blasphemy law puts all that respect at risk. He said it would be too kind to call the law a ridiculous anachronism: It is a wretched, backward, uncivilised regression to the middle ages. Who was the bright spark who thought to besmirch the revered name of Ireland by proposing anything so stupid?

At the AGM, Atheist Ireland members voted to test the new law by publishing a blasphemous statement, deliberately designed to cause offence. The statement will be finalised in the coming days.

Labour Senator and barrister Ivana Bacik said the establishment of Atheist Ireland was long overdue. More than 150 people attended the meeting in Dublin and the group ran out of membership application forms. I think it's also good to see an organisation that has the word atheist in the title because for a long time many of us were in the closet, she said: It's not fashionable or popular to declare oneself to be an atheist. There are many people in Ireland who would like to describe themselves as atheists and I'm one of them. I think I may be the only self-confessed or card-carrying atheist in the Oireachtas.

The group also launched a website www.countmeout.ie which provides information on how to formally leave the Catholic Church.

TheThe BBC Trust has launched an investigation into BBC Radio 4's religious Thought for the Day slot and the possibility of opening it up to secular and humanist points of view.

The Radio 4 controller, Mark Damazer, said it was a finely balanced argument whether non-religious speakers should become a part of the long-running Today programme feature.

Responding to listener complaints on Radio 4's Feedback programme, Damazer said You should know that the BBC Trust … is currently considering this question and they will come to some kind of conclusion later on this year. They may well suggest – I have no idea it's for them and not for me – that we should take in a wider range of voices.

Damazer said opening up the slot to other voices would make it lose the distinctiveness it has as a religious feature.

Secular and humanist groups have long campaigned for the slot to be opened up to people outside of religious groups, and in January this year a non-religious version, called Thought for the Afternoon, was broadcast on Radio 4's Saturday afternoon programme, iPM.

The head of Pakistan's radical Lal Masjid, Abdul Aziz, has threatened the Pakistan Government of launching a bloody revolution, if the Zardari-led coalition fails to enforce an Islamic system in the country through parliament.

Addressing the Second Shuhda-e-Lal Masjid Conference at the Lal Masjid, Aziz said the government has not been able to make any progress in the probe into the Lal Masjid Operation, which took place two years ago, the Daily Times reports.

Speaking on the occasion, member of the NWFP assembly Mufti Kifayatullah demanded the government cease its military operation in the province and initiate a dialogue with the Taliban. He alleged that Pakistan Army was killing its own people at the behest of the US.

Iraqi gays are being targeted and killed in what rights campaigners say is some of the worst violence against the community in recent years.

At least 68 gay and transgendered men have been killed over the last four months, according to the London-based rights advocacy group Iraqi LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender), bringing the total number of killings of Iraqis because of their sexuality to 678 since 2004.

New York-based Human Rights Watch, which recently conducted field investigations on the violence, estimates that hundreds of homosexual men may have been killed in recent months. Scott Long, a senior Human Rights Watch representative, described the killings as an extraordinarily brutal campaign targeting gay, transgender and effeminate men in several provinces.

Iraqi LGBT and HRW believe that Shia militias are the primary perpetrators of the violence and say the majority of killings have occurred in Shia areas in south/central Iraq (including the towns of Ammarah, Najaf, Karbala and Basra) and Baghdad's Sadr City district, the stronghold of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army.

While no group has said it's behind the killings, Iraqi LGBT and HRW believe that elements of the Mehdi Army may be among the militants implicated in the violence, particularly in Sadr City.

Long suggested that some members of Mehdi Army were trying to act as agents of moral regeneration in an attempt to regain some control over Shia neighbourhoods, following massive military operations that weakened the militia: It is pretty clear that sermons started being preached in Shia mosques, particularly ones in areas that are heavily influenced by the Sadrists earlier this year, on the dangers of homosexuality [in the weeks prior to the wave of killings].

A Saudi women's group has blamed the country's religious police in the "honour" killing of two sisters shot dead by their own brother after they were arrested for mixing with unrelated men.

The Society for Defending Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia said the religious police had placed the sisters' lives in danger when they arrested them and then placed them in a Riyadh women's shelter.

The two women, identified as Reem, 21, and Nouf, 19, were murdered after they left the shelter on July 5. The brother shot them in the presence of their father who, according to newspaper reports, quickly forgave the son for defending the family's honour.

But the society blamed the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or the religious police, for sparking the brother's anger over his family's honour by arresting the girls in the first place: These women have not committed any crime to be killed in a such brutal way. Arresting women for mingling with (unrelated males) should be stopped because it puts many Saudi women in danger and sometimes (costs) them their lives.

The women's group called on the Saudi authorities to charge the brother with murder and also bring to justice members of the religious police involved in the two girls' case.

Bomb attacks on six Baghdad-area Churches within 24 hours have killed at least four and wounded 32 people.

The deadliest attack came on Sunday evening at around 7pm near a church on Palestine Street in eastern Baghdad killed three Christians and one Muslim, said a police officer.

According to CNN, the first bombing took place Saturday night at St. Joseph's church in western Baghdad. Two bombs placed inside the church exploded at about 10 p.m. No one was in the church at the time of the attack.

It was followed by three bombs explosion on Sunday afternoon outside two churches in central Baghdad's al-Karrada district and one al-Ghadeer in eastern Baghdad, wounding eight civilians, the official said. And in southern Baghdad's Dora district, a bomb outside a church wounded three other civilians.

Most of the churches were damaged in the bombings, according to video footage posted on CNN Web site.

Update: 7th Church Bombed

15th July 2009. See article from christiantoday.com

A Chaldean Christian church in Iraq was bombed Monday, injuring three children in the latest violent act against a Christian house of worship, Iraqi officials said.

An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said Monday's bombing, the seventh since Saturday; occurred when a car bomb exploded and damaged the church in Mosul, CNN reported.

A man who beat his daughter over the head with a lump of concrete when she refused to go to his Mormon church does not understand what all the fuss is about, Hastings District Court has heard.

Uluia Muliipu appeared in court after pleading guilty to one count of assault with intent to injure.

Judge Geoff Rea said Muliipu had become involved in an argument with his daughter who refused to attend church. He chased her down the street and back into the house picking up a lump of concrete along the way. He then whacked her over the head in a bedroom with the concrete causing skin on her head to split and start bleeding. They were both covered in blood and he kicked her in the face causing bruising: When police arrived you told them your daughter was lucky you did not kill her.

Defence lawyer Roger Stone told the court Muliipu had been angry his daughter refused to go to church. He was a proud man who was disappointed his daughter had elected not to follow his Mormon faith.

Judge Rea said a probation officer's report made grim reading because he still does not understand what all the fuss is about. He had been ejected from an anger management course because of his views and had an inability to understand whacking someone on the head is unacceptable.

In the circumstances there was only one response and that was imprisonment. Muliipu was sentenced to 12 months in jail.

An attempt by Hamas police to detain a young woman walking with a man along the Gaza beach has raised alarms that the Islamic militant group is seeking to match its political control of the coastal territory with a strict enforcement of Islamic law.

The man she walked with and two of his peers were detained, beaten and ordered to sign statements promising not to engage in immoral activities, said the woman and one of the men.

The incident was the first known case of Hamas openly trying to punish a woman for behaving in a way it views as un-Islamic since seizing power two years ago. But it follows months of quiet pressure on Gaza's overwhelmingly conservative 1.4 million residents to abide by its strict religious mores.

Hamas officials in Gaza have publicly urged shopkeepers to take down foreign advertisements showing the shape of women's bodies and to stash away lingerie often displayed in windows. Officials search electronic shops to check if they are selling pornography on tiny flash drives.

There's an open, public program to preserve public morals in Gaza, said local rights activist Isam Younis: In reality that means trying to restrict freedoms.

A Saudi judge sentenced seven young men and four women to up to 700 lashes and jail terms ranging up to 10 months for attending an immoral party, a Saudi newspaper reported.

The 11 revelers, including two Iraqis and nine Saudis aged between 18 and 37, received sentences of between 400-700 lashes and between 4-10 months in prison, Saudi Arabia's Al Watan newspaper said.

The group had been arrested in the northern Saudi district of Al Ha'il in late June on charges of drinking alcohol at a mixed-gender party.

Police said they had kept the group of young men and women under surveillance for days before arresting them as they drove away from one of their debauched late-night parties.

They said they had found araq, a strong alcoholic beverage made from dates, hidden in soft-drink bottles in the car.

A Shariah court in the Saudi town of Mahd Al-Dahab is taking up an important question: Can genies be summoned . . . to appear before a judge?

According to Al-Watan newspaper, a family has filed a lawsuit against an unnamed genie for stealing mobile phones, sending threatening voice messages through mobile phones imploring the family to move away and pelting family members with stones when they go out at night.

We have to look into this case and verify its truthfulness despite the difficulty of its consideration, said Sheikh Amr Al-Salmi, the head of the local court.

The Irish government lost a vote in the Seanad on the Defamation Bill but managed to save the legislation by calling for a walk-through vote which gave enough time for two missing Senators to be found.

The Government defeat came on an amendment to the Bill proposed by Senator Eugene Regan of Fine Gael proposing to delete the provision in the legislation making blasphemy a crime.

In an electronic vote whereby Senators press a button, the Government was defeated by 22 votes to 21 in the 60-member upper house.

However, Fianna Fáil whip Diarmuid Wilson immediately requested a walk-through vote which takes about 10 minutes to complete. In that period two Senators, Geraldine Feeney of Fianna Fáil and Deirdre De Burca of the Green Party, had time to get to the chamber and the amendment was defeated by 23 votes to 22. The Bill itself was then passed by the same margin.

The controversy surrounded a clause in the Defamation Bill dealing with the crime of blasphemy which Minister for Injustice Dermot Ahern insisted had to be included for constitutional reasons, although this was disputed by Opposition parties and Independents.

Senator Dan Boyle of the Green Party said that while he accepted the reason blasphemy was included in the Bill, the effect would be to codify an offence that most people did not believe in and that made a nonsense of the legal process.

The Government has been defeated in the House of Lords over its attempt to repeal a free speech protection from a sexual orientation 'hatred' law.

Peers voted by 186 to 133 to keep the protection in place. The matter will be passed back to the House of Commons where MPs voted for repeal.

The protection makes clear that criticising homosexual conduct or encouraging people to refrain from such conduct is not a crime.

The Government says the protection is not necessary, insisting that the homophobic hatred offence would not catch the expression of such beliefs.

Mike Judge, Head of Communications at The Christian Institute, said: Genuine supporters of free speech will be pleased with this result. Democracy depends on the freedom of people to challenge ideas, to dispute with each other, to contend for what they believe. Too many Christians have already been intimidated by over-zealous police action because they gave voice to their views on sexual ethics. Surely the world is big enough to allow all sides to express their beliefs about sexual behaviour without fearing a knock on the door from the police. [But I wonder of he is so keen to defend free speech when it is religion that is being criticised]

An Indian court has overturned a 148-year-old colonial law banning homosexual relationships saying it was an affront to human dignity.

Campaigners described the ruling as India's Stonewall moment, a reference to historic riots by homosexuals in New York which are regarded as the inspiration of the modern gay rights movement.

The ban on homosexual relations was introduced by British colonial officials and describes sexual intercourse between people of the same sex as an unnatural offence.

Indian government officials had said same sex relationships were indecent, against Indian values, and if decriminalized would lead to an increase in delinquent behaviour and pose a health hazard to society.

Their argument was rejected yesterday by Delhi's High Court judges who said the ban denied gays equal rights and was an affront to human dignity. In our view Indian Constitutional Law does not permit the statutory criminal law to be held captive by the popular misconception of who the LGBTs (lesbian gay bisexual transgender) are. It cannot be forgotten that discrimination is antithesis of equality and that it is the recognition of equality which will foster dignity of every individual," the judges commented.

Their ruling will take precedence over India's Penal Code until the parliament passes a new law on equality.

Religious groups, including leading muslim clerics and catholic clergymen, said despite the judgment, they still regarded homosexuality as immoral. Ahmed Bukhari, the chief imam at Delhi's historic Jama Masjid mosque, said: This is absolutely wrong. We will not accept any such law.

Update: Court Judgement Challenged

10th July 2009. Based on article from edition.cnn.com

A landmark ruling that legalized gay sex between consenting partners in India was challenged Thursday in the country's high court, lawyers said.

The supreme court issued a notice to the nonprofit Naz Foundation that had won a lower-court verdict after a seven-year legal fight to decriminalize gay sex. Notices also were issued to the federal government and the New Delhi high court, which ruled last week that consensual sex between partners of the same gender was legal.

An astrologer filed a petition challenging the ruling. The petitioner argued that no constitutional right is violated by the Indian penal code's Section 377, which had outlawed gay sex, said his lawyer Praveen Agrawal. The petition also cited Indian culture and health as grounds for seeking a stay on last week's ruling.

The supreme court posted the next hearing for July 20.

The import of Airtel digital satellite receivers to Maldives has been banned, the Islamic Affairs Ministry has said.

Speaking a news conference held by the Ministry, the Dr Abdul Majeed Abdul Baaree said that they had been receiving many complaints about the receivers from the public: We've even received a CD of a program that was aired on the channel, he said, adding that the program promoted Christianity.

When asked why the Airtel receivers were being banned while pornography websites and sites that promoted Christianity were still available, the Minister said that dish antennas were different from the internet.

Dish antennas are imported through the Customs, he said: The law prohibits the import of material that can be used to promote and spread illegal religions in the country. We discussed with the authorities whether there was any way we could switch off certain channels or not but they told us that it was not possible. Then we discussed it with the Attorney General and came to this decision. Internet is not made available through the Customs.

Saudi police are searching for a 28-year-old woman who ran away from a Social Affairs-run women's shelter in Jeddah.

Col. Misfar Al-Juaid, spokesman for Jeddah police, said the woman ran away while the police were preparing to take her to jail in line with a court order for failing to obey her father.

The court had ordered the police to take the woman to jail while it examined a case filed against her by her father. The woman fled her parents' home after accusing them of abusing her and sought refuge at the shelter.

The woman had earlier complained against her father at a summary court. The father had then filed a counter-case against her, accusing her of disobeying her parents, a culpable offense under Saudi law. Predictably the court refused to entertain the woman's petition and instead began examining the fathe's complaint.

Urging the young woman to return to her senses and surrender to the authorities, Dr. Ali Al-Hanaki, director of the Ministry of Social Affairs Ministry in Jeddah, said, The solution now lies in her own hands. Each additional day she refuses to obey the authorities will only worsen her problem. He added that the ministry had pledged to resolve her problem without sending her to jail. We have informed the court of our plans, which include arranging for her to marry and reconciling her with her family.

A monitoring exercise conducted by the law firm AGHS shows that from April to June this year, 122 cases of women being burnt were reported in Lahore.

Of them, 21 women had acid burns while the rest were injured by direct exposure to flames. Forty victims died.

Disturbingly, the figures have doubled as compared to the first quarter of the year. These cases constitute merely the tip of the frightening iceberg of violence against Pakistan's women. The figures reported above apply to Lahore but are unlikely to be lower in other parts of the country. Indeed, one wonders how many cases go unreported.

The forms of coercion range from emotional and economic abuse to gross violations of constitutional and human rights, including rape, burning and being handed over as settlement in disputes. Last year, at least two women were believed to have been buried alive in Balochistan. That a sitting parliamentarian defended the act as a tribal custom reflects just how endemic violence against women has become in the country.

Burger King Corporation has pulled a supposedly offensive advertisement poster in Spain showing Hindu goddess Lakshmi promoting a meat sandwich, which Hindu groups protested calling it repugnant.

Always whinging Hindu spokesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada, thanked the Burger King management for removing this advertisement poster but added that it should not have been created in the first place. He suggested that Burger King should form an internal team of senior executives who should clear all the publicity material before it went to the public and this team should be well trained. If Burger King wanted its executives to learn about world religions, he was willing to help, Zed added.

According to the reported statement: Burger King Corporation values and respects all of its guests as well as the communities we serve. This in-store advertisement was running to support a limited-time-only local promotion for three restaurants in Spain and was not intended to offend anyone. Out of respect for the Hindu community, the in-store advertisement has been removed from the restaurants.

The concerned poster was titled LA MERIENDA ES SAGRAD”, which roughly translates as Snack is sacred, and showed a meat-cheese sandwich with few other products for 1.75 Euros.

Zed pointed out that Hinduism promoted strict vegetarianism insisting on ahimsa (not harming living creatures) and non-killing, and renouncing animal slaughter and meat eating. Zed argued that there was extensive protection of life in Hinduism and ahimsa was a command. It was a clear denigration showing a Hindu goddess patronizing a meat sandwich.

The legislation to revise Ireland's libel laws has been passed in the Dáil and will now go to the Seanad.

This afternoon in the Dáil, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern amended the legislation so that the maximum fine for blasphemy will be cut from €100,000 to €25,000.
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Both the leaders of Labour and Fine Gael criticised the fact that a guillotine, was imposed on the debate.

Sinn Féin's Aengus Ó Snodaigh said only an hour was given over to debate the 33 amendments to the legislation.

See also article from mediawatchwatch.org.uk:

This is what  the Dáil has imposed on their citizens:

36. Publication or utterance of blasphemous matter.

(1) A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €25,000.

(2) For the purposes of this section, a person publishes or utters blasphemous matter if (a) he or she publishes or utters matter that is 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, and (b) he or she intends, by the publication or utterance of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage.

(3) It shall be a defence to proceedings for an offence under this section for the defendant to prove that a reasonable person would find genuine literary, artistic, political, scientific, or academic value in the matter to which the offence relates.

A petition signed by 20,000 Christians across the UK was handed in yesterday to Buckingham Palace, No 10 Downing Street and the House of Lords. Petitioners believe Government plans, contained in Clause 61 of the Coroners and Justice Bill to be voted on this week in the House of Lords, will effectively gag Christians from openly explaining what they believe the Bible has said about sexual conduct for more than 2,000 years.

The petition also drew attention to the plans of a small group of Peers who are trying to legalise assistance with suicide by tabling amendments to the same Bill. (Editor's note: this amendment was defeated last night in the Lords by 194 votes to 141).

Christian Concern for our Nation, sister organisation to the Christian Legal Centre, which has represented many Christians in high profile cases where employers have denied Christians the right of freedom of speech on moral issues, co-ordinated the Petition, signed by 20,000 individuals, to draw attention to what they describe as the devastating consequences to Christian witness if the Coroners and Justice Bill goes through Parliament as it stands.

The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations today welcomed the decision of a fireworks retailer in Wisconsin, Fireworks City, to withdraw a product called Run Hadji Run,which was deemed offensive by local Muslims.

[Hadji is an honorific term for those who have completed the pilgrimage to Mecca, but has been often used as a derogatory term by U.S. soldiers during the Iraq War.]

The fireworks display a picture of Arabs/Muslims riding camels, with a fighter plane overhead. On another side there is what appears to be Uncle Sam yanking the long beard of a man in traditional Muslim attire.

The muslim arsonists who tried to burn down the house of the publisher of The Jewel of Medina have each been sentenced to 4 years, 6 months in jail.

Sentencing Ali Beheshti and two accomplices, Mrs Justice Rafferty told them: If you choose to live in this country, you live by its rules. There is no such thing as "a la carte citizenship" and, in your case, there is no such thing as "a la carte obedience" to the law.

Beheshti, a follower of hate cleric Abu Hamza, poured diesel through the letterbox of Martin Rynja's £2.5million house and set it alight to punish him for agreeing to release The Jewel of Medina, a fictional account of the Prophet's child bride.

Last September, with accomplices Abrar Mirza and Abbas Taj he attacked the five-storey home and office of Rynja in Islington, North London. A small fire began but nobody was hurt because police and fire crews arrived in time to smash down the door and put it out.

A group of religious soldiers in the reserves refused last week to participate in a training exercise that required them to ride in jeeps driven by female soldiers. The incident took place when a group of armored corps battalion reservists from Northern Command attended the national ground troop training exercise at Tze'elim base in the south.

The troops train with large Hummer jeeps, used to simulate tanks and other armored vehicles. The Hummers are driven by female soldiers while the reservists act as tank commanders. Some religious reservists balked at riding in vehicles driven by women. A battalion officer said, There was an atmosphere of a refusal to follow orders, even if it didn't actually come to that

After consultations with the training center's rabbi and the brigade commander, a compromise was reached in which religious soldiers who refused to ride alone with a woman driver would instead be accompanied by another male soldier. The soldiers who had complained agreed to train for a day under these conditions.

Some of them were released the following day - the official reason given was a shortage of vehicles. However, one of the officers involved said that it looked bad that they released those soldiers [who had complained].

A Muslim mob numbering about 600 attacked Christians in a Pakistani village near an India-Pakistan border Tuesday, destroying several houses, looting valuables and injuring many on the usual trumped up blasphemy charge.

Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan (SLMP) fact finding team said, the blasphemy charge was stemmed from a trivial quarrel between a Christian driver and a Muslim motor cycle rider which later led to the intervention of a local Muslim priest, who charged the driver and other Christians of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed, Pakistan Christian Post reported.

The incident happened at Bahmani Wala village in District Kasur, Sardar Masih a tractor driver had asked way to Mohammed Riaz who is blocking the way with his motor-cycle, but the latter became angry and abused Masih as low caste how he dare asked him. A scuffle took place between both of them which, later, became reason of a critical incident.

Riaz contacted Qari Lateef, a local clergyman who is known for his infamous blasphemy cases in Kasur. Qari Lateef urged Muhammad Riaz to plot a blasphemy accusation against Sardar Masih and other Christians.

SLMP fact finding team found that the Muslic cleric Qari Lateef announced through loudspeaker accusing Christians of the village of committing blasphemy. He announced Christians have made derogatory remarks against Prophet Muhammad therefore they are liable to death.

Riaz and others called hundred of Muslims from surrounding villages as well. The angry mob of Muslims, shouting on Christians attacked their houses and started destroying everything. They set many houses of Christians on fire, looted their money and valuables, tortured Christian men and women of the village and fled away from the spot.

Update: Compensation

8th July 2009. See article from bosnewslife.com

Pakistan's Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti has said that he has successfully reconciled' Muslims and Christians in a tense village in Punjab province where over a dozen people were injured when angry mobs torched at least 100 Christian homes and churches this week.

Islam and Christianity teach to co-exist with peace and harmony, added the minister, an outspoken Christian, who held talks with community leaders. He said each affected Christian family would receive 100,000 Pakistani Rupees ($1,260) in compensation.

At least nine women and four children were injured when acid were thrown at them, witnesses said. They were later rescued by rights activists and received medical treatment, officials told Worthy News.

Indoenesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is facing, yet another 'adversary', apart from a challenge by a vice-president and a former president in the run-up to the presidential elections on July 8.

He claims that black magic is being dabbled by his enemies to derail his efforts for a second term: This is an election season. Many are practising black magic. Indeed, my family and I can sense its effects. It's extraordinary. Many methods (of black magic) are being used, he told 3,000 participants of a prayer gathering at his private residence.

He said he chanted prayers as a means to protect himself against black magic attacks from his challengers.

I have come to the conclusion that only prayers can defeat black magic attacks. For instance, last night (Friday night), I kept praying all the way to the venue of the debate (the third and final round of presidential debates), along with my wife, aides and driver," he was quoted by Antara news agency.

Syria has updated its law limiting the length of sentences handed down to men convicted of killing female relatives they suspect of having illicit sex.

Women's groups had long demanded that Article 548 be scrapped, arguing it decriminalised honour killings.

Activists say some 200 women are killed each year in honour cases by men who expect lenient treatment under the law.

The new law replaces the existing maximum sentence of one year in jail with a minimum jail term of two years.

Justice Minister Ahmad Hamoud Younis said the change was made by the decree of President Bashar al-Assad, following a recent increase in wife-killings... on the pretext of adultery.

The new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.

The legislation covers any man who unintentionally kills his wife, sister, daughter or mother after catching her committing adultery or having unlawful sex. It also covers cases where the woman's lover is killed.

Reports say women's rights activists have given a cautious welcome to the change, with one group calling it a small contribution to solving the problem. Their objection remains, however, that the new law still apparently invites men to murder women if they catch them having sex or suspect them of doing so.

For the first time, the Islamic Sharia Council has granted access to a newspaper to observe the entire sharia legal process in Britain. Over several weeks, I was allowed to witness the filing of complaints, individual testimony hearings and the monthly meeting of imams, or judges, where rulings are handed down.

Sharia has been operating here, in parallel to the British legal system, since 1982. Work includes issuing fatwas - religious rulings on matters ranging from why Islam considers homosexuality a sin to why two women are equivalent to one male witness in an Islamic court.

The Islamic Sharia Council also rules on individual cases, primarily in matters of Muslim personal or civil law: divorce, marriage, inheritance and settlement of dowry payments are the most common.

However, in the course of my investigation, I discovered how sharia is being used informally within the Muslim community to tackle crime such as gang fights or stabbings, bypassing police and the British court system.

...Read full article

She has survived five assassination attempts, been suspended from parliament and forced into hiding, but Joya refuses to be silent

My father always said he could spot me in any crowd of women wearing burqas because I walk like a penguin. You have no peripheral vision because of the netting in front of your eyes — and it's hot and suffocating under there.

The most useful thing about these long blue robes is that you can hide schoolbooks and other forbidden objects beneath them. Under the Taliban I also appreciated the anonymity of the burqa when I had to walk to and from the illicit lessons I gave for girls. Today, however, I don't feel safe under the thickest veil, even though I have armed guards. My visitors are searched for weapons and even the flowers at my wedding had to be checked for bombs.

I was driving through Kabul not long ago when a friend and I decided to stop for ice-cream. I thought I'd be safe uncovering myself for just a few minutes to enjoy it. You are Malalai Joya, right? said one of the customers almost immediately. My friend and I had to eat up quickly and leave. You never know who'll make a telephone call.

I'm the youngest member of the Afghan parliament, but I've been threatened repeatedly with death because I speak the truth about the warlords and criminals in the puppet government of President Hamid Karzai. Having survived at least five assassination attempts, I'm forced to live like a fugitive, moving every night to stay ahead of my enemies.

...Read full article

An NHS doctor from east London who was held hostage and forced into marriage has spoken for the first time about her four-month ordeal, during which she feared for her life.

Dr Humayra Abedin, who was freed from her vows on the orders of a Bangladeshi court soon after The Independent on Sunday highlighted her plight, described the humiliation and pain she suffered at the hands of her parents, some members of her extended family and nurses and doctors in a private psychiatric hospital in Bangladesh last year.

In an exclusive interview with the IoS, Dr Abedin told of the moment she was abducted: My face was covered with a piece of cloth by men who told me they were policemen, before they carried me out into an ambulance which was parked outside the house. They held my arms and legs, carried me like a prisoner, while my parents stood in the background.

She was driven, kicking and screaming, to a private hospital, on the request of her family. During the journey, she was held down and gagged by three people as they tried to stop her shouting.

This was the first time I thought, 'this is it, I am dying', said Dr Abedin: I begged them to stop. And so began the nightmare.

...Read full article

A violent group calling itself The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice has carried out attacks in Gaza since shortly after Hamas took over the area in mid-2007. Now a female Arab journalist reports that the unaffiliated group is clearly an official branch of Hamas, charged with enforcing the group's strict interpretation of Islamic law.

The journalist, Asma abu-Ghul, told Al-Arabiya that she was stopped by the committee's policemen at the beach. Ghul said she was detained for allegedly laughing too loudly and appearing in public with uncovered hair.

The prevention of vice police body reports directly to Hamas's Ministry of Waqf Affairs, Ghul said. The force is increasingly visible on the streets of Gaza, she reported, and its officers patrol public beaches and parks as well as businesses such as restaurants and coffee shops.

Hamas officials admit that Hamas police patrol beaches and may tell women who they believe are dressed immodestly to go elsewhere. However, Hamas has not claimed any affiliation to the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, and has refused to even admit that the group exists.

The committee lists its goal as hunting down slaves of the devil who commit blasphemy. Its first public act, in late 2007, was to beat a local singer for giving a concert. Soon afterwards, members of the group carried out a vicious assault on two residents of southern Gaza accused of disrespect for Allah.

The essence of the warning is that female masturbation may risk tearing the hymen, which in turn carries the risk that one's family may kill you.

...See full article

The creators of the Father Ted television series have denounced Ireland's proposed blasphemy laws as insanity and pledged to support a campaign to repeal them.

Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan backed moves by a group of Irish secularists to challenge the bill against blasphemy introduced in the Dáil last week. Atheist Ireland said this weekend that it will publish a statement blaspheming all the major religions in Ireland, including Christianity and Islam. The group said it would be a calculated challenge to the law.

Under the Irish constitution, the state is obliged to have blasphemy laws. The bill going through the Dáil would amend the Defamation Act of 1961, which includes blasphemy as a crime. To abolish blasphemy laws, the government would have to hold a referendum to amend the constitution. The duo described the blasphemy law contained in the new bill covering defamation in Ireland as a return to the Middle Ages.

Linehan told the Observer that the justice minister Dermot Ahern, who introduced the bill, should be challenged to define what he meant by blasphemy. This is insanity. Please, Mr Ahern, define the things we can't say, please! Can we say, 'Jesus is gay'? Or can we ask, 'Is God in a biscuit? Could he tell us what it means? It is just insanity. After all, there are things contained in the holy books of one religion that are blasphemy to another religion. The logic behind this comes from Alice in Wonderland. He said the Irish blasphemy law was part of a trend in the west where freedom of expression was being attacked to placate the craziest people on earth.

Linehan said that technically, under the new bill, certain scenes from Father Ted could be deemed blasphemous: In Ted we kind of generally avoided central tenets of belief, because it was not what the show was about. It was about a very bad priest who didn't think about religion a lot. Writers should not be looking over their shoulders. If you are writing a satire today, the Irish government are making it harder to do that.

The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, has defended biblical teachings from a bygone era and said the Church should not be rolled over by culture.

Dr Nazir-Ali spoke as tens of thousands of people, including Sarah Brown, the Prime Minister's wife, joined the annual Pride London march to celebrate homosexual culture. A war of words broke out between Labour and the Conservatives over the issue of homosexuality last week after a minister accused the Tories of having a deep strain of homophobia running through the party.

The bishop's controversial comments will reignite the battle over homosexuality in the Church of England ahead of what promises to be a divisive week for Anglicanism. A new coalition of evangelical and Anglo-Catholic parishes, backed by Dr Nazir-Ali, will get under  way, which critics have claimed is an attempt to create a "church within the church.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Nazir-Ali said: We want to uphold the traditional teaching of the Bible. We believe that God has revealed his purpose about how we are made.

People who depart from this don't share the same faith. They are acting in a way that is not normative according to what God has revealed in the Bible.

The Bible's teaching shows that marriage is between a man and a woman. That is the way to express our sexual nature.

We welcome homosexuals, we don't want to exclude people, but we want them to repent and be changed.

The bishop added that it is not just homosexuals who need to repent, but all who have strayed from the Bible's teaching.

Doctors have voted down a Christian motion at the BMA conference this week that would have given carte blanche for religious medical practitioners to share their faith without restraint. The motion had called for doctors not to be suspended for offering to pray for patients.

The Conference also rejected a motion saying that abortion services should not be advertised on television and calling for values-based education on sex and relationships.

The notion of a values-based education was opposed by members who were worried that the wording was unspecific and that values were perceived differently according to the individual.

Commenting on the decision to retain the rule discouraging doctors from offering prayers to patients, Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: The restrictions are there for a very important reason – to protect patients from embarrassment, irritation and possible conflict with their doctor. If patients want to raise the issue with their doctor or nurse, that is a different matter, but we think the initiative should rest entirely with the patient.

Sanderson said that the NHS was spending more than £40 million on hospital chaplains whose job was to pray and offer spiritual comfort to patients. Sick people want doctors to take care of their physical health and a clergyman to take care of their spiritual health. Doctors and nurses have enough to do without burdening themselves with the need to pray with patients.

A WHAT happens when you put a Muslim imam, a Christian priest, a rabbi and a Buddhist monk in a room with ten atheists?

Turkish television station Kanal T is making a reality TV series putting a Muslim imam, a Christian priest, a rabbi and a Buddhist monk in a room with ten atheists?

The gameshow is for the spiritual guides from the four faiths to seek to convert the non-believers.

The prize will be a pilgrimage to a holy site of the convert's chosen religion – Mecca for Muslims, Jerusalem for Jews, the Vatican for Christians, Tibet for Buddhists.

But religious authorities in Muslim majority Turkey are unamused and are refusing to provide an imam for the show.

Hamza Aktan, chairman of the High Board of Religious Affairs, said: Doing something like this for the sake of ratings is disrespectful to all religions. Religion should not be a subject for entertainment programmes.

We are giving the biggest prize in the world, the gift of belief in God, Seyhan Soylu, the chief executive of Kanal T, said: It doesn't matter which religion you believe in. The important thing is to believe.

AA Muslim NHS dentist faces being struck off after a tribunal ruled he tried to force patients to wear traditional Islamic dress before treating them.

Omer Butt ordered female patients to wear headscarves and forced men to take off gold jewellery before allowing them into the dentists' chair. He even kept a box full of hijabs at his practice so he could lend them to women before checking their teeth.

Butt enforced his religious dress code despite previously being warned by the General Dental Council for the same offence. The GDC has ruled Butt imposed a general dress code at his practice, the Unsworth Smile Clinic in Bury, Lancashire, for more than two years from April 2005.

Butt was also found to have confrontations with two patients known as Ms B and Mr C and their families during that period. The panel will now decide what action to take.

Your evidence was that you regard yourself as a Muslim first and a dentist second and it is clear you were using your position as a dentist to seek to influence patients as to non-clinical issues, committee chairwoman Gill Brown told the dentist.

You have explained you had a moral and religious obligation to persuade other Muslims to comply with Islamic requirements. The committee is satisfied from all the evidence that your attitude went beyond merely seeking to persuade, request or advise Muslim patients and that you sought to impose the dress code upon them.

Update: 'Headscarf' request dentist can work on

Based on article from thescotsman.scotsman.com

Dentist Omer Butt who told Muslim patients he would treat them only if they wore Islamic dress, will be able to continue to practise, a General Dental Council panel has ruled.
It noted that he had changed his approach after he ordered two women to wear headscarfs.

As many as 8,000 cases of forced marriage were reported in England last year, according to a Government report.

The study published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families claims that the overwhelming majority of victims are teenage girls from Pakistan or Bangladesh.

They are often coerced into getting married to preserve family honour rather than allow them to form relationships with boys from other cultures or religions, it is claimed, or to help others move to Britain.

The report says some of the young brides are forced to marry abroad after being taken on a supposed holiday then having their passports confiscated, while others are drugged or subjected to violence or threats if they protest.

Many forced marriages remain hidden because those involved are taken out of school, fear reporting relatives to the authorities or cannot obtain help overseas.

The report calculates that, in 2008, between 5,275 and 7,750 cases were reported to the authorities in England.

The Foreign Office's dedicated unit dealt with 420 cases last year – almost treble the 152 in 2005 – and has now issued guidance to health workers and teachers on how to spot potential victims.

Chris Bryant, a junior minister in the department, said: Nobody should be forced into marriage against their will or without their free and open consent. It is depressing that this practise does still continue, for whatever reason, and as a Government we are determined to do everything we can to put a stop to it and to protect the vulnerable. There is no culture in which this is acceptable in a modern world.

The Irish Minister for Injustice, Dermot Ahern, is to cut proposed fines for blasphemy from €100,000 to €25,000, under changes to be made to the Defamation Act next week.

Ahern claimed the legislation, which passed its committee stage in the Dáil yesterday, has been drafted to make it virtually impossible to get a successful prosecution [for blasphemy] out of it.

A blasphemy prosecution has not been won for a century, while powers already in force under the 1961 Defamation Act have never been used.

The Government is currently amending Ireland's defamation laws, which passed its committee stage in the Dáil last evening.

Under Article 40 of the Constitution, the publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is a criminal offence.

Ahern insists blasphemy must remain a crime, unless the reference to it in the Constitution is removed. It is already there in the 1961 Act, and it is in the Constitution and we have to comply with the Constitution. You are in derogation of your duty if you ignore the Constitution, he told Opposition TDs.

The inclusion of the blasphemy clause was accepted by Government TDs and passed by nine votes to six during yesterday's committee stage debate.

Fine Gael TDs, Charlie Flanagan, Denis Naughten and Jim O'Keeffe, and Labour's Pat Rabbitte criticised the Minister, suggesting he abandon the blasphemy clause, or that he hold a referendum to remove the reference to it in the Constitution.

Naughten said the legislation will be impossible to enforce because it is entirely subjective, and it could threaten Ireland's future economic interests. Islamic countries could retaliate if the DPP did not prosecute some future alleged insult against Islam, he warned.

The fact that the legislation will be unworkable is the classic Irish solution to an Irish solution, said Charlie Flanagan.

The Christian Institute has welcomed the Government's men minded plans to tighten the law on prostitution being debated in the House of Lords on Wednesday as part of the Policing and Crime Bill.

Colin Hart, Director of The Christian Institute, said: Thousands of girls are being trafficked into the UK every year to be forced into prostitution by people who know they can make money from them. This will continue until the demand for prostitutes is cut. We believe that the Government's latest proposals will go some way towards turning the tide on trafficking by deterring people from purchasing sex.

He expressed regret, however, at plans to relax measures dealing with the sale of sex, warning that prostitution was inherently harmful.

The Indian Central Government has announced plans to repeal a 150-year-old law that criminalizes homosexuality in India.

The news has come as a major victory for Gay Right activists even as the government announced its intent to decide after consulting the Church and representatives of other religious groups.

The announcement was made by Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily who would be meeting Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad to discuss on the controversial section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.

The Section 377, which was formulated by the British in the 17th century, terms same sex relationships as a criminal act and makes it punishable with an imprisonment of 10 years.

The Cabinet has mandated to have a re-look at the provision. But we are not going to rush to any conclusion. We will certainly take into account concerns of all sections, including religious groups like Christian church, Moily said at a press conference.

So far the Church has remained mum and is yet to officially voice its discontent against the amending of Section 377. This is a very sensitive issue and the Church is yet to come out with its statements, Bishop Sahu of the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) told Christian Today.

Joseph Dias, general secretary of the Catholic Secular Forum said: The Church's stand on the issue has always been clear. For us it is an unnatural act, against the divine law. We will definitely oppose it.

Al-Qaeda's North Africa wing has threatened to take revenge on France for its opposition to the burka, calling on Muslims to retaliate against the country, the US monitoring service SITE Intelligence reported.

Earlier this month, President Nicolas Sarkozy said the burka, which covers the whole face, was not welcome in the strictly secular country.

Yesterday was the hijab (the Islamic headscarf long banned in French schools) and today, it is the niqab (the full veil), Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, head of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was quoted as saying: We will take revenge for the honour of our daughters and sisters against France and against its interests by every means at our disposal.

The group also called on Muslims to retaliate for what it called French hostility against the community and its attempt to obstruct Islam's practice on its territory. For us, the mujahedeen ... we will not remain silent to such provocations and injustices, Abdul Wadud said without elaborating, according to SITE.

We call upon all Muslims to confront this hostility with greater hostility, and to counter France's efforts to divide male and female believers from their faith with a greater effort ... (by) adherence to the teachings of their Islamic sharia.

For almost 30 years, one of the classic comedy films has been unofficially banned in Glasgow, after it was branded blasphemous by councillors on its release.

Monty Python's Life of Brian will finally get a screening after it was granted a licence by the city council – the last of 39 across the UK that imposed the initial ban.

The stars of the film, including Michael Palin, John Cleese and Terry Jones, will be invited to a special screening at the Glasgow Film Theatre in September.

In sharp contrast to the furore of 29 years ago, the city council's licensing committee did not receive a single objection to the application heard yesterday.

The move was welcomed by film experts for bringing an end to a cinematic anachronism.

Allison Gardner, head of cinemas at the GFT, said: The film has been widely available to the general public on video and DVD and has been screened on terrestrial television. None of these events has caused widespread offence, or in any way destroyed the sanctity of the Church or undermined its place in our wider society. I believe the film is seen as an affectionate and inspired depiction of the life of Jesus from a perspective that is humorous, rather than blasphemous.

But Christian nutters said the decision to grant the film a 15 certificate was a reflection of declining standards in society, and called it a sad day.

Stephen Green, director of the radical campaign group Christian Voice, which has organised protests against shows such as Jerry Springer: The Opera, said: We know Glasgow was the last place in the country to keep the ban in place, as the only other area, Aberystwyth, had a screening a couple of months ago. It is a bit of a shame it's now been granted a licence in Glasgow, but it shows how much we have let standards slip.

Comment: Scotland 'Rogered'

6th July 2009, thanks to Chris

Life of Brian was shown on the welsh language channel S4C when it was banned in Swansea and Aberystwyth sure that the same would be the case in Scotland being it was shown on channel 4.

A member of Iran's Parliament reportedly revealed last week that the country's Parliamentary Committee has stricken the mandatory death penalty for those who leave Islam from proposals for an amended penal code.

Citing a BBC Persian news service report, UK-based Christian Solidarity International (CSW) announced that a member of Iran's Legal and Judicial Committee of Parliament, Ali Shahrokhi, had told the Iranian state news agency (IRNA) of the decision to eliminate the mandatory death penalty amendment, which had drawn international protests.

The Parliamentary Committee had come under intense international pressure to drop clauses from the Islamic Penal Code Bill that allowed stoning and made death the mandatory punishment for apostates.

CSW said that the bill must now pass through a final parliamentary vote before being sent to Iran's most influential body, the Guardian Council, which will rule on it.

The council is made up of six conservative theologians appointed by Iran's Supreme Leader and six jurists nominated by the judiciary and approved by Parliament. This body has the power to veto any bill it deems inconsistent with the constitution and Islamic law.