For many years, polls have shown that the public neither understands the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ratings nor trusts them. Nevertheless, people assume the MPAA is an impartial body and that the ratings have some basis in moral, ethical or child-development standards. When the public's confusion drifts over into the press, it is time once again to clarify the issue.

The rating for the recent bigoted and pornographic comedy Bruno is a prime example. It should have been NC-17. Some countries even banned it.

Bruno contains not only graphic scenes of sodomy, intercourse and sadomasochism, but also a graphic oral sex scene and a close-up of a male sex organ. What arguably is worse, if that is possible, are the movie's attacks on blacks, Jews and Christians.

Because the MPAA was helping one of its member's movies by giving it an R rating instead of an NC-17, we decided to ask local authorities to view the movie and rate it according to their community standards. Community ratings boards used to be the norm. At one time, there were more than 300 of them in the United States. In response to our inquiry letter, several district attorneys said they would look at the movie to consider re-rating it.

We also told the public about some of the horrendous things in the movie. This is not censorship. Censorship by definition is prior restraint by the government. Because the movie already had been made, our action couldn't be prior restraint. Also, because we are not a government agency, we cannot censor anything. Anyone, however, can warn family, friends and community, and we did just that.

...Read full article

From an illuminating TV interview with Sheikh Yousuf Al-Ahmad, a professor of Islamic law at Al-ImamUniversity in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Interviewer: A year ago, Sheikh Saleh Al-Lahidan issued a fatwa that made all hell break loose. He demanded that owners [of liberal Arab TV channels be placed on trial] and repent. Do you support Sheikh Al-Lahidan’s demand?

Sheikh Yousuf Al-Ahmad: I believe all Muslim scholars support him in this.

[...]

I believe that one of our problems is that we continue to bury our heads in the sand, and talk about 'Lebanese' TV channels, as if we are being honest. Take LBC, for example. We all know who owns it. We should say to [the owner] Al-Walid bin Talal: Beware. The same is true of MBC TV, Al-Arabiya TV, the ART and Rotana channels - all these [Saudi] channels serve to destroy Islam and the Muslims.

[...]

Regarding these base channels that I have mentioned, and others like them - I have no doubt whatsoever that their danger to the Islamic nation is no less than that of the Zionist Jews, or of the Crusader Americans in Iraq and elsewhere.

Interviewer: What led you to such an extremist view? Note that you are equating channels owned by Muslims, by Saudi citizens, with the Jews.

Sheikh Yousuf Al-Ahmad: I wasn’t equating them. I said they are more dangerous. I was being precise. In my view, the deadly poison that they are spreading has reached the bone marrow.

[...]

The people who spread corruption in the land - whether highway robbers, drug dealers, or the owners of these TV channels, who are even more dangerous... These channels broadcast corruption and nudity. They are all people who spread corruption in the land, and they should be tried in an Islamic court of law and sentenced to death. This [fatwa] is clearly in accordance with Islamic law. There’s no doubt about it.

[...]

Our human nature may tell us that stoning is unacceptable, but this is a punishment decreed by Allah. If Allah decrees death - this is how it should be. If the Islamic scholars ruled that the punishment for drug dealers is death, this is how it should be.

I believe that [the TV channel owners] are more dangerous than all of these. Forget about whether or not they should be killed - we demand that they face trial in an Islamic court of law.

I call upon the good, honorable businessmen to contribute their millions in order to hire lawyers to file Islamic lawsuits against these TV channels owners, and to persecute them legally. I call upon lawyers and good people in Saudi Arabia, in the Gulf states, in Egypt, in Yemen, and everywhere, to banish them from all Muslim countries.

A new phenomena is spreading this Ramadan. More than one local TV soap opera has been stopped from broadcasting by Kuwait's Ministry of Information. Others self censored in fear of ministry action.

The most famous case was the Sotik Wasal TV soap, broadcasted on the private Kuwaiti satellite channel, Scope TV. This comedy soap was lampooning members of parliament and ministers. Most target politicians didn't protest against it and refused the resolution of the Ministry of Information to ban it. But now Ramadan has been cited as an excuse to bam the programme.

In a statement made by the Kuwait Society for Human Rights (KSHR), the organization condemned such acts by the Cabinet and the Ministry of Information. They believe all cultural and intellectual works should be allowed to be broadcasted if done so within the law and that afterwards, the victims can go to court to demand their rights if he or she thinks their rights were violated by the works. The society also demanded that more freedom be exercised and said that censorship should only be put in place in
accordance with the law.

Religious police in Saudi Arabia are cracking down on summer festivals and circuses intended by the government to boost domestic tourism, because they violate strict religious restrictions on singing, dancing, the mixing of unrelated men and women, and evil circus performances, Reuters reported.

Circus acts such as fire-eating and lying on a bed of glass are seen as forms of magic outlawed by Sharia law.

These acts contradict the faith and must not be done, taught, spread or encouraged, Reuters quoted religious police spokesman Abdullah al-Mashiti: They must be fought and those performing them must be reported and punished so as to be deterred and their evil restricted.

Unfortunately such actions carried on by religious police do not adhere to the official political will and they sabotage the government efforts to improve and maintain the internal tourism industry, Reuters quoted Mahmoud Sabbagh, a Saudi newspaper columnist.

So what is blasphemy? According to the Oxford Dictionary, it is talk or act reviling a sacred person or thing. In reality, nobody is quite sure what this actually means.

Were those of us who said, back in 1968, that Pope Paul VI was either wrong, or misguided, or just plain foolish, to publish an encyclical outlawing all forms of artificial contraception committing blasphemy?

Is it blasphemous to say that the Church of Scientology is the creation of a dead charlatan, or to claim, as French prosecutors have done, that it is more of a mechanism for making money than saving souls?

Was Dan Brown guilty of blasphemy when he said in his 2003 international bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, that Jesus had sex with Mary Magdalene? This was the contention that also led to calls for the banning of the 1988 movie, The Last Temptation of Christ, directed by Martin Scorsese.

...Read full article

A Muslim leader in Italy criticised Internazionale coach Jose Mourinho for comments the Portuguese made about Ramadan.

Inter's Ghana midfielder Sulley Muntari was hauled off after just half an hour of a 1-1 home draw against Bari due to the former Portsmouth man's poor performance. Afterwards, Mourinho suggested Muntari had played badly due to a lack of energy associated with his fast.

But Mohamed Nour Dachan, president of the Union of Islamic communities and organisations in Italy, claimed the coach has gotten it wrong. He told Sky. A practising (Muslim) player is not weakened because we know from the Institute of Sports Medicine that mental and psychological stability can give a sportsman an extra edge on the field. A player who is a believing Christian, Jew or Muslim is certainly calmer psychologically and that improves his performance.

Muntari is not the only player in Italy to be faced with this problem, although many other Muslim footballers choose not to practise Ramadan. Siena striker Abdelkader Ghezzal revealed he simply cannot fast and play at the same time.

Based on article from google.com

Italian Politicians and Muslim leaders have sprung to the defence of Jose Mourinho after reported threats were made against the Inter Milan coach on extremist websites.

British newspaper Daily Star claimed that death threats had been made against Mourinho on some Islamic sites following comments the Portuguese made relating to Ramadan.

The president of the Union of Islamic communities and organisations in Italy (UCOII) Mohamed Nour Dachan responded to the threats by saying: We firmly condemn the threats made to the Inter Milan coach Jose Mourinho with whom we want to express our solidarity.

Claudio D'Amico, a politicain for the right-wing Lega Nord, also spoke out in support of Mourinho and hit out at Muslim extremists: As usual there are Muslims who want to apply liberty of expression and democracy in their own fashion. People cannot even make a simple observation, such as during Ramadan a Muslim who doesn't eat has less energy, without inciting someone's wrath. What Mourinho said is not offensive to anyone, especially the Islamic religion, but a simple banal observation.

A judge has sent two young Christian women back to jail to consider their options after they refused to deny Christ in court.

Maryam Rostampoor and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad were asked if they would renounce their new faith and return to Islam – but they refused. When asked if they had any regrets over becoming Christians, they said they had none. The judge reportedly sent them back to their cells at the notorious Evin prison in Tehran to think about it.

The women have been held without charge since their arrest on 5 March, although some reports say they have been threatened with apostasy charges, reports Release International.

A 10-year-old bride was returned to her 80-year-old husband by her father who discovered her at the home of her aunt with whom she has been hiding for around 10 days.

A Saudi local newspaper said the husband, who denies he is 80 in spite of claims by the girl's family, accused the aunt of meddling in his affairs: My marriage is not against Shariah. It included the elements of acceptance and response by the father of the bride.

He added that he had been engaged to his wifés elder sister and that this broke off as she wanted to continue with her education: In light of this, her father offered his younger daughter. I was allowed to have a look at her according to Shariah and found her acceptable.

Christians came out in their droves to protest against a Marilyn Manson concert in California.

Demonstrators gathered outside the Pomona Fox Theater in Los Angeles County waiving placards and chanting pro-Christian messages.

One of the protesters, Rod Warner, told the San Bernardino Sun: The only thing I'm out here to accomplish is what the lord, Jesus Christ, through my belief, tells me to accomplish. And that's take his gospel to the lost.

Every shirt you see here depicts nothing but death. They can say they're Christians if they want to, but the Lord says worship me with your heart not your mouth.

Marilyn Manson fan Cesar Haro was unimpressed with the protests, saying: a. "We think arguing with these people is cool ... but we do think it's very disrespectful, though. They're disrespecting our area and our right to be here.

Despite the protests, the show went ahead as scheduled.

A BBC report on Radio 4’s Sunday programme has highlighted some of the religious liberty issues facing Christian street preachers.

The report included a recording of a recent incident where a street preacher was told by police officers that it is a criminal offence to identify homosexuality as a sin. They said this to Andy Robertson, an evangelist with the Open-Air Mission (OAM), even though he had never mentioned homosexuality in his preaching.

Mark Jones, an employment lawyer who specialises in religious liberty issues, told the programme: Giving offence of itself is not against the law. There is no protection that I may have from somebody simply walking up to me in the street and saying something that I might disagree with or I might be offended by.

Earlier this month it was reported that a street preacher had been arrested after reading out Bible passages in Maidstone, Kent.

Last summer a street preacher in Birmingham was arrested after he had mentioned homosexuality while preaching about sin and its consequences.

The Christian Institute’s Mike Judge told the Radio 4 programme why more cases like this are taking place. He said: I think the reason for this increase has been there is a diversity and equality agenda that doesn’t seem to allow for Christians to express their faith in a way where other people may disagree with them. He said that sensitivity about issues such as minority faiths and sexual orientation has put police officers and local authorities under huge pressure to be seen to be responding. He added that sometimes you get over-zealous public officials who want to step in and say, ‘you can’t say that because someone might be offended’, and that over-zealousness is I think part of the problem.

Yet another Christian, was beaten and imprisoned and is facing a possible ‘death penalty’ over false blasphemy charges in Pakistan.

International Christian Concern (ICC) reported that the Christian teen Safian Masih from Gujranwala city in Punjab province lived in a mixed neighborhood of both Christians and Muslims. On 8 August, the young daughter of one of his Muslim neighbors demanded that Safian bring her items from the grocery store. Safian refused, and she slapped him. Safian slapped her back, and the argument escalated to include both families, it said.

After the altercation, the girl’s parents accused Safian of trying to rape their daughter. When other Muslims heard this, they gathered and severely beat him. After beating him, they submitted a report to the police accusing Safian of rape, and had him handed over
to police custody and jail, the report stated.

According to ICC source, two days later, on 10 August, the Muslims changed their story and accused Safian of blasphemy instead of rape. They claimed that the girl was attending a madrassa to learn about the Qur’an, and that when Safian encountered her he took her Qur’an and tore out its pages. After hearing this accusation, some Muslims attacked Safian again and beat him so badly that they forced him to “admit” that he had “blasphemed” the Qur’an. They then handed him over to the police again.

On 14 August, a Muslim mob gathered and demanded that Safian be put to death for blasphemy, the report said. The mob also threatened to kill anyone who helped Safian or his family.

Washington D.C-based ICC, a Christian advocacy for persecuted Christians around the world has strongly condemned the blasphemy charge and imprisonment of the young Pakistani Christian.

ICC’s Jonathan Racho said: In Pakistan, Christians live as second-class citizens and repeatedly face violence from the Muslims majority. Muslims easily exacerbate small disagreements and call for the execution or even murder of Christians. While ICC does not condone Safian’s slapping of a Muslim girl, it is unconscionable for Muslims to call for his death.

Australia breached international obligations on human and indigenous rights by imposing radical restrictions on Aborigines during a crackdown on child abuse in Outback communities, a United Nations expert said.

James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on indigenous human rights, said a 12-day fact-finding tour of Australia revealed that the Aboriginal minority still suffers from entrenched racism.

His comments came as the government launched its latest attempt to address the inequality, ill health and poverty among Australia's 500,000 indigenous people. The government said it would set up a national representative body this year to advise it on policies relating to Aborigines.

Anaya, a University of Arizona human rights law professor, said he was particularly concerned by restrictions imposed on Aborigines in the Northern Territory in response to a 2006 government-commissioned report that found child sex abuse was rampant in remote indigenous communities.

The government suspended its own anti-discrimination law so it could ban alcohol and hardcore pornography in Aboriginal communities and restrict how Aborigines spend their welfare cheques. The restrictions do not apply to Australians of other races.

These measures overtly discriminate against Aboriginal peoples, infringe their right of self-determination and stigmatise already stigmatised communities, Anaya said. The measures were too broad and had been imposed for too long, despite a lack of evidence that the ban on alcohol had reduced alcohol abuse, he said.

The restrictions were incompatible with Australia's obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, he said.

Nutters voice a rather predicable solution to the discrimination

28th August 2009. Based on article from au.christiantoday.com

Bans on X-rated pornography in Northern Territory indigenous communities should be extended to all Australian communities, the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) said.

ACL Managing Director Jim Wallace said that rather than lifting critically needed bans on pornography in NT communities in response to United Nation concerns that they are discriminatory, the bans needed to be applied across Australia so that they assist all communities badly affected by pornography.

The Little Children Are Sacred report released by the NT Government in June 2007 identified pornography as one of the main drivers of an epidemic of sexual abuse which included the rape of babies and a case of a 17-year-old forcing younger children to watch pornography and then act it out, Wallace said.

It once and for all put paid to suggestions that pornography isn’t harmful to children.

Given the way pornography helped fuel documented cases of sexual abuse in NT indigenous communities it would be irresponsible in the extreme to put more children at risk by lifting the pornography bans there.

However, there is certainly a case to be made that the bans are discriminatory when this situation wouldn’t be confined to indigenous communities. There would be many other communities in Australia - even some in our major cities - which are isolated by lack of opportunity and social disadvantage and would be as badly affected by pornography. Surely all children need protecting.

Wallace called on the Federal Government to work with all States and Territories to deal with the issue of pornography: For a start the production and sale of X-rated pornography in the ACT – and the territory’s thriving mail order business to the States – should be banned. Attorneys-General from all jurisdictions should then be jointly deciding on a national approach to protect Australians from this serious problem.

Malaysian Muslims will not be allowed to attend a concert in Kuala Lumpur next month by US hip-hop stars the Black Eyed Peas, officials say.

The ban is over the show's sponsorship by Irish beer giant Guinness, as part of its 250th anniversary celebrations.

Guinness will not be allowed to sell its famous black stout at the event or use its logo in publicity material.

Malaysia's majority Malays are subject to Islamic laws, while the large Chinese and Indian minorities are not.

The website for the Black Eyed Peas' event asks: Are you a non-Muslim aged 18 years and above?, and bars access if the answer is no.

Previous pop concerts, including one by the Black Eyed Peas in 2007, have been open to Muslims.

Officials at the Culture Ministry said the show would not normally have been approved because of the connection with alcohol, but ministers let it go ahead in the hope that it would boost tourism, says the BBC's Robin Brant in Kuala Lumpur.

An Indian state government has succumbed to an unreasonable demand by a specific interest group, and banned a work of art. This time, it is the acclaimed play, Charandas Chor (Charandas, the Thief), by the late Habib Tanvir.

The play is in Chhattisgarhi, the language of one of India’s newest states, Chhattisgarh, which was carved out of Madhya Pradesh.

The state government banned the play because a sect called the Satnam Panth, or the followers of the true name, protested against the play, saying it showed their beliefs in a bad light.

Satnami Panth emerged in the 19th century, comprising about a sixth of Chhattisgarh’s population. They reject Hindu idolatry, placing faith in a guru (a hereditary title), and are made up of socially-disadvantaged groups from the state.

This ban is strange on many levels. Firstly, Charandas Chor has been around since 1974, and it has already been made into a critically-praised film by Shyam Benegal, one of the leading directors of the Indian new wave of the 1970s. Secondly, the cast of the play in various productions over the year has been made up of local actors, several of whom have been Satnamis. Over the years no one has objected to this play. Another point is that a character in the play speaks the offending lines, but that does not make those opinions facts, nor do they reflect Tanvir’s view; even if they did, this should not matter. Finally, it once again demonstrates the state’s acquiescence to any group of aggrieved individuals, by banning a controversial work, thus narrowing the space of public conversation in India.

Bulgaria's Orthodox Church has repeated its call for Bulgarians to boycott Madonna's August 29 concert, accusing the controversial singer of showing disrespect to Christianity.

About 50 000 people are expected to attend the show at Sofia's Vasil Levski Stadium.

The Church issued a statement expressing disapproval and disagreement with Saturday's event, and says the American performer openly violates holy Christian symbols.

Tuesday's statement accused Madonna of displaying a disrespectful and intolerant attitude to Christians' religious feelings on her ongoing Sticky and Sweet tour.

The gig this Saturday reportedly coincides with another religious holy day, in which the region recognises the beheading of Saint John the Baptist by spending the day fasting.

Hector Aleem was arrested in January 2009 on a blasphemy charge. My father was given bail but now many other cases are being lodged against Hector Aleem by the FIA (federal investigation agency).

On 24 April 2009 inspector Raja Wajid and Ahmed Ali went to the Adiala Jail to meet Hector Aleem. There they threatened him that they will lodge so many cases against Hector that he will not be able to bear these cases.

On 4th May 2009 they lodged cases against him and took him to the Sadiqabad police station, there many members of Sunni tehreek and maulvies were present and they beat Hector together and tortured him they took him to the roof and tried to throw him down, than they made him naked and spat on him and abused him and called him CHOORA (the toilet cleaner). They kept him in the custody for 4 days now they are continuously filing the cases against him and after every 15 or 20 days they file another case on him and take him to the police station and beat him.

FIA is the most corrupt agency of Pakistan; it’s their way to trap people. There are many examples of Christian who visits any foreign country and when they come back to Pakistan FIA (Federal Investigation agency) arrest them, beat them and arrest them in the offence of human trafficking. Why not any Muslim is arrested in this case? because now days Pakistan is no more than a hell for Christians, the recent situation and some previous incidents shows that blasphemy is too easy, it’s a tool for Muslims to beat and destroy Christian.

FIA is now supporting the Sunni Tehreek; they are doing this together. When Hector was in FIA lock up, the members of Sunni tehreek were continuously saying that give him to us, we will take him to swat and there our brother Talibans will kill him because he has done the blasphemy.

When Hector was arrested in a blasphemy case there was no proof against him and now there isn’t any proof against these FIA cases also. They are filing these cases against him because they wanted to show the world that Hector is a criminal. 

Hector’s life is under threat, one day they will kill him in the jail. I am telling you that one day this will happen so please it’s my request to pressurize the government to release him because there are many examples of blasphemy victims who were killed by the policemen.

So I really want you all to think about his situation. And pray for him and his family and if possible please pressurize the government of Pakistan to release Hector Aleem.

I am working alone and there is no one to help me, please help me and do something in favour of Mr. Hector Aleem.

Female students in the Gaza Strip will be required to wear head coverings and full-length robes beginning this school year, the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip have announced.

According to the new regulations, any female student that does not attend class in the proper attire will be sent home.

The ministry also has ruled that male teachers cannot teach in girls' schools and women are not allowed to teach at boys' schools.

These guidelines join an increasing amount of reports from Gaza residents saying that modesty patrols were forcing women to wear head coverings, especially at Gaza's beaches, and that they were inspecting isolated cars in order to prevent unmarried couples being alone together.

Malaysia’s opposition Islamic party have protested against a pop band’s upcoming concert, branding it a grave insult to Muslims who are observing the fasting month of Ramadan.

The youth wing of the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) slammed the government for approving the concert by Danish band Michael Learns to Rock scheduled for Sept. 5.

This concert will certainly bring idle people out and destroy their morals, PAS Youth chief, Nasrudin Hassan Tantawi, said in a statement.

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno has become the first woman in Malaysia to be sentenced to a caning after being caught drinking beer in a beach resort.

Shukarno who lives in Singapore with her husband has also paid a fine of £860.

The woman will receive six lashes at a woman's prison next week in what is being viewed as an example of the growing influence of Islamic hardliners on the country. The harsh sentence has provoked anger among women's rights groups who fear it is another sign of the creeping influence of conservative Islam on Malaysian society.

In the northern backwater state of Kalentan ruled by the hardline Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, authorities have decreed that supermarkets must have separate checkout queues for men and women and beaches be segregated. Young couples caught sitting too close together on park benches in the state capital, Kota Baru, are hunted down by the city's moral enforcers and fined up to £285 in Sharia courts.

Kartika was arrested in July last year in a hotel nightclub in the beach resort of Cherating during a raid by the state's religious department and admitted drinking beer.

An Islamic court fined her and ordered her to be caned at Kajang women's prison next week, but spared her a jail term of up to three years.

Kartika has been ordered to report to the jail next Monday, where she will be given a medical check-up to ensure she is fit to receive the punishment. She could then be held for seven days, but will be released immediately after the caning.

Update: inhuman and degrading punishment

21st August 2009. See article from google.com

Human rights group Amnesty International has urged Malaysia not to cane a Muslim model for drinking beer and to abolish the cruel and degrading punishment.

Amnesty said Malaysian authorities should immediately revoke the sentence to cane her and abolish the practice of caning altogether. Caning is a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and is prohibited under international human rights law," it said in a statement.

Update: Delayed

24th August 2009. See article from edition.cnn.com

The woman who was set to become the first woman caned in Malaysia for drinking beer in public, was inexplicably spared her sentence Monday, her father said.

Authorities had picked up Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno from her father's house Monday morning and were taking her to a prison in the eastern state of Pahang when the van turned around and brought her back.

They sent her back to the house. They said the top official asked them not to bring her to Kuala Lumpur, said Kartika's father, Shukarno Abdul Muttalib.

It was not immediately known whether authorities had dropped the sentence or postponed it. It was also not clear who had ordered Kartika returned.

Update: Postponed

25th August 2009. See article from guardian.co.uk

An official said that Shukarno would still be caned, but that the attorney general's office had advised that the punishment be delayed until after Ramadan – a period of fasting and prayer – for compassionate reasons.

The sentence is not being cancelled, Mohamad Sahfri Abdul Aziz, a state legislator in charge of religious affairs, told the Associated Press.

Update: Caning Malaysia's Reputation

26th August 2009. Based on article from news.bbc.co.uk

A Malaysian court has reportedly ordered a review of the caning sentence given to a woman caught drinking beer. The main judge at Pahang's Islamic court put the caning on hold pending the review, saying the sentence was too extreme, the Star newspaper said.

Analysts say the government fears that the punishment could damage Malaysia's reputation abroad.

According to an article in the Malaysia Star newspaper, and similar comments by women's minister Shahrizat Jalil, the chief judge of Pahang state appeals court has ordered the sentence to be deferred pending the review. Shahrizat Jalil called the verdict excessive, and said it projected a cruel image of Malaysia: The overriding view was that the sentence meted out was too harsh and is not commensurate with the offence.

Prime Minister Najib Razak has urged Kartika to appeal. But instead of doing this, Kartika has asked that her punishment is carried out in public, triggering a debate over the use of Islamic laws in the moderate Muslim country.

Update: Mosque officials to become drinks snitches

26th August 2009. Based on article from islamonline.net

Mosque officials in Selangor, Malaysia's most populated state, have been authorized to arrest Muslims drinking alcohol in public, a move likely to court controversy in the multi-ethnic Asian Muslim heavyweight, the daily Star reported.

These officials have been appointed to assist the Selangor Islamic Religious Council and the Selangor Islamic Religious Department, Selangor Executive Councilor Hasan Ali told reporters.

Under the scheme, imams, muezzins and other mosque officials would be authorized to arrest offenders. They would be first given training on how to enforce the new procedures under Section 18 of the Shari`ah Criminal Procedure Enactment 2003.

Those who would be arrested should not be kept in custody for more than 24 hours, he added: They have to be surrendered to the police or religious authorities within that period.

According to the law, alcohol drinkers would pay a fine of RM3,000 (i.e. $852) or jailed not more than two years. Those caught buying, selling, displaying for sale or storing alcohol could be charged under the same section and fined RM5,000 ($1420) or jailed for not more than three years or both.

The opposition Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), part of a three-party grouping led by Anwar Ibrahim, earlier this month called for the full implementation of an alcohol ban in Selangor.

Sebastian Faulks, the best-selling author, has risked angering Muslims after claiming the Koran has no ethical dimension and dismissing the words of Muhammad as the rantings of a schizophrenic.

He said the Islamic holy scripture was a one-dimensional book that has little literary value, and added that when compared with the Bible its message seemed barren.

Faulks has recently read a translation of the Koran to help him write his latest novel, A Week in December, to be published in September. The cast of characters include the wife of Britain's youngest MP, a female Tube driver, a hedge fund manager and a Glasgow-born Islamic terrorist recruit named Hassan al Rashid.

In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, Faulks said: It's a depressing book. It really is. It's just the rantings of a schizophrenic. It's very one-dimensional, and people talk about the beauty of the Arabic and so on, but the English translation I read was, from a literary point of view, very disappointing.

Faulks claims that the Koran offers no interesting stories compared with the Bible, and simply tells its readers to believe in God or burn forever.

And in a move that is likely to anger many Muslims, he calls into question the worth of Muhammad: Jesus, unlike Muhammad, had interesting things to say. He proposed a revolutionary way of looking at the world: love you neighbour, love your enemy, be kind to people, the meek shall inherit the Earth. Muhammad had nothing to say to the world other than, 'If you don't believe in God you will burn forever.'

Ajmal Masroor, an imam and spokesman for the Islamic Society for Britain, says he does not recognise Faulks' description of the Koran. He said Faulks' statement runs the risk of stirring religious hatred against Muslims: Attacks on Islam are nothing new, but the danger is this will have a "drip, drip" effect. People don't seem to understand the consequences of saying things like this could be quite severe. History tells us it can encourage hatred.

Offsite: The book I really can't put down

25th August 2009. See article from telegraph.co.uk by Sebastian Faulks

There seems to be an almost inevitable irritation when novelists in Britain and America, with their long history of free speech, touch on matters Islamic. I am not the first and probably won't be the last to have ruffled some feathers, though I feel sad about this, because my new novel, A Week in December, is carefully researched, and, among its main characters, presents a hugely sympathetic and loving Muslim family; it is furthermore made clear that the parents' kindness and good citizenship spring not just from being naturally good eggs but from their devotion to the Koran.

...read the full article

An Iranian man convicted of adultery is to be stoned to death despite a moratorium being agreed by the judiciary last year.

Naghi Ahmadi was sentenced to death by stoning in June last year in the northern city of Sari, after he visited a married woman's home in the night while her husband was away working in another city, the Sarmayeh newspaper reported.

According to Ahmadi's lawyer, the verdict was declared after the woman and his client confessed to their adultery. The report did not explain why the woman was not convicted.

A year ago the judiciary said it would scrap the punishment in Iran's new Islamic penal code.

The outlines of the moratorium have been adopted by the Tehran parliament but are yet to be debated by its members.

A woman was arrested in Kuwit on the first day of Ramadan for breaking her fast by chewing gum.

According to sources, security officers from the Hawalli governorate spotted the woman chewing gum at 5:30 am while they were on patrol duty.

When they questioned her about the act, she said she had the personal freedom to do as she pleased.

She was referred to the authorities and a case was registered.

Taliban fighters carried out their threat to chop fingers off Afghan voters, election observers said.

Before Thursday's presidential ballot, the militants had threatened to hack off fingers seen stained by the indelible ink used to identify voters and prevent fraud.

Nader Nadery, of the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan (Fefa) said two voters had each lost their finger in southern Kandahar province, which is considered the Taliban's birthplace.

Threats, violence and disillusionment all combined to keep voters away from polling stations after the Taliban had called for a boycott of the elections.

On July 19, Fathima Rifqa Bary, 17 hopped aboard a bus in Ohio and ran away to Florida. She did so because of the alleged abuse she has suffered at the hands of her father, as well as her fear that he will soon kill her.

Fathima was placed in foster care by the Florida Department of Children and Families, rather than send her back to Ohio with her parents, Judge Daniel Dawson has scheduled a hearing for September 3, at which time a dependency petition will be argued.

In a Youtube video, Fathima explains why she had to run away.

I'm a Christian, and my parents are Muslim. They are extremely devout. They threatened to kill me. … You guys wouldn't understand. Islam is very different than you guys think. They have to kill me. My blood is now halal, which means that because I am now a Christian, I'm from a Muslim background, it's an honor. If they love God more than me, they have to do this. I'm fighting for my life. ...

Update: Allowed to leave home

23rd January 2010. See article from dailymail.co.uk

A runaway teenage girl who converted from Islam to Christianity has reached a court settlement that allows her to live away from her Muslim parents.

Rifqa Bary, 17, will stay in a foster home under state custody in Columbus, America, until she turns 18 in August.

Bary's attorney read a statement in Franklin County Juvenile Court, saying that the girl and her parents love and respect each other and will try to resolve their differences through counselling.

All female staff at Dubai Bank, Muslim and non-Muslim, must wear a shailah (head scarf) and abaya (black cloak covering the whole body) starting this Ramadan, Gulf News has learnt.

A memo sent to staff says the bank has decided that all Muslim and non-Muslim female staff must wear a shailah and abaya.

A Dubai Bank official who would not reveal his name said a memo was issued to this effect by the human resources manager, informing employees that starting from the first day of Ramadan all female employees must wear a shailah and abaya regardless of their religion.

Our bank is Islamic and must follow Sharia in all respects, which will satisfy our clients, he said. While the decision takes effect beginning first of Ramadan, it has become a rule and part of the dress code for female employees at all times.

Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist, is under attack by a right wing Christian hate group. The Illinois Family Institute, led by Laurie Higgins, is harassing well known atheist blogger Mehta.

According to Mehta, a high school math teacher, Higgins emailed his boss, his high school’s entire administrative staff, and every school board member to inform them about Mehta's private life as an atheist blogger. The attempt was to smear Mehta, claiming Mehta was unprofessional and unsuitable to be teaching because of his affiliation with atheism.

Demanding justice and the rule of law for Egyptian Copts
Tuesday 18th August 2009, 10am-4pm
The White House, Washington, USA

President Mubarak of Egypt will visit the USA for the first time in five years and meet with President Obama in the White House on Tuesday, 8/18/09.

During Mubarak rule of 28 years, there have been more than 1500 violent attacks against the Egyptian Christians (Copts) which resulted in loss of lives, injuries and destruction of churches and property.

Lately, such attacks increased significantly in frequency and severity and the attacking criminals are encouraged by the total impunity as the government does not/not prosecute them.

In the rare cases when the cases went to trials, as a face saving by the government, the charges were dismissed by the fanatic judges regardless of graveness of the crime and the overwhelming evidence.

To protest this blatant discrimination, demand justice and rule of law, the American Copts will hold a peaceful demonstration in front of the White House, on Pennsylvania Ave., between Madison and 15 Streets, from 10:00am to 4:00pm. Please come, invite others, and join us.

Update: Open Letter to Barack Obama

15th August 2009

Dear President Obama,

Your speech to the Islamic World from Cairo on June 4, 2009 was historic. You were the first American President to identify and to address the plight of Egypt's Coptic Christians by name. Now you have the chance to translate your words into actions.

On August 18, 2009, President Mubarak will visit you in the White house to discuss plans for peace in the Middle East. We wish you success as we fully understand world peace is impossible without peace in the Middle East. However, we want to remind you of a woefully neglected issue that is critical to peace in the region.

The Copts of Egypt total around 12 million representing approximately 15% of Egypt's population of 80 million. Yet, they have been neglected and marginalized and most commonly are targeted for systematic discrimination and persecution.

• 15% of Egypt's population is represented by less than ¼ % of its parliamentary elected officials. Mr. Mubarak has done nothing to rectify the shameful imbalance.
   
• During the Mubarak Era, Copts have suffered over 200 major terrorist attacks on their persons, homes, businesses and churches. Most often, perpetrators are not arrested, and those arrested are seldom convicted. The attacks are on the increase with over 20 occurring within the last 3 months alone.
   
• A government policy limits hiring and promoting Copts to high ranking jobs. Many influential positions are completely out of reach for Christians.
   
• An antiquated law from the Ottoman Empire governs church constructions and refurbishing. Building a new church requires a Presidential Decree and repairing existing ones requires permits from regional governors.

President Obama, Please remind Mr. Mubarak that while it is nice to help others, charity begins at home. The Coptic citizens of his nation are badly in need of his intervention to address their plight. Without solving the Coptic issue there will be no real peace in the Middle East.

Update: Report from the Washington Protest

22nd August 2009, Based on article from pakistanchristianpost.com, thanks to Morris Sadek

Dear President Obama,

Egyptian Coptic leaders included Voice of the Copts' president Dr. Ashraf Ramelah and National American Coptic Assembly's Morris Sadek, representatives of the American Coptic Union, and other Egyptian Coptic leaders representing the Coptic American organizations around the country.

During the  August 18 protest near the White House, Coptic leaders called for President Obama to demand that Egyptian President Mubarak recognize the human rights and dignity of Egyptian Coptic Christians who are oppressed in Egyptian. Speakers pointed out the ongoing oppression of Egyptian Copts, who are treated as second-class citizens, how Egyptian Copts are pressured into accepting "Islam by force," and how Egyptian Coptic girls are kidnapped and raped. Coptic leaders called upon Americans to contact President Obama and to contact their Congressional representatives and demand support for the human rights and freedom of religion of Christians Copts oppressed in Egypt.

Protesters included people of all ages chanting and marching together for the human rights for the Copts, including a number of girls, boys, and small children who bravely held signs and stood responsible for Copts inalienable human rights.

Protesters chanted for freedom, equality, and justice for the Christians in Egypt, stating that "Christian blood is not cheap," demanding an end to kidnapping and raping of Christian girls, and calling for equality for Christians in Egypt as citizens.

A Muslim man has been sentenced to life in prison after killing his German-born wife because she was too independent, a court in Germany heard.

The Kurdish man, identified only as Onder B, was found guilty today of stabbing his wife in the eyes, beating her with a billiard cue and then running over her in his car.

His mother-in-law had once told him to be strict with her strong-willed daughter, Mujde.

On New Year's Eve 2008 he stabbed his 18-year-old wife Mujde 46 times and beat her with a billiard cue. And because she was already so disfigured from the stabbing and beating that she would hate me for the rest of her life, he got into his car and ran over her body several times.

Bielefeld District Court judge Jutta Albert convicted him on a charge of murder arising from base motives, and one of cruelty, because the defendant stabbed his wife in both eyeballs while she was still alive. He stabbed her so hard in the head with a fruit knife that the blade broke off in her skull.

The court heard how he was upset that she behaved the way she did and didn't do what he told her. She was too independent and she had to die for it, said the prosecutor.

He returned to Germany at the end of 2008, killing her on New Year's Eve because, he claimed, she had turned up the car stereo when he tried to speak to her. She had also given him an incorrect PIN three times when he tried to check the calls on her mobile phone, and she had refused to answer him when he asked whether she had been unfaithful.

The BBC's Asian Network has become embroiled in a race row after Sikh listeners accused the digital radio station of being insensitive towards their religion.

The BBC removed a show from its website after Muslim presenter Adil Ray received threats from Sikhs who said he had denigrated one of their religious symbols.

Members of the Sikh community complained that Ray had been disparaging about whether they really needed to carry kirpan daggers. The kirpan is a ceremonial symbol that baptised Sikhs are expected to wear at all times

During the offending August 6 show, Ray was discussing a Punjabi music concert in Canada where police had refused entry to Sikhs wearing kirpans.

But a number of listeners were upset that Ray appeared to mock Sikhism, a charge that the Birmingham-based Asian Network denies.

The Sikh Media Monitoring Group has written to the BBC requesting a full transcript of the show. The organisation has accused the Asian Network of being insensitive towards Sikh listeners: We should not be paying a licence fee for promoting the ignorance-based ramblings of those bent on self-promotion who sneer at Asian religion and culture, group spokesman Hardeep Singh told The Independent.

A BBC spokesman said: Adil Ray did not make any judgement about people's faith or the rights and wrongs of wearing the kirpan. We welcome the fact that Adil has listeners of all faiths who enjoy his humour and presentation.

The defence lawyer for two Europeans who are accused of kissing in public and consuming alcohol told the court that his clients are not bound by the Sharia law that prohibits both offences.

IK, a Russian woman, is charged with consensual dishonour and pleaded guilty to kissing, at the first hearing last week at the Criminal Court of First Instance. The man she is accused of kissing, ZV, is facing adultery charges.

The two are among five people who are before the court facing charges of adultery, consumption of alcohol and drugs. The three men and two women have been denied bail and are awaiting a verdict in their case.

IK told the court last week that the kiss was a normal greeting kiss, but the judge responded by saying: Maybe it’s normal in Russia.

The defence lawyer, Abdul Khader Ghazal said: My client is charged with consuming alcohol but there is no such a charge of consuming alcohol under the Sharia law. We can establish that he was not drunk. As he is not Muslim, he is further not subject to the same rules we are subject to. UAE law, however, prohibits residents from consuming alcohol, irrespective of religion or nationality, without a proper licence issued by each emirate’s police authority.

Ghazal said there were no witnesses for the adultery charges. Unless both the accused plead guilty, Sharia law requires four Muslim witnesses to testify in court.

The case was postponed for the judicial panel to review the evidence submitted.

Muslim women have been banned from wearing the body-concealing swimming costume known as a burqini in the northern Italian town of Varallo Sesia.

Women wearing the garment, made up of a veil, a tunic and loose leggings, face a fine of €500 (£430) if they are spotted at swimming pools or rivers, the ANSA news agency reported.

The anti-immigration mayor of the northern Piedmont town said: The sight of a 'masked woman' could disturb small children, not to mention problems of hygiene.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue has got wound up by a forthcoming episode of the Penn & Teller show. He wrote in Variety:

On August 27, Showtime, owned by CBS, will feature a vicious assault on Catholics. In the season finale of Penn & Teller’s show, they take on the secretive inner world of The Vatican, the holy city of Catholicism and home of the Pope.

How do we know it will defame Catholics? Because on the show’s website, it says so: There is a Showtime Advisory for Graphic Language, Adult Content.

What will the upcoming show be like? On his Twitter page, Penn Jillette brags how he rips a Catholic encyclical on sexuality: I’m dressed as Darth with a condom cock light saber. He even boasts that the show is hardcore, admitting that we attack the Vatican. From trashing The Last Supper to mocking Catholic prayers, anti-Catholic bigots who feed on this kind of stuff will have a stomach full.

CBS/Showtime needs to send Penn & Teller a message and let them know that they have crossed the line for the last time. This should be their final season. We know that they’ve been told before to drop the Catholic bashing, and yet they persist. By doing so, Penn & Teller have effectively stuck their middle finger right in the eye of CBS.

Yale University Press will publish The Cartoons That Shook the World, by Jytte Klausen, this November. The Press hopes that her excellent scholarly treatment of the Danish cartoon controversy will be read by those seeking deeper understanding of its causes and consequences.

After careful consideration, the Press has declined to reproduce the September 30, 2005 Jyllands-Posten newspaper page that included the cartoons, as well as other depictions of the Prophet Muhammad that the author proposed to include.

The original publication in 2005 of the cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad led to a series of violent incidents, and repeated violent acts have followed republication as recently as June 2008, when a car bomb exploded outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing eight people and injuring at least thirty. The next day Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the bombing, calling it revenge for the "insulting drawings."

Republication of the cartoons -- not just the original printing of them in Denmark -- has repeatedly resulted in violence around the world. More than two hundred lives have been lost, and hundreds more have been injured. It is noteworthy that, at the time of the initial crisis over the cartoons in 2005-2006, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe declined to print them, as did every major newspaper in the United Kingdom.

The publishing of the book raised the obvious question of whether there remains a serious threat of violence if the cartoons were reprinted in the context of a book about the controversy. The Press asked the University for assistance on this question.

The University consulted both domestic and international experts on behalf of the Press. Among those consulted were counterterrorism officials in the United States and in the United Kingdom, U.S. diplomats who had served as ambassadors in the Middle East, foreign ambassadors from Muslim countries, the top Muslim official at the United Nations, and senior scholars in Islamic studies. The experts with the most insight about the threats of violence repeatedly expressed serious concerns about violence occurring following publication of either the cartoons or other images of the Prophet Muhammad in a book about the cartoons.

Ibrahim Gambari, under-secretary-general of the United Nations and senior adviser to the secretary-general, the highest ranking Muslim at the United Nations, stated, You can count on violence if any illustration of the Prophet is published. It will cause riots I predict from Indonesia to Nigeria.

Ambassador Joseph Verner Reed, dean of the Under-Secretaries-general, under-secretary-general of the United Nations, and special adviser to the secretary-general, informed us, These images of Muhammad could and would be used as a convenient excuse for inciting violent anti-American actions.

Marcia Inhorn, professor of anthropology and international affairs and chair of the Council on Middle East Studies at Yale, said, I agree completely with the other expert opinions Yale has received. If Yale publishes this book with any of the proposed illustrations, it is likely to provoke a violent outcry.

Given the quantity and quality of the expert advice Yale received, the author consented, with reluctance, to publish the book without any of these visual images.

Yale and Yale University Press are deeply committed to freedom of speech and expression, so the issues raised here were difficult. The University has no speech code, and the response to hate speech on campus has always been the assertion that the appropriate response to hate speech is not suppression but more speech, leading to a full airing of views. The Press would never have reached the decision it did on the grounds that some might be offended by portrayals of the Prophet Muhammad. Indeed, Yale University Press has printed books in the past that included images of the Prophet. The decision rested solely on the experts' assessments that there existed a substantial likelihood of violence that might take the lives of innocent victims.

Madonna has been branded a crypto-Satanist for playing a night of her Sticky And Sweet tour on a Roman Catholic holiday in Poland.

The star had performed despite a flurry of protests from religious leaders and even pleas from the country's former president Lech Walesa.

Marian Baranski, deputy head of the Polish Faith and National Tradition Defense Committee, said: Madonna specialises in offending religious feelings. It is possible to suspect her of being a crypto-Satanist.

The performance on August 15 was the Feast Of The Assumption day that Christians mark the Virgin Mary’s ascension to heaven.

Just last week, Walesa appealed to the concert's organisers: Please avoid any collision with my faith during this extraordinary day.

Catholic protesters arrived at the venue in Warsaw holding religious banners and flags.

An online sitcom about a group of suicide bombers living in Bradford could be damaging, a Muslim group claims.

Dr Abdul Bary Malik, of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association in Bradford, said the series Living With the Infidels would upset some young Muslims.

Producers of the series, which is made in London, say they have the backing of the Muslim Council of Britain.

During the five-part series the five main characters set out to become suicide bombers but find that they like some western ways of life. They are seen making a suicide video and visiting an internet dating site.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Association is a religious community with more than 80 local branches and thousands of members. Malik said: My concern is that there will be some young Muslims who will definitely get very angry and upset about this. It may damage relations once again. He also said that the level of indecency and filthy language was not representative of young Muslims.

The series begins on 20 August.

An Egyptian man has been charged with practicing female circumcision on an 11 year-old girl, reports the website of TV station Al Arabiya.

Ahmed Gad al-Karim, 69 year-old, is the first person to be tried for this type of procedure since an Egyptian law came into effect which treats all types of female genital mutilation as a crime.

The law, which was passed in 2008, was fiercely criticised by the Islamic Brotherhood and by supporters of the Egyptian parliament, who maintained that they supported the practice as conforming to Sharia law (Islamic law) and protecting the chastity of women. However, the Islamic Institution responsible for religious opinion (Dar al-Iftaa) responded by saying that female genital mutilation is not part of the Islamic culture.

Ahmed Gad al-Karim is accused of practicing infibulation after requests by the girl's family. He was paid USD 27, according to investigators, for performing the operation, and used a standard scalpel during the operation. The girl was admitted to the local hospital in Minya, 600 km south of Cairo immediately afterwards, fighting for her life.

Alice Cooper has been forced to scrap a forthcoming gig in Finland after the venue's owners reportedly objected to his controversial stage show on religious grounds.

According to Contactmusic, the rocker was due to play the Tampere Areena on December 11, but officials have subsequently declared that the concert conflicted with their Christian-based policies.

Venue boss Harri Wiherkoski has since confirmed the cancellation and attributed the move to objections from other clients who use the arena.

Gig promoter Kalle Keskinen told Finland's YLE News: [Several religious groups] and others use Tampere Areena for their events, so the venue's management did not want Alice Cooper appearing in the same hall. The contract which we received from Tampere Areena specifies that no artists may perform there who 'incite evil and the power of darkness.

The promoters now hope to move the gig to the city of Espoo.

Update: Censorial Demons

20th August 2009. See article from antimusic.com

Harri Wiherkoski, managing director of Tampere Areena Oy (Tampere Arena Limited) noted, Artists who express suspicious values from Christianity's point of view cannot be allowed to perform at the venue. He told a Finnish reporter We don't arrange concerts where Satanism or non-god-worshipping occurs.

The venue will not permit performances which may be construed as insulting to Christianity, spelled out as follows:

Performances including representation of false gods, demons, evilness and forces of darkness and all these kind of symbols, words or markings are highly prohibited. These rules are valid also in all of the advertisement and material related to the concert. Breaking this rule causes immediate cancellation of the contract, and a 100 000 € penalty fee.

Good news from Holland, where the prosecution department has decided to dismiss the cases against the TV show NOVA, and politician Geert Wilders. Both had reproduced the Mohammed cartoons on their websites.

In a statement (Google translation), the prosecutor said: The cartoons are about the prophet Mohammed, not about Muslims as a group. None of the cartoons are offensive to Muslims or incite hatred, discrimination or violence against Muslims. Because the cartoons are not illegal, publishing and distributing them is also not illegal.

An Indian artist, Subodh Kerkar, has been receiving serious threats over his depictions of the Hindu god Ganesha, reports Dawn.com.

 I have been receiving phone calls which threaten me with dire consequences. They told me that they will chop off my fingers for indulging in such acts, Kerkar told the press agency AFP.

Kerkar has sketched the male elephant-headed god in various guises, including one in the pose of Rodin's The Thinker, another performing the 'haka' dance, and another naked carrying a garden rake, for a new exhibition in Goa, where he lives.

Groups including Sanatan Sanstha and Hindu Jangruti Samiti told Hindus to express their anguish at the images.

Goa state police, which confirmed receiving two complaints, have told Kerkar to desist from any activity which will hurt religious feelings. But the artist, who said he was a devotee of Ganesha, insisted that the paintings meant no offence.

Taking a cue from the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists operating in in parts of Jammu and Kashmir have imposed a ban on watching TV- terming it an ‘unislamic’ activity.

The marks on Gulam Nabi's back and legs are a constant reminder of how the LeT men beat him up for watching TV. Unidentified gunmen barged into my house. They broke my TV set and thrashed me, said Ghulam Nabi.

In true Taliban style, the terrorists made sure that no one dares to switch on a television again.

When asked about the LeT's newest diktat a villager said, Six militants barged into our house. Three of them broke my TV and another three hit me.

Lashkar militants have warned villagers of dire consequences if they do not stop watching television. In a recently issued diktat, they have described the 'idiot box' as an epicentre of all problems and blame the same for impregnating evil thoughts in the mind of villagers.

Denmark's Conservative Party wants to extend the ban on Taleban symbol to all public places in Denmark

The governing party has rejected a proposal from its coalition partner, the Conservative Party, to ban people from covering their face with clothing such as burkas and niqabs.

We do not want to see burkas in Denmark, said Naser Khader, the integration spokesman for the Conservatives. Khader, who immigrated to Denmark from Syria and who helped established the Modern Muslims group, said the burka symbolised the Taleban and oppression of women. It had nothing do to with Islam.

Under the ban, women would not be prevented from wearing other forms of headscarves. It would apply to all public areas but not people’s homes. A penalty for violating the potential ban had not yet been considered.

The Conservatives’ proposal received the support of the Danish People’s Party, a key government ally, and the opposition Social Democrats. But the party’s government ally, the prime minister’s Liberal Party, said legislating against certain types of clothing was a step too far.

Burkas should not be permitted for people who work in the public sector, Peter Christiansen, the party’s political spokesperson, said: But that’s where we draw the line.

Father Estefanos Shehata sent an urgent plea to Middle East Christian Association (MECA) as the village elders issued a death fatwa against him for wanting to open a prayer hall.

He has also been banned from entering the village of Ezbet Dawood Youssef, where he serves and where his family lives.

He said that the village Muslim's reaction was absolute anger at his request to convert a space in his family's home to be used for conducting funeral services and for marriage ceremonies: I know we are not allowed to have a proper church in Egypt, but until now I pray for the dead and hold marriage ceremonies in the street.

I appeal to President Hosny Mubarak, Interior Minister, State Security and the human rights organizations, that we are Egyptian citizens and we have the right like everyone else to place our dead in a dignified place.

I went to the state security to get the necessary licences for using this space in my family home, but they told me I need first to obtain the 'permission' of the village Muslims, as they (state security) want no problems in the village


When Reverent Stefanos told the villager Muslim elders of what he was intending to do, they called for a meeting with the elders of the neighbouring villages: They were extremely angry at my proposal and instead a death Fatwa was issued against me! I am banned from entering my village for over a month now, I cannot even go to see my mother.

In the wake of the TV controversy when Saudi citizen Mazen Abdul-Jawad discussed his sex life on LBC's Bold Red Line, a Saudi ministry is clamping down.

Issuing a strong warning. Abdullah al-Jasser, undersecretary for media affairs at Saudi Arabia’s Culture and Information Ministry, said: Every Saudi investor in satellite television channels has to be sensitive to patriotic and social responsibility. Managers of these channels should be selected for their integrity and responsibility, he said, adding that investors should not leave management to people who have orientations and ideas ... harmful to the kingdom and to Saudi investments.

What is being aired by these channels owned by Saudi citizens in terms of topics that violate the Islamic creed and public morals represents a serious offence to the kingdom and to every citizen. These channels (must) not be used as a bridge for hostile media campaigns that ... market Western ideas and beliefs.

A U.S. government agency's decision to place India on a list of potential religious freedom violators is regrettable, said India's foreign ministry.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) had officially placed India on its Watch List - a list countries that the agency says require close monitoring due to the nature and extent of violations of religious freedom engaged in or tolerated by the government.

Specifically, USCIRF said India earned the Watch List designation due to the disturbing increase in communal violence against religious minorities– specifically Christians in Orissa in 2008 and Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 – and the largely inadequate response from the Indian government to protect the rights of religious minorities.

According to notes released by the USCIRF India chapter, deficiencies in investigating and prosecuting cases have resulted in a culture of impunity that gives members of vulnerable minority communities few assurances of their safety, particularly in areas with a history of communal violence, and little hope of perpetrator accountability.

The laws governing marriage in Israel fly in the face of politicians' assertion that the state is on a par with other Western countries in terms of enlightenment, tolerance and democracy.

Despite 70% of Israelis defining themselves as secular, Israel's rabbinate has a stranglehold on the institution of marriage, refusing to recognise weddings not conducted in a religious ceremony, and proscribing couples from tying the knot where one partner is not deemed sufficiently Jewish by the authorities.

Whilst Christian, Muslim and Druze couples are free to marry outside the remit of the rabbinic authorities, thousands of pairs of potential newlyweds where one half is Jewish and the other not are ensnared each year by the prohibition. Hundreds of thousands of migrants from the FSU, Ethiopia and elsewhere fall into the gap between being Israeli and being Jewish, and as such are prohibited from marrying a 'proper' Jew on Israeli soil. At the same time, secular Israeli Jews who object to being married in a religious ritual are unable to wed in a civil ceremony.

Israel recognises civil marriages conducted overseas, hence each year thousands of Israelis wed in nearby countries such as Cyprus in order to beat the system and become a recognised married couple. Others become common-law spouses, although such status does not grant them all the rights bestowed on formally married couples.

Israel is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and as such has a duty to adhere to its charter, which asserts that men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. However, in a country which so often acquiesces to the anachronistic demands of religious rulers, modern-day declarations of human rights come a distant second to the shackling legislature of a bygone age.

Nigerian police have raided an isolated Muslim community in the western state of Niger, taking more than 600 people into custody.

A team of 1,000 officers took part in the Saturday morning raid on the Darul Islam community.

Police say no weapons were found and there was no resistance to the arrests.

The raid comes in the aftermath of the violent uprising of the Boko Haram Islamist group last month in which hundreds of people died.

A BBC correspondent says the authorities may be taking this opportunity to disperse the Darul Islam (or House of Islam) community.

The settlement was established in the early 1990s to live according to strict Islamic principles, away from what they see as western decadence. After the recent bloodshed involving Boko Haram in the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, Darul Islam came under official scrutiny.

A dispute about bus advertisements seeking to publicize atheist views has touched off a free speech debate after the signs were torn down,  then restored to the sides of Des Moines city buses.

The ads, sponsored by the Iowa Atheists & Freethinkers read: Don't believe in God? You are not alone.

The Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority stripped the signs after receiving complaints, then after meeting with the atheist group, reversed course and put the ads back up.

The issue with the ads in Des Moines was with the word 'God', said Elizabeth Prusetti, chief development officer for the bus agency: We have never allowed that word in our advertising, promoting a religion. We've never used the word God in any advertising to maintain some autonomy. We've had churches advertise but it's been for their church and not a belief.

Lilly Kryuchkov, spokeswoman for Iowa Atheists & Freethinkers, said the group was surprised by the bus agency's decision and believed the group's right to free speech was being trampled.

Prusetti said a breakdown in communication within the bus agency led to the ads being put on 20 buses by mistake. The agency's general manager and the chairwoman of the agency's commission determined that the signs were inappropriate, she said, and that the message was not communicated to the maintenance department that puts the signs on the buses. The mixup, not complaints from citizens, led to the removal of the ads, she said.

The agency has since decided its advertising policy was outdated, and is changing it to better align with other policies regarding civil rights, the state's obscenity and profanity laws and the diversity of the community, said Brad Miller, the agency's general manager. Prusetti said agency did not specifically address religion in its old advertising policy and that the decision not to have the word God appear in ads has just been continued on over the years. Prusetti said the word God will be allowed under the new advertising policy.

By honoring the freedoms protected through our shared civil liberties, DART ... will be in the position of displaying messages and images that may be controversial or uncomfortable to some, but legal and protected by civil rights, Miller said.

Couples who defy traditions — and their murderous parents — to enter love marriages rather than arranged unions in India are to be given police protection in safe houses.

Police in Haryana, an affluent but conservative northern state, said that they had been overwhelmed by hundreds of cases in which couples had been attacked by enraged relatives for ignoring the strict social codes that dictate who they should marry.

Under a pilot scheme that will start this month, newlyweds judged to be most at risk will start their lives together under armed guard.

In the rural villages of Haryana, caste purity and adherence to traditions are paramount. As a result, the state has grown notorious as the honour killing capital of India.

To counter a sharp rise in such crimes, a safe house will be established in the Rohtak district of Haryana. The scheme will be expanded if successful.

Vikash Narain Rai, the director-general of police for Haryana, said: Villagers are becoming more exposed to the outside world and young people are choosing to marry without getting their parents’ nod. We have to take action as we’re seeing more and more cases of kids being harmed by their own kith and kin.

There are plans for a programme where police will explain the law to councils of village elders, who often sanction honour killings. We’ll be telling them that these practices are bad parenting, Rai said.

A street preacher is at the centre of a row over freedom of speech after police threatened to arrest him for reading the Bible in public.

Lawyers acting for Miguel Hayworth have demanded an explanation over the alleged intimidation and abuse of power by three officers.

Andrea Minichiello Williams, the director of the Christian Legal Centre, has written to Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, over the incident. She claims that Hayworth and his father, John were unlawfully and unfairly treated as they preached Christianity in the city at the end of July.

They were clearly told that reading the Bible and preaching can be offensive and that they could be arrested, she wrote: Furthermore, they were subjected to abuse and intimidation. They were told that they were being monitored and filmed.

Miguel  Hayworth, said he was reading passages from the Old and New Testaments while his father distributed leaflets containing the message of the gospel: At 2pm, I was approached on more than one occasion by several police officers who falsely accused me, stating that I was inciting hatred with homophobic and racial comments. One plain-clothed officer, who was with the other two uniformed officers, said: 'It is against the law to preach and hand out tracts: preaching causes offence and handing out tracts is harassment and could result in an arrest.

Hayworth said that at about 2.30pm a second officer confirmed that his colleague had accused the preacher of inciting religious and racial hatred and wanted to warn him that this was an arrestable offence. The second officer, Mr Hayworth claimed, also warned him his actions were being videoed and recorded, and he stopped preaching.

Angry over extension of visa to controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, a federation of Muslim organisations in West Bengal threatened countrywide agitation.

Dubbing Taslima as an enemy of Islam, president of Milli Ittehad Parishad, Haji Abdul Aziz here said the Centre's decision would create unrest countrywide.

The decision has hurt sentiments of Muslims in India and unless it is reversed, we will launch a countrywide agitation to force the government to concede our demands, All-India Minority Forum president Idris Ali threatened. Ali said extension of Taslima's visa amounted to insulting Islam.

Taslima, who shot into fame with her controversial book 'Lajja' (Shame) in 1993, has been a target of Islamic fundamentalists. She had returned to India recently to seek extension of her visa and is now residing at an undisclosed location.

Update: Last Visa

18th February 2010. See article from google.com

Bangladesh writer Taslima Nasreen, forced to flee her homeland by Muslim extremists, said Wednesday that India had told her it will no longer renew her residence visa after the current one expires.

Nasreen, who has been unable to live full-time in India because of opposition from Muslim hardliners in the country, said the Indian government had renewed her temporary six-month residence permit.

But 47-year-old author, who has spent the past two years mainly in the United States, said the government told her it was the last time the permit would be extended.

A French muslim woman has been banned from wearing a 'burkini' in a swimming pool outside Paris.

The woman, named only as Carole was told that the garment, a swimsuit that covers most of the body, was inappropriate clothing for a public baths.

Pool staff said her three-piece Islamic swimsuit she bought in Dubai - consisting of a headscarf, tunic and trousers - was against pool regulations and unhygienic.

They had reminded her of the rules that apply in all [public] swimming pools which forbid swimming while clothed, said Daniel Guillaume, a manager at the pool in the suburb of Emerainville.

The ban was imposed as President Nicolas Sarkozy's government is considering an outright ban on all Islamic dress, such as the head-to-toe burka or niqab, that it considers a sign of subservience and not welcome in France.

Yannick Decompois, the district swimming pools director, said: This has nothing to do with secularism, but is a simply a hygiene problem. For the same reasons men are also banned from wearing shorts.

André Gérin, a Communist MP, who is heading a parliamentary commission looking at whether to ban the burka, said the burkini was militant provocation and should be banned.

Pakistan's Minister for Minorities Affairs, Shahbaz Bhatti has said the government was in process of drafting a Minorities Protection Bill to safeguarded their rights.

All religious scholars are being taken on-board as their suggestions would be incorporated and later the Bill would be presented in the parliament for approval.

The Minister said the government was fully committed to safeguarding the rights of minorities living in Pakistan and taking concrete steps to provide basic rights to every minority community.

He said to address minorities issues, peace committees are being established at tehsil and district levels that will review blasphemy act or any material used to spread anarchy in the society through negative speeches.

Al Shabaab militants banned women in areas under their control in Somalia to wear a bra calling it as Un-Islamic, witnesses told Mareeg Online.

Witnesses reported that al Shabaab young fighters were stopping women in Mogadishu to tell them not to wear bra or they would face punishment.

The group started in Marka town in southern Somalia operations of removing silver and gold teeth from the people in the town.

Sheik Ali Mohamed Hussein, al Shabaab governor of Banadir region ordered women in Mogadishu take strong Hijab and also ordered business people to close their businesses at the time of prayers.

Al Shabaab officials in Mogadishu ordered four teenagers to each have a hand and a foot cut off as punishments for robbery in June this year. Two of the teenagers have died from their wounds later in Mogadishu.

ITwo Egyptian Baha'is have been issued new ID cards with the field allocated for religious affiliation left blank following years of legal struggles for state recognition.

The move follows a January 2008 court decision that granted Baha'is in Egypt the right to leave the box for religious faith unfilled on their ID cards and birth certificates. Egypt, otherwise, only officially recognizes Islam, Christianity and Judaism, leaving adherents of other faiths to live as second-class citizens in their own country.

Sixteen-year old twins Nancy and Emad Hindy obtained their new ID cards over the weekend and will now be able to practice their full citizen rights in Egypt for the first time in their lives.

Official documents like identity cards and birth certificates are obligatory in Egypt and not having them can cause immense obstacles. Egyptians cannot enrol in schools or universities, receive medical treatment, or even buy a car without a national ID card. Not carrying an ID card with you if you are over 16 years of age is considered a criminal offense.

But in order to obtain an ID card or birth certificate one must claim to be an adherent of one of Egypt’s three state religions: Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. Hence, those of other religious faiths who do not want to be religious posers and change religion on their official papers, effectively become stateless in their own country, without the right to access the most elementary public services.

The Hindy twins, for example, have been unable to obtain birth certificates as Baha'is and could therefore not enroll in school in Egypt as a result. Instead, their father had to send them to neighboring Libya for schooling.

Although the court ruled in favor of the Baha'is in 2008, none of them have been able to obtain official documents up until now. Hossam Baghat of Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights stressed that the issuance of the new religiously-neutral ID cards over the weekend holds both administrative as well as symbolic value.

Hundreds more applications for “religiously neutral” ID cards have apparently been filed by Egyptian Baha'is since April of this year.

It’s not all that surprising that Yale University Press would be wary of reprinting notoriously controversial cartoons of Muhammad in a forthcoming book...But in a book telling the story of the cartoons?

Yale University and Yale University Press consulted two dozen authorities, including diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism, and the recommendation was unanimous: The book, The Cartoons That Shook the World, should not include the 12 Danish drawings that originally appeared in September 2005.

What’s more, they suggested that the Yale press also refrain from publishing any other illustrations of the prophet that were to be included, specifically, a drawing for a children’s book; an Ottoman print; and a sketch by the 19th-century artist Gustave Doré of Muhammad being tormented in Hell, an episode from Dante’s Inferno that has been depicted by Botticelli, Blake, Rodin and Dalí.

The book’s author, Jytte Klausen, a Danish-born professor of politics at Brandeis University, in Waltham, Mass., reluctantly accepted Yale University Press’s decision not to publish the cartoons. But she was disturbed by the withdrawal of the other representations of Muhammad. All of those images are widely available, Ms. Klausen said by telephone, adding that Muslim friends, leaders and activists thought that the incident was misunderstood, so the cartoons needed to be reprinted so we could have a discussion about it.

Reza Aslan, a religion scholar and the author of No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, is a fan of the book but decided to withdraw his supportive blurb that was to appear in the book after Yale University Press dropped the pictures. The book is a definitive account of the entire controversy, but to not include the actual cartoons is to me, frankly, idiotic.

This is an academic book for an academic audience by an academic press. There is no chance of this book having a global audience, let alone causing a global outcry. It’s not just academic cowardice, it is just silly and unnecessary.

The book is due out in November.

Ireland is being hauled before the EU Commission over its new blasphemy law.

Swedish MP Karl Sigfrid said that he had lodged a complaint with the Commission, asking it to rule if the new Irish law is consistent with EU treaties. These include EU provisions on free speech enshrined in the current EU treaty and the European Convention on Human Rights.

Free speech is a necessary condition for scientific debate and is the best way to rational conclusions about what the truth is,Sigfrid, a Moderate Party MP, told the Herald: It's a very dangerous thing to replace open debate with violence from the Government when someone opposes what the conventional truth is.

He pointed out that the EU required entrant applicants, such as Turkey, to ensure freedom of speech and did not think existing members of the EU should be able to restrict free speech in such a way: It seems like a huge step backwards, Sigfrid added.

He wanted EU citizens to be able to travel freely to countries like Ireland and not have to face the threat of legal action for freedom of speech which was accepted in Sweden and other countries, he said.

A witchcraft practicing woman and unknown villagers had burnt down a home of a man who has embraced Christianity in a Central Indian state as the cast spells have no more effect on the new believer.

Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) reported that the house of Raj Bahor family was burnt down because the casts spell by their neighbour lady who practices sorcery and witchcraft became ineffective on him ever since he became a Christian.

Raj Bahor who lives with his wife and four children in Lor, started attending a Church. Then the 'witch' became furious with Raj because her magic power can have no more affect on the family, the report said.

This lady and some unknown persons burned down Raj’s family house made of wood and thatch on 2 August, the report stated.

Since Raj also suspects a man called Bhadri Prasad Kushwaha he went to the police station along with his pastor Heeralal Kushwaha and made a complaint with the Superintendent of Police, however, no action has been taken, the report said.

Roxanne Hiller tells her story about being jailed in the UAE on charges of adultery.

Some 700 Mali activists, mostly women, have marched in favor of the introduction of laws to ban the practice of female genital mutilation (FMG) in Bamako.

The demonstrators presented the request directly to parliament. The long overdue initiative, organized by the Coordination of women’s NGO’s in Mali, was repeated in other areas of the country, where more women also staged small gatherings.

The rate of FMG in Mali is very high, reaching some 92% said Nicola Giovannini of the No Peace without Justice NGO to MISNA. Giovannini said that in Mali, there is a strong political consensus for a law to ban the practice, but authorities have so far suggested that Malian society itself is not yet ready to penalize this terrible and very established practice. The participation in anti FMG protests suggests that there is an ever stronger – if long overdue - desire for change.

The Sudanese woman journalist on trial for wearing trousers in public said she was prevented from leaving the country Tuesday for a trip to Lebanon, where she was to take part in a televised talk-show about women's issues.

Lubna Hussein could receive 40 lashes if found guilty of violating Sudan's indecency law which follows a strict interpretation of Islam.

Hussein, who has been released on bail during the hearings, has sought to draw international attention to her case and battle the law she described as un-Islamic and oppressive to women. Her trial resumes in September.

She was stopped at Khartoum airport. She was told that she was barred from traveling and was shown a ban signed by the public order police, which has raised the charges against her.

Travel bans are usually issued in major criminal cases when there is a risk of a defendant fleeing the country.

It seems that wearing trousers is now a serious crime in Sudan, Hussein said later.

A Christian association in Moscow, Russia has asked authorities to move gay clubs away from residential areas, schools, and cultural, sports and medical facilities. The push comes as part of a crusade against gay entertainment in the Russian capital from Oleg Mitvol, the Prefect of the northern district of Moscow.

Everything that is connected to the propaganda of gay culture must be moved away to limit the impact on ordinary people, because it leads to degradation, Konstantin Bendas, spokesman for the Russian Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith, told The Moscow Times.

The organisation’s open letter, which was published last Friday, said that authorities had to strictly control gay clubs to remove minors, drugs, prostitutes and porn distribution.

UK Gay News reports that over the weekend Mitvol raided gay club Body And Soul along with the prosecution department, the anti-drug unit and the police. They brought the Moscow TV Channel with them, along with photographers and a journalist.

I think that such clubs which, in line with casinos, lead to moral degradation of citizens and become the source of trouble, should be closed, said Mitvol last week.

The Watercolour works of Kurt Westergaard
Galleri Draupner, Skanderborg, Denmark
From 29th August 2009

A Danish gallery has decided to exhibit a caricature of Muhammad that unleashed a wave of protests in the Muslim world against Denmark in 2006.

The controversial caricature will be part of a larger exhibition dedicated to the watercolor works of the artist-caricaturist Kurt Westergaard at the Galleri Draupner in Skanderborg.

The caricature—one of twelve satiric drawings published in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten—represents Muhammad wearing a turban in the shape of a bomb with a lit fuse.

The seventy-four-year-old Westergaard had words of praise for the gallery director, Erik Guldager. [He] is the first to dare to exhibit my works, even if my watercolors are not political.

In May 2008, Westergaard received the Sappho Prize from the Society for the Protection of the Freedom of Expression of the Press and the Right to Criticize Religion.

Last month a woman named Semse Allak was buried in a corner of a municipal cemetery in Turkey. She, unmarried and pregnant, had died from a stoning.

When she died on June 7, no-one from her family and relatives claimed her body and attended the funeral.

Villagers and local lawyers said Ms. Allak - as well as the man who had made her pregnant - had been killed to restore the 'honor' of their murderous families.

For seven months after her stoning, Ms. Allak lay semi-conscious, her skull crushed, unable to move or speak. Relatives visited once, in the beginning, to tell the hospital staff that they could not pay for her care. The fetus inside Ms. Allak died six weeks after the attack.

Just two days before Ms. Allak's funeral, the elected Parliament of this predominantly Muslim nation approved a sweeping human rights law that, among other things, abolished a provision that often reduced the prison terms for murders committed in the name of "family honor."

The legislation is part of a broader effort to secure Turkey's long-hoped-for admission to the European Union and, more profoundly, to answer the centuries-old question of Turkey's place in the world: whether in Europe or the Middle East.

The death of Ms. Allak underscores the distance between legislative pronouncements emanating from Ankara, Turkey's modern capital, and the sometimes grim, medieval realities of everyday life in other parts of the country.

"Honor is not a trivial thing," shouted Celilie Allak, Ms. Allak's sister-in-law, explaining the deaths. "What else were we supposed to do?"

Ms. Allak's brother, Mehmet, as well as four other relatives, have been charged in the murder of the man, Hila Acil, who was stoned to death at the same time in a field outside town. Despite last month's legislative changes, Mr. Allak's lawyer, Salih Demirkesen, said he was confident the local judges would understand.

International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that Muslim leaders are calling for Sharia to be enshrined in Kenya’s constitution.

The move is opposed by Christian leaders who fear that it will lead to greater persecution, as it has in Sudan and Nigeria.

Islamic courts, known as Kadhi, have existed for a long time at district levels in Kenya. But they were limited to settling divorce, inheritance and marriage disputes among Muslims.

Kenya has drafted a new constitution which seeks to expand the power of the Islamic courts to include settlement of civil and commercial disputes. Kenyan Muslim leaders are also pushing to elevate the courts to the national level and give them the same privileges as the secular courts.

Christian leaders argue that recognizing Sharia courts in the constitution gives special privileges to Kenya’s Muslims. Rev. Dr. Wellington Mutiso, the general secretary of the evangelical alliance of Kenya, said in an interview with ICC, We oppose the entrenching of Kahdi in the constitution of Kenya because religion and state should be kept separated in a secular state. Besides, the principles of Islamic laws are discriminatory to women’s right. Thus, entrenching Islamic principles in the Kenyan constitution violates constitutional principles of equality and non-discrimination.

Young Danish muslim girls are subjected to rape and other sexual assault by muslim boys and men who threaten them into silence by saying the girls will being shame on their families because they willingly met with the boy or man.

Social mediator Birgitte Karlsson, who runs a day institution for youth of immigrant background in Høje Taastrup, says that in a period of three months she met about 15 immigrant girls who were raped or otherwise sexually assaulted by immigrant boys.

Often the girls chatted with the boys on the internet, after which they set to meet. But the boys in these cases abused the girls and left them with threats that they will tell the girls' parents that the girls themselves agreed to have sex with them. And in some immigrant families, having sex before marriage is the worst thing a girl can do. Therefore the girls don't dare tell about the attack, says Birgitte Karlsson.

As a Muslim immigrant girl you're raised that if you have sex before marriage, you're punished by Allah. Sex before marriage is according to Islam the greatest shame. There are some boys who you this honor-concept against the girls, since the girls will be considered the guilty ones.

At the urging of local Muslim leaders, police in western Bangladesh have tortured a pastor and two other Christians for legally proclaiming Christ.

Habibur Rahman pastor of Boalia Spiritual Church said he was about to meet with 11 others for a monthly meeting on evangelism June 8 when local police stormed in and seized him and two other chrsitians.

The first question the police commander asked him, Rahman said, was, Why did you become Christian? Using a lot of filthy words, he charged me that I was teaching the Bible and converting people to Christianity in this area, the pastor told Compass. Police told us, ‘We will teach you in the camp how to forget your Christ,’ while dragging us to the vehicle.

Police blindfolded them after reaching the camp and took them to three separate rooms.

I heard blood-curdling scream from other rooms, Rahman said. I was sitting on the floor blindfolded. I could not understand what was happening around me. Later several police came to me and one of them kicked me on the back of my head, and my head ricocheted off the wall. They also kicked my waist.

While beating us, police told us there will be no Christian in this area, the pastor said. Police hurt our hands, lips, thighs and faces with burning cigarettes. They beat me in the joints of my limbs with a wooden club. They beat us for one hour, and I became senseless at some point.

Police did not release the three Christians until 9:30 that night.

The next day, June 10, thousands of Muslim villagers demonstrated in front of a local government office called the Zamzami Union Council chanting, We want a Christian-free society, and We will not allow any Christians in Cuadanga.

The frenzied mob called for Rahman to appear at the local government office, and a sub-district administrative chief called in 10 Christians and 10 Muslims including imams to try to resolve the matter. In that meeting, the administrative official told everyone to practice their religion freely without disturbing others.

Jotish Biswas, executive director of Way of Life Trust, said the marks of torture were unmistakable: There were streaks of blood on their legs, hands and faces, said Biswas, who interceded with police on behalf of the arrested Christians: I have seen marks of cigarette burns on their bodies. They were beaten so severely that they could not walk properly.

Catholic sites uncovering the persecution against Catholics in Vietnam have become the latest casualties of government censorship.

It has been known that VietCatholic News has long been on top of the list for being blocked from domestic viewers, but recently readers from Vietnam have reported that as of now, the leading sites of Catholics around the world including Asia-News, Catholic Online, Catholic News Agency, Catholic World News and Independent Catholic News all have become the latest victims of Vietnam government's censorship.

Vietnam strictly regulates Internet access to its citizens, using both legal and technical means. The collaborative project OpenNet Initiative classifies Vietnam's level of online political censorship to be pervasive while Reporters without Borders considers Vietnam one of 15 internet enemies.

Initially, the majority of blocked websites are specific to Vietnam: those written in Vietnamese or dealing with issues related to Vietnam. Sites not specifically related to Vietnam or only written in English are rarely blocked. However, recently popular Catholic sites in English which with high rate of readership have also been added to the black list along with websites of human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Writers Without Borders, Amnesty International and other right groups to name a few.

A bill, which has passed unanimously in the lower house of Pakistan's parliament, will come into effect after it is approved by the senate and signed into law by President Ali Zardari.

Those found guilty of beating women or children would face a minimum six months behind bars and a fine of at least 100,000 rupees (£1,000).

The law will classifies domestic violence as acts of physical, sexual or mental assault, force, criminal intimidation, harassment, hurt, confinement and deprivation of economic or financial resources.

Human rights groups say Pakistani women suffer severe discrimination, domestic violence and honour killings - when a victim is murdered for allegedly bringing dishonour upon her family.

Rape is commonplace and used as a punishment in many villages.

Marvi Memon, a parliamentarian from the opposition Pakistan Muslim League, welcomed the bill and called on the government to ensure the law was implemented.

A law allowing 16-year-olds to opt out of prayers in assembly devalues and marginalises religion in schools, Dr Barry Morgan, the Archbishop of Wales, has warned.

Morgan warned that by degrading the status of faith, schools risked becoming obsessed with personal attainment. He said that group prayer offered pupils a rare opportunity for recognition, affirmation and celebration of shared values and should be encouraged.

Collective worship has been branded as something that young people grow out of by the age of 16, at precisely the time when it might be the best way of feeding both their minds and their hearts as they start to explore the responsibilities and consequences of adult life, Morgan claimed: I am concerned that this is the thin end of the wedge and could be just the start of a process that devalues and ultimately marginalises the provision of collective worship in schools.

His warning came after Wales joined England by passing a law allowing pupils aged 16 and over to withdraw from collective worship without parental consent.

A spokesman for the British Humanist Association criticised Dr Morgan's proposal: We don't think there should be compulsory collective worship, but while there is, children should be allowed to opt out if they want. A vast majority of young people are not religious or non-religious. It would be much better to have assemblies that are inclusive of everyone.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said that the rules may soon be up for discussion: We have not recently reviewed the guidance on collective worship, but this is something we will consider in future.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ensure that the UK Government uses all of its powers to reject and, if possible, veto any attempt at the United Nations to limit free speech in relation to religion and any associated attempt to criminalise the criticism of religion and encourage other governments to similarly reject/veto any such attempt.

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, a voting block within the United Nations, is currently attempting to use its power within that organisation to seek to have a binding resolution made attempting to force governments to criminalise freedom of expression. In pursuing this course of action it seeks to promote the idea that religion can be defamed and that criticism of religion should be outlawed.

This is a gross violation of the most basic and fundamental of Human Rights, that of freedom of speech. It must be countered by all governments wherever possible and properly identified for what it is, a blatant attempt to stifle debate and criticism of religion. Religions do not have rights, people do. Whilst this is being introduced by Islamic countries it is not specific to the religion of Islam.

The original non-binding resolution can be found on the UN web site

Result: UK to Continue Opposing Defamation of Religion

Closed with 888 signatures

Government Reply:

The British Government is committed to protecting the human rights of all, including the rights to freedom of expression, and to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. These rights are guaranteed by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The resolution on defamation of religions was first introduced at the Commission of Human Rights in 1999 and again during the 10th session of the Human Rights Council held in March 2009 in Geneva. The United Kingdom, as with all other members of the European Union, has consistently opposed this resolution on the grounds that it limits the right to freedom of expression. The UK does not accept that defamation of religion is a human rights concept. International human rights law protects individuals in the exercise of their freedom of religion or belief: it does not protect beliefs, faiths or philosophies. However, we strongly support the right to freedom of religion or belief, and believe that it is complementary to the right to freedom of expression.

The right to freedom of expression is not absolute and can be subject to certain restrictions that are provided by law and are necessary for respecting the rights or reputations of others, or for the protection of national security or of public order, public health or morals. In line with our domestic legislation, we have argued that that any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence should be prohibited by law, in accordance with the international obligations of States and that these prohibitions are consistent with freedom of opinion and expression.

The United Kingdom will continue to protect and promote freedom of expression internationally, including by opposing attempts to curtail it by deploying the concept of defamation of religions.

Comment: Hostility to Religion

8th August 2009. From pbr on the Melon Farmers Forum

"The right to freedom of expression is not absolute and can be subject to certain restrictions that are provided by law and are necessary for respecting the rights or reputations of others, or for the protection of national security or of public order, public health or morals. In line with our domestic legislation, we have argued that that any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence should be prohibited by law, in accordance with the international obligations of States and that these prohibitions are consistent with freedom of opinion and expression".

Hang on just one moment... does anyone see a new word in that list of no-noes? Coz I see one I've never seen before... a very worrying one indeed...

hostility, not just violence or discrimination, but hostility?

Now... I can't help but feel this is one of those beautiful examples of neo-labour bull shitting, lets take a look at what the word hostile means as defined by dictionary.com:

–adjective
1. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of an enemy: a hostile nation.
2. opposed in feeling, action, or character; antagonistic: hostile criticism.
3. characterized by antagonism.
4. not friendly, warm, or generous; not hospitable.

–noun
5. a person or thing that is antagonistic or unfriendly.
6. Military. an enemy soldier, plane, ship, etc.

...I don't think any further explanation of how deep the governments commitment to freedom of expression is necessary...

Rape in Afghanistan is widespread and violence against women serving in public life is on the rise, a UN report has said.

The 32-page report denounces an institutional failure to curb violence against women and a culture of impunity that leaves such crimes unpunished.

The limited space that opened up for Afghan women following the demise of the Taliban regime in 2001 is under sustained attack, not just by the Taliban themselves, but by deeply engrained cultural practices and customs, said the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay.

Pillay also denounced a chronic failure at all levels of government to advance the protection of women's rights in Afghanistan despite significant advances in the creation of new legislation and institutions.

The report, issued by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned of a growing trend of violence and threats against women in public life.

Violence, in the public and private spheres, is an everyday occurrence in the lives of a huge proportion of Afghan women, the report said.

Parliamentarians, provincial council members, civil servants, journalists, women working for international organisations . . . have been targeted by anti-government elements, by local traditional and religious power-holders, by their own families and communities, and in some instances by government authorities, it said.

Preliminary data suggests that rape is a widespread occurrence in all parts of Afghanistan and in all communities, and all social groups, it said.

Women are also the victims of so-called 'honour' killings, trafficking and abduction, as well as early and forced marriages and domestic violence, it said. Girls and women are exchanged to resolve disputes over land and property.

The report also documents numerous attacks on girls' schools and students who are assaulted with gas and acid by anti-government elements.

A factory owner and two others were murdered when factory workers attacked them for allegedly desecrating the holy Quran, reported a private TV channel.

One report said the owner and the other two were killed over the factory administration’s failure to pay workers, but another reported said the attack was prompted by an allegation that the factory owner – identified only as Najeebullah – had desecrated the holy Quran.

A worker entered Najeebullah’s factory at around 2pm and saw that the owner had taken down an outdated calendar – which had verses from the holy Quran written on it – and put it on a table. The worker claimed that this was desecration of the holy Quran. When a guard tried to stop him, he ran out into the working area and started gathering his colleagues, claiming the owner had committed blasphemy.

When an enraged mob subsequently surrounded Najeebullah, his guard tried to protect him by firing in the air, but the crowd started firing shots at the owner and his guard.

The channel said a large number of workers also attacked the factory administration and beat up several employees. They also blocked the road leading to the factory for three hours and later set the unit on fire.

No intention to change Pakistan's much abused blasphemy laws

Based on article from pakistanchristianpost.com

A Delegation of UK Pakistani Christians was stunned when Wajid Shams-ul-Hassan, Pakistani High Commissioner in UK, openly denied any intention of government of Pakistan to repeal blasphemy law.

The Pakistani High Commissioner in UK condemned attacks on Christians in Pakistan and assured to adopt security measures for Christians in Pakistan.

A Delegation of UK Pakistan Christians called on Pakistani High Commission to express their anger on burning of Christians alive in Pakistan on August 3, 2009. The delegation was led by James Shera former mayor of Rugby along with many other organizations of Christians.

The Christian delegation was of view that blasphemy law is being misused by Islamic extremists creating miseries for Christians and recent wake of violence is also on allegations of blasphemy.

Malak Adel Fawzy, a 19 year old Egyptian Coptic man, was murdered on 4/9/2009 in a savage attack. The tragedy took place in Tanta when Amir Aziz, a friend of Malak Fawzy, had a quarrel with Motaz-Bellah El-Hefny; the quarrel was stopped by bystanders.

Motaz later phoned a few friends to join him near a coffee house where Amir and Malak, were. The gang lurked in an alley and saw Malak leaving the coffee house, who upon seeing them tried to run away.

The prosecution report said that The victim was assaulted by the defendants willfully, deliberately, with premeditation and malice aforethought. They went to the place where he would be present. Defendant Ashraf Shubaki prepared for this purpose a tool (brass knuckles); when they caught him, defendant Motaz intercepted him and Shubaki hit him on his head with the brass knuckle. He fell to the ground, after which, incited by Motaz, they all kicked him with their feet as pre-arranged between them, causing injuries which claimed his life.

Adel Fawzy, the father of the deceased is demanding justice for his murdered son and an appropriate punishment for the culprits according to the law. Fawzy wrote to President Mubarak, the Prime Minister, Justice and Interior ministers, with no response. He even created a group on Facebook in support of his case.

But the father is doubtful that justice will be served. The Chief Prosecutor in Tanta changed his original classification of the crime from deliberate and premeditated killing to assault leading to death. The report of the prosecution concluded the defendants did not intend to kill him, but death was caused by a fatal blow, and four of the five defendants are under the age of 18 years.

According to Magdy Khalil, Coptic political analyst and researcher, All violations against the Copts are deliberately falsely described in a misleading manner. Christian advocacy groups believe that the Egyptian police routinely tamper with evidence and use faulty classification of violations against Copts, in order to help Muslims avoid murder convictions, since according to Shariah law the blood of the Muslim should not be shed for the blood of an unbeliever.

In spite of the many Copts having been killed over the years, not one Muslim has ever been convicted. A recent example was the 5-year sentence handed down to two policemen for throwing a Coptic mand to his death out of a window.

Police fired teargas and beat supporters of a Sudanese woman facing 40 lashes for wearing trousers in public shortly before her trial was adjourned this morning.

Police in Khartoum moved in swiftly and dispersed about 50 protesters, mostly women, who were supporting Lubna Hussein, a former UN worker charged with indecent dressing in violation of the country's Islamic laws.

Some of the women demonstrators wore trousers in solidarity with Hussein. We are here to protest against this law that oppresses women and debases them, said Amal Habani, a female columnist for the daily newspaper Ajraa al-Hurria (Bells of Freedom).

Hussein's trial was later adjourned until September by a judge to seek clarification from Sudan's foreign ministry over her status.

Hussein, who wore the same trousers to court as on the day of her arrest, said she was resigning from her job to have the chance to prove her innocence.

At the time of her arrest, Hussein was working for the media department of the UN mission in Sudan, which gives her immunity from prosecution. She submitted her resignation after her trial began last week because she wanted to go on trial to challenge the dress code law. A defence lawyer, Jalal al-Sayed, said the judge wanted to know whether Hussein still had immunity because her employers were still to accept her resignation.

The trial is seen as a test case of Sudan's harsh indecency laws.

Indonesian police have detained and named Jazuli of Probolinggo regency, for alleged blasphemy, based on reports that he tore passages out of the Koran.

Police said the detention was based of the testimonies of a number of witnesses. Jazuli would be charged with violating the Criminal Code and could face a maximum penalty of five years in prison if convicted.

We have a record on a cell phone of the suspect tearing up Koranic passages, police spokesman Sunardi said.

Local leader of Nahdlatul Ulema (NU), As'ad Abu Hasan, has called on the Muslim community not to be easily provoked by the case: We are helping the police with evidence to bring the suspect to court.

Some Muslims now feel offended by the official anthem of the Bundesliga football club, Schalke 04.

Many German Muslims, including some Schalke fans, have voiced their protest and threatened the club over the third stanza of the team anthem which, refers to the prophet Mohammed. As translated on the team website:

Mohammed was a prophet who
Knew nothing of football, that much is true
But of all the colours shining bright
The ones he thought up were our royal blue and white

The incident was reported by some Turkish media a week ago, and by now the inevitable threats have been expressed on various internet forums.

According to the German folk song archive, the anthem is based on a hunting tune from 1797 which says Mohammed is my patron! He knew real beauty. He, for whom only green was holy from all the colours.

The Schalke version was created in 1924 and the wording edited in 1963. It is sung ahead of every home game.

A club spokesman said that the club has received around 350 emails, adding: We are taking the situation very seriously and are in contact with police and state protection institutions.

Burhan Kesici, general secretary of the Islamic Council in Germany, called for restraint in the articulation of the protests but also urged Schalke to take action. It is not right that the prophet is mentioned in a club anthem. I would wish that out of respect for the Muslims in this country the Mohammed-stanza is not sung, Kesici told the Turkish-language service of the German Press Agency dpa.

The head of Schalke's honorary council, Protestant priest Hans- Joachim Holm, is not taking the incident light-heartedly, but also warned of a hasty reaction from the club. Holm told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily that simply scrapping the controversial lines will lead to a strong emotional backlash from other Schalke fans.

Update: Defused

6th August 2009. Based on article from earthtimes.org

A controversy over whether the club anthem of a German football club insulted the Prophet Mohammed appears to have been defused, by the one of the country's largest Muslim associations.

Aiman Mazyek, General Secretary of the Central Muslim Council said that We should take the whole thing with humour. There is really no blasphemy or mockery in the song, he told the German Press Agency dpa.

According to a Schalke spokesman, the club had received some 350 emails, some threatening, saying that the song was insulting to the religion of Islam. Some Muslim fans of Schalke, which is a highly popular team from the industrial city of Gelsenkirchen, had threatened to withdraw their club membership in protest.

Mazyek linked the reaction to the song to the July 1 murder of a Muslim woman in a courtroom in Dresden by a right-wing extremist: After the terrible murder ... the Muslim community is unsettled and afraid. Naturally, Mohammed lived long before there was any football. He probably would have laughed about it as well, Mazyek said in a statement on the council's website.

Never underestimate the power of YouTube to leapfrog over a censor's red tape. The latest example involves a battle between Oscar-winning filmmaker Costa-Gavras and the newly opened Acropolis Museum in Greece.

Last week, the director asked to withdraw his credit from an animated short that the museum was showing as part of a larger film about the history of the Parthenon. Officials at the museum had reportedly removed a scene from Costa-Gavras' movie after the Greek Orthodox Church objected to what it saw as a depiction of Christian priests destroying parts of the ancient temple.

But on Tuesday, the Acropolis Museum said it had reversed its decision to cut the film after days of picketing and the threat of a lawsuit.

In the controversial scene, animated figures ascend ladders to destroy the Parthenon frieze. The scene is based on regular occurrences from the Byzantine era, during which Christians would lay waste to pagan temples and structures. A good part of the controversy surrounds what the animated figures are wearing -- some say their black cloaks suggest they represent clergy from the Christian church.

Recently, some eager Web surfers posted a version of Costa-Gavras' movie on YouTube so the whole world could see what the fuss was all about. The clip, originally posted by the site zougla.gr, features the offending scene at around the 1-minute 45-second mark.

The Saudi offices of a Lebanon-based satellite station controlled by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal could face closure over a racy talk show featuring a man boasting about his sex life.

The local operations of the Saudi billionaire's broadcaster LBC could be shut down because of the offensive nature of the programme, Abdullah al-Othaim, a senior district judge in Jeddah said.

Jeddah investigators continued to examine evidence to see what charges would be filed against Saudi citizen Mazen Abdul-Jawad, whose discussion of his sex life on LBC's Bold Red Line in July led to his arrest on Friday.

Two other men who took part in the programme were also arrested, while a fourth fled to Morocco, local newspapers cited Saudi police as saying.

Abdul-Jawad's confessions, that he first had sex at 14 with a neighbour, used sex aids and liked to use his cellphone's Bluetooth function to try to pick up women, outraged Saudi conservatives.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has warned that social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace could lead to a rise in suicides.

Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols said the sites encouraged teenagers to build transient relationships that can leave them traumatised when they collapse.

Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols said websites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace could be a factor in teenage suicides, following the inquest of 15-year-old Megan Gillan.

Nichols said the sites encouraged young people to put too much emphasis on the number of friends they have rather than on the quality of their relationships.

Among young people often a key factor in them committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships, he said: They throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they're desolate. It's an all or nothing syndrome that you have to have in an attempt to shore up an identity; a collection of friends about whom you can talk and even boast. But friendship is not a commodity, friendship is something that is hard work and enduring when it's right.

Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, he said the internet and mobile phones were dehumanising' community life and that relationships had been weakened by the decline in face-to-face meetings.

Archbishop Vincent also condemned footballers who break their contracts to move to other clubs for bigger salaries as 'mercenaries'. The Archbishop, who is a supporter of Liverpool FC, said there was a loss of loyalty in society that was typified by the attitude of some footballers: What football spectators appreciate is a bit of loyalty and we're seeing that less and less.

Thousands of Muslims raided a Christian village in the Punjab province of Pakistan Thursday, destroying around 60 houses and two churches, according local sources.

The village of Korian was attacked Thursday night after pages containing Islamic inscriptions were found in front of a Christian home on July 26 following a wedding.

Though the family accused of desecrating the Qur’an said they had no idea who was responsible and nevertheless apologized for the offense, local Muslims filed charges against the family according to the country’s blasphemy laws and went on to attack the village, forcing the some 100 Christian families who live there to flee.

They have left nothing. My horse, my only source of income, has also been taken, Shubaan Masih, a local Christian, told UCA News.

According to media reports, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has also strongly condemned the incident and expressed his sorrow over the destruction of homes and loss of livestock. Reports said that Sharif has directed authorities to secure the area and control the situation.

Update: More Murdered Christians

3rd August 2009. From Minority Concern of Pakistn

On Aug. 1, around three thousand violent Muslim demonstrators attacked a Christian colony in Gojra city in Punjab province and they burned 8 Christians - a 7 years old child, 4 women and 2 men - alive and injured 20 others. They put on fire the whole Christian locality in which 40 houses and 2 local churches were totally burnt.

The Muslim demonstrators were protesting against alleged desecration of Quran by some Christians in a nearby village Koriyan, about 4 kilometers from Gojra, 2 days ago.

On the call of some religious organizations, Muslim community observed a complete strike in the city and started demonstration at 8.30 in the morning. They were demanding death sentence of Talib Masih who is charged of false blasphemy in village Koriyan. For several hours, they blocked the main roads and also the railway track.

Update: Religious Riots

5th August 2009. See article from foxnews.com, thanks to Alan

A Pakistani human rights commission said yesterday that last week's riots in which eight Christians were burnt alive were not spontaneous but planned by attackers, some of whom had links with al-Qaeda. The commission said announcements made from mosques the day before called upon Muslims to "make mincemeat of the Christians".

Paramilitary troops now patrol the streets of a town in eastern Pakistan after Muslim radicals burned to death eight members of a Christian family, raising fears of violence spreading to other areas.

Hundreds of armed supporters of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an outlawed Islamic militant group, burned dozens of Christian homes in Gojra over the weekend after allegations that a copy of the Koran had been defiled.

The mob opened fire indiscriminately, threw gas bombs and looted houses as thousands of frightened Christians ran for safety. They were shouting anti-Christian slogans and attacked our houses, Rafiq Masih, a resident of the predominantly Christian colony, said. Residents said that police stood aside while the mob went on the rampage. We kept begging for protection, but police did not take action, Masih said.

Police and local officials said that at least eight people, including four women and a child, were killed in the fires. Two others died of gunshot wounds. Residents said that the casualties were much higher; one claimed that the number of dead could be in the dozens as many bodies were still buried under the rubble. Shahbaz Bhatti, the Minister for Minorities, said that 40 Christian homes were torched in rioting. He said there was no truth to allegations that a Koran had been defiled, and accused the police of ignoring his appeal to provide protection to Christians.

Update: 80 Arrests

12th August 2009. See article from catholicculture.org

Pakistani police have arrested 80 Muslims following the brutal August 1 attack that left ten Christians dead in the northeastern Pakistani city of Gojra. Speaking at the victims’ memorial Mass, Father Shafique Hadayat, the local parish priest, commended the government for its response.

A man in the US accused of killing his 11-year-old diabetic daughter by praying instead of seeking medical care has been found guilty of second-degree reckless homicide.

Dale Neumann was convicted over the death of his daughter, Madeline, from undiagnosed diabetes.

Prosecutors contended he should have rushed the girl to a hospital because she couldn't walk, talk, eat or drink. Instead, Madeline died on the floor of the family's rural home as people surrounded her and prayed. Someone called an ambulance when she stopped breathing.

Defence attorney Jay Kronenwetter said the verdict would be appealed. He would not comment further.

If I go to the doctor, I am putting the doctor before God, Neumann testified: I am not believing what he said he would do.

Leilani Neumann was convicted on the same charge in the spring. Marathon county circuit judge Vincent Howard set October 6 as the date for sentencing for both parents, who face up to 25 years in prison.

Nicaragua's total ban on abortion is a cruel, inhuman disgrace that's led to the rise in maternal deaths, human rights organization Amnesty International has said.

The Central American country's revised penal code on abortion came into force in July 2008 and criminalizes all forms of abortion regardless of the circumstances, even in cases of rape or incest, a deformed fetus, or when the mother's life is in danger.

Amnesty's researchers visited the country on a fact-finding mission to assess the impact on the lives of women in Nicaragua. The findings are detailed in the report, titled: The total abortion ban in Nicaragua: Women's lives and health endangered, medical professionals criminalized.

Nicaragua hands out prison sentences for girls and women who seek an abortion and for doctors and nurses who provide services linked with abortion.

Amnesty reports that doctors and nurses are frightened to treat a pregnant woman or girl for illnesses such as cancer, malaria, HIV/AIDS or cardiac emergencies where treatment could cause injury or death to the fetus.

Before the law was changed therapeutic abortion had been recognized as a necessary procedure in Nicaragua for more than 100 years, Amnesty said. However, President Daniel Ortega of the left-wing Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) backed the law banning abortion to win crucial conservative Roman Catholic support in the January 2007 elections, Amnesty said.

Nicaragua is among only a few countries in the world where abortion is illegal regardless of any circumstances. Others in Latin America include Chile, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic. Malta and the Philippines also have a total ban on abortion.

The South Jakarta District Court sentenced Agus Imam Solichin, leader of the Satrio Piningit Weteng Buwono sect, to two and a half years in prison for religious blasphemy.

During the court session, Judge A. Haryanto said the defendant had violated article 156A of the Criminal Code on blasphemy.

The verdict was less than the five years being demanded by state prosecutors.

Prosecutor Dedy Soekarno said that the defendant had expressed regret about the charge.

On January 26, policemen raided the headquarters of the sect in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta. The officers suspected the sect was divulging in practices considered false by mainstream Muslims, such as not praying five times per day or fasting.

While Indonesia supposedly attains to be a free secular democracy, there are officially only five religions recognized by the state — Catholicism, Anglicanism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. All other religions are considered blasphemous, particularly those with any link to Islam, and are often the target of police and vigilante activities.

The comedy scene has become the latest arena for the God debate. A new wave of irreverent, atheist stand-ups are taking on the rise of religion.

With the mumbo-jumbo of alternative medicine nestling into previously sane minds and the garbled nonsense of Intelligent Design inching its way ever closer to British schools, beleaguered rationalists could be forgiven for thinking those days are gone for good. Surprisingly, however, the vanguard of the Enlightenment's fightback includes a small group of young, bright and strangely lo-fi comedians - most of whom will be performing at this year's Edinburgh Fringe - based around an occasional roaming comedy night called the School for Gifted Children.

...read full article

The Nigerian police have said that they had rescued 230 women and children kidnapped by members of Boko Haram from several northern states and taken to Maiduguri.

Already, 200 or so members of the group and other victims of terror they unleashed in Maiduguri are to be given mass burial, according to the State police commissioner, Christopher Dega.

One of the rescued people, Maimunatu Shuraim, 15, told AFP that the sect members herded them into waiting buses telling them they would learn pure Islamic theology in Maiduguri.

Although, commercial activities have resumed after five days of fierce fighting between police/soldiers and the sect, security agents are on a house to house search for fleeing members of Boko Haram. Thirty-eight suspected members were arrested in Abuja weekend while on their way to Lagos.

At least 300 have been killed in parts of the North during almost a week of rioting by followers of Boko Haram, a militant sect which wants a wider adoption of sharia (Islamic law). The authorities are hoping the killing of sect leader Mohammed Yusuf, 39, who was shot dead while in police detention in Maiduguri Thursday, will bring an end to violence.

I urge everyone to resume their normal lives now that the unfortunate Boko Haram uprising has been crushed, said Governor Ali Modu Sheriff of Borno State: The security agencies shall continue the house to house searches for members of the sect in order to bring them to justice and I urge you all to cooperate with them.

A woman accused of adultery in Abu Dhabi changed her guilty plea after a court judge warned her confession carried a sentence of death by stoning under sharia law.

The case against the Saudi woman, referred to only as R.M., was brought by her father at Abu Dhabi's Criminal Court of First Instance.

You have the right to deny, the judge was quoted as saying, following woman's admission: The Prophet urged people towards denial in these cases.

Married and divorced men and women who commit adultery face the death penalty by stoning under sharia law. Under the same law, premarital sex is punishable by 100 lashes.

Four reliable witnesses must testify that adultery took place in order to convict a person that denies the charge.

The woman's co-defendant, an Emirati man, referred to only as S.M., faces the same charges. He was not in court.

Iraq’s Culture Ministry has revived regulations forbidding the import of some books, prompting critics to accuse it of restoring Saddam-era censorship.

The ministry has begun requiring publishers to submit lists of titles for approval, said Deputy Culture Minister Taher al-Humoud. He said the rules were based on law dating from the era of former dictator Saddam Hussein, ousted in 2003.

Humoud said the ban was on books glorifying violent jihad and martyrdom, which are typically imported from neighboring countries: All books are allowed except those that incite sectarian grudges. Books that carry Takfiri fatwas [legal opinions that can be interpreted as ha­ving the weight of decrees] against either [Sunni or Shiite] sects, and the bloodshed they cause, are not permitted.

The move has angered groups like the Society to Defend the Freedom of the Press, which issued a statement this week complaining of a return to a totalitarian regime.

Iraq’s 2005 Constitution enshrines freedom of press and publication unless they violate public order or morality.

The unlocked church doors were a sign that all were welcome. But the Reverend Andrew Yates has proven a little less welcoming once he knew the intentions of one group of visitors.

Photographer Andy Craddock, his girlfriend and a couple of models used the vicar’s church in Cornwall as the backdrop for an erotic photoshoot.

Now solicitors acting on behalf of Yates have written to the photographer accusing him of blasphemy. They say that the publication of the pictures on his website, which include naked girls alongside religious symbols, is blasphemous, regardless of his intentions.

They have also threatened him with legal action for trespassing, saying public access to the church is for worship or related church activities and he did not have permission for his photography.

Craddock pointed out that If God does exist, and there is life after death, is someone really going to mind if one of my models is lying on their grave? I would have thought they might be glad of the company: I haven’t been struck down by lightening yet so obviously God doesn’t mind.

The series of fetishistic photos includes: a half-naked girl in suspenders on a private grave; a blonde in the pulpit in a tutu; a half-naked blonde cavorting in the font; two half-naked girls posing between the candles of the altar; and a blonde girl exposing her underwear while reading a Bible by a church window.

The solicitor’s letter describes blasphemy as the publication of contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous matter relating to God, Jesus Christ, the Bible or the formularies of the Church of England. [not much of lawyer if he hasn't noticed that blasphemy laws have been repealed]

Craddock describes himself as an ‘art-house’ photographer who wanted the pictures for his portfolio. The shoot took place during the day in the middle of the week when no one was around. He posted his girlfriend on the door of the church as a look-out.

A spokesman for the Diocese of Truro said: The Church deplores the use of sacred space in this way. The pictures would be deeply offensive to people who view the place for regular worship. That’s not what these buildings are intended for and he is deliberately taking advantage of the situation. Whether he’s gone in there legally or illegally he is using the setting for an entirely improper purpose.

Hugging in public: Police have arrested an Asian couple for indulging in immoral activities in Kuwait.

They were arrested in Sharq, reports Al-Anba daily. According to a security source an unidentified manager of a bank was reportedly looking out the window when he saw the couple in an embrace and called police.

The couple has been referred to the concerned authorities.