More than 200 people have been killed in two days of clashes between Christians and Muslims in central Nigeria, the Red Cross said, during the worst unrest in the country for years.

The army sent reinforcements to enforce a 24-hour curfew in the city of Jos, which lies at the flashpoint where Nigeria's Muslim north and Christian south meet, after rival gangs set fire to churches and mosques.

I counted 218 dead bodies at Masalaci Jummaa [mosque]. There are many other bodies in the streets, said a Red Cross official. That death toll did not include hospital mortuaries, victims already buried, or those taken to other places of worship. The final count could be much higher, officials said.

About 7,000 people had fled their homes and were sheltering in government buildings and religious centres, the Red Cross said.

The governor of Plateau state, of which Jos is the capital, said in a statement that troops had orders to shoot on sight to enforce the curfew in neighbourhoods hit by the violence. Gunfire and explosions heard in the early hours of Saturday later died down, but many streets remained deserted. Military checkpoints were set up around the city and soldiers helped to clear bodies from the streets.

Violence started on Thursday night as groups of youths burnt tyres on the roads after reports of election rigging.

Update: Death Toll Reaches 400

3rd December 2008. See article from thescotsman.scotsman.com

More  bodies were delivered to the main mosque in the central Nigerian city of Jos yesterday, as the death toll from two days of clashes between Christian and Muslim gangs rose to about 400.

Rival ethnic and religious mobs burned homes, shops, mosques and churches in fighting triggered by a disputed local election in a city at the crossroads of Nigeria's Muslim north and Christian south. It is the country's worst unrest for years.

Catholics in Poland are calling for a boycott of furniture retailer IKEA because its catalogue features pictures of same-sex couples.

National newspapers and news websites have covered the story and the concerns of some religious people that the Swedish company is trampling on Christian concepts of family.

For their part, IKEA has robustly defended its advertising and has refused to respond to the boycott. Homosexuality is one of the essential elements of living in contemporary society, said IKEA spokesperson Karolina Horoszczak.

The boycott is being led by Fronda.pl website. Treating single-sex relationships on a par with married couples is impermissible, said Grzegorz Górny, the editor-in-chief of Fronda: IKEA's publication is a promotion of a particular style of living, which does not deserve public propagation.

Letter to the European Parliament on Turkey's banning of RichardDawkins.net by Sophie in 't Veld MEP:

I am writing to express my concern at reports of a Turkish court compromising freedom of expression in the context of Turkey’s application to join the EU.

I would like you to investigate the specific example given below and attempt to see if it forms (as we fear) part of a wider picture of concern, and take the matter up with the Turkish authorities.

The example we cite relates to the blocking of the website of Professor Richard Dawkins, the world-famous evolutionary biologist. A criminal court in Istanbul reportedly banned the site in September 2008 on the grounds that it violated Adnan Oktar's personality after Professor Dawkins criticised Oktar creationist book Atlas of Creation, which is being distributed in Europe in large numbers.

The basis of our complaint is the web/press reports shown in Appendix 1, which were drawn to my attention by the UK’s National Secular Society of which I am a Honorary Associate. I am also writing as the Chair of the EU Working Group for the Separation of Religion and Politics.

Such blockings are in stark contrast to the progress you have been calling for as one of the conditions for Turkey’s succession to the EU. What is happening is worse than Turkish authorities not standing up for freedom of expression; it appears that the state’s mechanism itself is enforcing the restriction on freedom of expression.

Our concern about the banning does not rest in principle on Professor Dawkins’ eminence; however the court’s decision is all the more worrying, given it is difficult to think of anyone more qualified than him to speak on science matters, being the Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.

We believe it essential that the EU remains committed to insisting that countries are not permitted to accede until they conform to fundamental rights. We admire your work in this area and note in Appendix 2 below a number of references you have made to requiring Turkey to improve freedom of expression, for the benefit of others who read this letter, which we regard as an open one.

I look forward to receiving confirmation that you intend to investigate the matter, and subsequently what action you intend to take, including making references to renewed concerns in your reports about the progress being made by candidate states in the vital areas of fundamental rights.

A riot broke out over plans to convert a building in a Cairo suburb into a Christian church.

Muslims and Christians clashed in Mataria after worshippers arrived for a service at the site of the planned church.

Police in Mataria intervened when large numbers of Muslims and Christians faced off over a building which the Christians want to convert into a church. The police then clashed mainly with the Muslim side, they said.

In the incident in Mataria, the confrontation between Muslims and Christians was the culmination of a long-running dispute over the plan to build a church there.

Welsh Assembly officials said that they could not stop a reading by a writer whose poetry has angered Christian nutters.

Liberal Democrat AM Peter Black asked Jones to read from his book, Darkness Is Where The Stars Are, to make sure the poet was not “gagged”.

Independent AM Trish Law wrote to Presiding Officer Lord Elis-Thomas to ask him to stop the event on December 11, saying: I am disgusted that, two weeks before Christmas Day, it is proposed to proceed with the reading of blasphemous poems which are an insult to Jesus Christ and to all his followers. She was bitterly disappointed her plea had been turned down.

Assembly Commission chief executive Claire Clancy said: Neither officials nor the Assembly Commission make judgments on the nature or purpose of these events, except to ensure they would not give rise to any legal problems.

Assembly buildings are public buildings, and secular in character. It is our responsibility to ensure that events sponsored by any Assembly Members are always allowed to take place without fear of disruption or intimidation, while respecting the right to peaceful protest.

Parliament in Iraq's northern autonomous region of Kurdistan is preparing to outlaw female circumcision, according to a woman MP and doctor who has long battled to halt the widespread practice.

A bill making circumcision illegal will be presented in parliament over the next few days, Dr Hala Suheil told AFP, saying it would impose jail terms and fines on offenders.

Kurdistan health minister Zarian Abdel Rahman said that in the region 60% of girls aged four to fourteen undergo circumcision, despite warnings by ministers against this grievous practice committed in the name of religion and hygiene.

The practice, encouraged by some clerics, does not appear to exist in other parts of Iraq.

The ministry of religious affairs should tell imams to speak out against female circumcision in sermons during Friday prayers so their flocks shun the practice, Abdel Rahman said: The education ministry should also introduce programmes in schools to encourage girls not to submit to their parents' wishes in this regard.

Islamic countries won United Nations backing for an anti-blasphemy measure Western critics say risks being used to limit freedom of speech.

Combating Defamation of Religions passed 85-50 with 42 abstentions in a key UN General Assembly committee, and will enter into the international record after an expected rubber stamp by the plenary later in the year.

It provides international cover for domestic anti-blasphemy laws, and there are a number of people who are in prison today because they have been accused of committing blasphemy, said Bennett Graham, international program director with the Becket Fund, a think tank aimed at promoting religious liberty: Those arrests are made legitimate by the UN body's (effective) stamp of approval.

While the current resolution is non-binding, Pakistan's Ambassador Masood Khan reminded the UN's Human Rights Council this year that the OIC ultimately seeks a new instrument or convention on the issue. Such a measure would impose its terms on signatory states.

Western democracies argue that a religion can't enjoy protection from criticism because that would require a judicial ruling that its teachings are the truth.

Defamation carries a particular legal meaning and application in domestic systems that makes the term wholly unsuitable in the context of religions, says the U.S. government in a response on the issue to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: A defamatory statement . . . is more than just an offensive one. It is also a statement that is false.

Authorities in an Egyptian village arrested 50 Coptic Christians, whose shops were then looted, to pacify Muslims following violence that erupted on Nov. 4 over a Christian boy’s unwitting break with custom.

Muslim villagers attacked the homes and shops of Coptic Christians in violence-prone Tayyiba, a town with 35,000 Christians and 10,000 Muslims, after 14-year-old Copt Mina William failed to dismount his donkey as a funeral procession passed.

William’s failure to dismount violated a local custom of showing respect, Copts United reported, and members of the procession reportedly beat him before completing the procession. William suffered minor injuries.

After the funeral procession, the processional members began throwing stones at the homes of local Copts and attacking their shops before police broke up the crowd with tear gas.

A priest said members of the procession did not attack the youths for showing disrespect but as an excuse to lash out against the community’s Christians for a previous episode of sectarian violence.

When the violence began, police presence increased significantly in the city. But rather than quell the unrest, police reportedly made matters worse for the Christians. After breaking up the crowd, officers detained 50 Copts and 10 Muslims.

A source told Compass that police arrested a disproportionate amount of Christians to create a false sense of equanimity and to pressure the Christians into “reconciliation” with the attackers so the Copts would not prosecute them. The arrested Christians have since been released.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation's Imagine No Religion billboard, which went up late last week in Rancho Cucamonga, California, for a two-month run, has been censored by General Outdoor Co., which took down the Foundation's vinyl message.

While the Foundation has encountered billboard companies unwilling to lease boards in several locations, this is the first time one of its billboards has been censored after going up.

The colorful billboard carries the Freedom From Religion Foundation's name and website, and boasts a John Lennon-esque statement, Imagine No Religion, against a stained-glass window background.

Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor called such censorship unprofessional and cavalier: Are religionists so thin-skinned they must squelch free debate? One small freethought billboard in the immense state of California is such a threat to insecure religious egos that it must be censored?

There is nothing insulting in our message. We simply invite the public to think, to imagine a world free from religion. Think of the history of believers warring over their imaginary gods, the fact that more people have been killed in the name of religion than for any other reason! The human race needs to grow up. We should concentrate on improving this world, and stop worrying about the next.

Swedish artist Lars Vilks is at the centre of a new controversy as his new musical Dogs premiered in Stockholm on Saturday.

At a panel discussion after the premiere of the musical - a filmed documentation of events occurring after the drawings of the Muslim prophet Muhammad as a roundabout dog, chaos reigned on Saturday.

When Vilks stood to address the several hundred people gathered in the ABF building in Stockholm, a young woman rose to her feet, made threatening gestures with her key ring and screamed at the artist.

One of the debate's organizers seized the woman in order to escort her from the premises. She then scratched her keys over his underarm, cutting him in two places, said Filip Björner for the event's organizers, the Swedish Humanist Association.

But after the woman was removed from the debate, another woman swiftly took her place. She was permitted to participate in the debate and took the opportunity to verbally abuse the co-organizers, the Ex-Muslims, a group known internationally as Muslims for Christ.

Furthermore, local media have reported that a retrospective exhibition by Vilks had been stopped at Kalmar Art Museum.

The move has caused controversy as the museum's board overruled a decision by the head of the museum, Clas Börjesson, and the museum's curator, to support the exhibition. The head of the museum's board said: As a rule we should not get involved but in this instance, and with a new art museum which has attracted a great deal of attention, it is important to be careful with the exhibitions that are chosen.

Germany is to drop its pursuit of a ban on Scientology after finding insufficient evidence of illegal activity, officials have said.

The German branch of the Los Angeles-based Church of Scientology has been under observation by domestic intelligence services for more than a decade.

Senior security officials asked state governments in December to begin gathering information on whether they had sufficient grounds to seek a ban.

The Church of Scientology welcomed the ministers' decision as the only one possible. The Church further called on officials to end the observation, and what it called "the discrimination and the harassment that go along with it".

Erhart Koerting, Berlin's top security official, said: The appraisal of the government at the moment is that (Scientology] is a lousy organisation, but it is not an organisation that we have to take a hammer to.

Wolfgang Schaeuble, the interior minister, and his counterparts from Germany's 16 states agreed there was not enough proof to justify opening proceedings for such a ban, but domestic intelligence services will continue to monitor Scientology's activities.

There's an uproar over proposals by the council for Islamic ideology (CII), to reform Islamic law concerning the family, in order to provide greater rights for women in the case of divorce.

Current Pakistan law recognizes divorce declared verbally by the husband, in private, and grants few economic rights to the wife.

The CII (a significant constitutional group with a legal consulting role in parliament and the government, set up in 1962) is also proposing that the wife should be able to ask for a divorce, in writing, with an obligation for the husband to accept the request within 90 days. It is also advised that women should declare their property at the time of their marriage, because after divorce many husbands strip their wives of their own property.

Asma Jahangir, president of the Pakistani commission for human rights, explains to AsiaNews that, in any case, women have a legal right to divorce, but the real problem is that often the husband does not provide any economic support for her or her children. She recalls that many husbands throw their wives and children out of the house, without even divorcing or giving them anything.

The proposal has prompted widespread opposition in the Islamic world, and the mufti Munibor Rehman, a prominent religious leader, accuses the CII of wanting to invent a new sharia and to create anarchy and chaos in the country.

The proposed law, which will be examined by parliament.

Five million internet websites are currently being blocked by the Iranian government, a website called 'Rooz' reported, quoting the Iran's prosecutor general as its source.

The report is the first ever in which a legislative source from Iran has divulged information about the regime's censorship policies.

During a conference in the country Prosecutor General Abdolsamad Khoram Abadi explained that most of the sites were blocked because they contained unethical content, a reference to pornography and other anti-Islamic entertainment.

Ismail Radkani, a spokesman for the company responsible for the blocking of websites in Iran, also spoke during the conference. He said over a thousand such sites were being automatically withdrawn from the public eye every month, according to legislature passed down from the government.

Abadi estimated the internet as a more imminent danger than satellite dishes, because of the fact that the internet is more accessible. Thus, he called for the establishment of an internet police in his country.

Update: Bloggers Under Duress

24th November 2008. See article from advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org

Iranian authorities recently jailed two cyber writers. Paris based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reports online journalist Shahnaz Gholami’s arrest at her Tehran home on 9 November. She was the editor of Azarzan blog. RSF reports also that theologian and online journalist Mojtaba Lotfi was arrested on 8 October for posting a sermon by a well-known opponent of Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei online.

At the end of October Mojtaba Saminejad, a former jailed blogger, writes that security forces threatened his wife and him because of his blog and political ideas. The blogger adds that his wife has been under pressure by security agents to complain against him. he has not updated his blog since 29th of October.

The woman in black wanted an Islamic divorce. She told the UK religious judge that her husband hit her, cursed her and wanted her dead.

But her husband was opposed, and the Islamic scholar adjudicating the case seemed determined to keep the couple together. So, sensing defeat, she brought our her secret weapon: her father.

In walked a bearded man in long robes who described his son-in-law as a hot-tempered man who had duped his daughter, evaded the police and humiliated his family.

The judge promptly reversed himself and recommended divorce.

...Read full article

The Russian-language edition of Newsweek magazine has been warned for allegedly insulting Muslims, Moscow prosecutors said.

The magazine published two stories that could be insulting or humiliating to Muslims, the Moscow Prosecutor's Office said, adding that an article also included one of the 2005 Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The magazine published the stories on Muslims in the European Union in late October.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights reports that the website of Arab Secularists 3almani.org is facing a campaign to block it in Arab states.

Five states have already blocked the site, making it the most-blocked website.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia and Bahrain have blocked both sites and they have now been joined by Syria in blocking the Arab Secularists website.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said: It is not surprising that these websites have been blocked by these states, but it is strange that the most-blocked websites have a secularist trend, which reveals the stance of these states against the secularist and democratic values called for by these websites. Strangest of all is the fact that the United Arab Emirates have joined the list of countries that have this animosity to the Internet.

University-educated Catholics are to blame for the crisis in the Church and the growth of secularism, according to the bishop of Lancaster charged with tackling the decline in Mass attendance.

The Rt Rev Patrick O'Donoghue has claimed that graduates are spreading scepticism and sowing dissent. Instead of following the Church's teaching they are hedonistic, selfish and egocentric, he said.

In particular, the bishop complained that influential Catholics in politics and the media were undermining the Church.

While not naming names, he suggested that such people had been compromised by their education, which he said had a dark side, due to original sin.

Bishop O'Donoghue, who has recently published a report on how to renew Catholicism in Britain, argued that mass education has led to sickness in the Church and wider society:

What we have witnessed in Western societies since the end of the Second World War is the development of mass education on a scale unprecedented in human history - resulting in economic growth, scientific and technological advances, and the cultural and social enrichment of billions of people's lives.

However, every human endeavor has a dark side, due to original sin and concupiscence. In the case of education, we can see its distortion through the widespread dissemination of radical scepticism, positivism, utilitarianism and relativism.

Taken together, these intellectual trends have resulted in a fragmented society that marginalizes God, with many people mistakenly thinking they can live happy and productive lives without him.

The bishop said that influential Catholics had set a bad example and corrupted the faith of those who had not gone to university:

This failure of leadership has exacerbated the even-greater problem of the mass departure from the Church of the working-class and poor. For example, the relentless diatribe in the popular media against Christianity has undermined the confidence of the ordinary faithful in the Church.

Nicholas Lash, the former Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University, called the bishop's comments extremely grave: Quite what constructive purpose could possibly be served by such irresponsible and wholesale scapegoating of the educated, I have simply no idea.

Patrick Jones, the poet who has wound up the nutters of Christian Voice with his atheist poetry has updated the current situation:

Three Welsh AM.s are now trying to get the reading cancelled at the Welsh Assembly due to blasphemy and profanity in the poems and that the UK is a Christian country and believe in freedom of speech ...but - and I promise I have not sent an email or invited them or anything!!! I think it goes to show the knee jerk reactions that abound.

Also Borders have stepped in and we will be launching the book on Dec 11th at the Cardiff store with a further reading in London's Borders - which I hope will show the way that it should have been handled and that the issue was not how Christian Voice heard of the book but their reaction and their destruction of free speech. The venues I am reading at (and I could be reading any poem - even Rowan Williams!) are being bombarded and threatened with calls and emails from CV members and some are quite upset and anxious about this.

Update: Naming the Guilty

21st November. Based on article from freethinker.co.uk

Trish Law, the independent AM for Blaenau Gwent has written to the Assembly’s Presiding Officer, Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas to complain about the planned reading of Jones’ poems in the Assembly:

I uphold freedom of speech [...BUT...] I cannot condone the reading of blasphemous, obscene and perverted poems in the National Assembly. We are still a Christian country, yet one that acknowledges and readily accepts other religious beliefs and values. So while we would not tolerate other religions and religious leaders being insulted through verse or deed neither should we expect Christ and Christianity to be subjected to a tirade of anti-Christian rhetoric and profanity.

I implore you to put a stop to this reading on December 11 in the name of decency and humanity.

The line of attack from Conservative Jonathan Morgan is not the same but the upshot of his argument is: the reading - hosted by two AMs, Lorraine Barrett and Peter Black - should not happen:

Patrick Jones seems to think that the freedom of speech is a convenient shield to be used when under attack for being offensive. In exercising that freedom, and in respecting it, we should do so responsibly. [...BUT...] I do not believe that AMs should be wading into the debate by hosting a reading. It is a mistake and opens up the institution to the accusation that it is siding with one opinion without giving the other the same chance of expression.

The Indonesian government says it has called on a blogging website to take down two cartoons which depict Muslim Prophet Muhammad in sexual situations.

The communications minister said the drawings were very inappropriate, and said if necessary he would ask internet service providers to block the entire WordPress site.

The cartoons, which appeared on the website last month, have provoked fierce debate among viewers. The two cartoons, which are several pages long, each tell a sexually explicit story involving the Prophet, interspersed with verses apparently lifted from the Koran.

A ministry spokesman said the cartoons were offensive, not just to Muslims, but to all religions.

There were protests in Indonesia two years ago when cartoons depicting Muhammad appeared in a Danish newspaper.

Based on article from fatihsyuhud.com

To show how easy it is to get bloggers to support censorship:

I am grateful to wordpress.com which acted quick enough to close down the controversial blog on the Prophet cartoon comic strip written by –who else?–an anonymous irresponsible blogger. Otherwise, the Indonesia government would have closed down the entire Indonesia’s wordpress.com community as stated by Indonesia’s Communication Minister Muhammad Nuh.

The blog which has been closed by wordpress.com is lapotuak.wordpress.com,

The Debenhams store in Oxford Street has been banned from playing Christmas carols after council bosses said the music created noise pollution.

Westminster council officials have ordered managers at the department store not to broadcast the festive music that traditionally accompanies its popular window display, and threatened it with prosecution if it does not comply.

Thousands of families normally flock to see the £100,000 display featuring moving reindeer and snowmen while listening to traditional carols such as Jingle Bells or Silent Night broadcast onto the street through four-inch speakers.

However, despite being played on one of the busiest and noisiest shopping streets in England, environmental health officials told the shop's management the music would have to be switched off because it constituted noise pollution.

Daniel Astaire, Westminster's cabinet member for community protection, said: If every business was allowed to blast its choice of music and advertising into Oxford Street a visit would become unbearable and inevitably affect trade.

The store offered to turn down the volume but this was rejected by the council.

An employee at the store, who wants to remain anonymous, said the music would cheer people during the credit crunch and branded the council killjoys.

He said: We've done this for decades and at a time of grimness it brings an awful lot of joy into people's lives at Christmas. We were more than happy to turn the music right down so only people standing inches from the window could hear it but he insisted it must be turned off or we would be prosecuted. We could understand the council's stance if were deliberately blaring out the usual Christmas songs by Slade with no regard for passers by. But this is a very gentle, very quiet, discreet piece, composed especially to appeal to children as they watch the show. It's clear that Scrooge is alive and well and working with the killjoys at Westminster City Council.

Three-inch plastic figurines include Jesus bashing people with a cross, Moses slugging away with the tablets of the Ten Commandments, the Buddha with a machine gun, and a turbaned fellow with a bomb and a dagger vaguely hinting at Mohammed, all to be set loose to force the people of the world to worship you.

The game was introduced in September at DragonCom, the annual pop culture, fantasy and science fiction convention in Atlanta, where it caught on with religious folks with a sense of humor as well as skeptics, says its creator, Ben Radford, managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine.

Radford says much of the world's violence is rooted in religion, so he thought directly mocking various images of God and religious followers would make more social commentary and pierce the pretensions of extremist religious zealotry with humor.

Players can choose among the five figurines or make one for themselves with stickers for a god who resembles Oprah, a stein of beer or Satan or add a word label such as Islam, technology, even the Almighty Dollar. Says Radford: I didn't want to leave out a Muslim figure just because it might be offensive. The game is satire. But I went out of my way to be innocuous. The figure is not named. It could be any Muslim leader.

Playing Gods resembles the video game tradition it emulates — fantasy violence for entertainment, says Carl Raschke, professor of religious studies at University of Denver.

The game's perspective has no basis in historical reality and doesn't actually represent any religion. It just appeals to people who hate religion to begin with — the hip subculture of militant popular atheists, says Raschke: These people are fanatics, for the most part, themselves. Their thinking is rigid and hostile and not much different from jihadists who don't use their minds or study what they are dealing with. They start from their own dogmatic perspective.

Offensive? Says Raschke, Of course it is. But it sounds too stupid to go far.

The $39.99 game is available online and in independent game stores but, Radford acknowledges, the big chain stores aren't going to touch a game like this.

A Turkish barber, who was condemned to capital punishment in Saudi Arabia on charges of blasphemy, is likely to be released, Turkey’s ambassador to Riyadh said over the weekend.

Turkish barber to be released I believe our citizen will be released and sent to Turkey. We were objecting to the process followed at the tribunal, and I think it gave positive results for him, Ambassador Naci Koru said. Koru called Sabri Bogday’s family in Hatay to inform them he would be released.

The barber was sentenced to beheading for swearing during an argument with his neighbor, a tailor.

President Abdullah Gül previously telephoned and sent a letter to the Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz to demand Bogday’s pardon.

Update: Two Turkish Barbers

19th January 2009

A Turkish barber who was sentenced to death by a Jeddah court on blasphemy charges will soon be released following a royal clemency.

The Ministry of Interior has informed us about the release of Sabri Bogday, who has been languishing in a Saudi prison for the last three years, Turkish Ambassador to the Kingdom Naci Koru said.

Thanking the Saudi government on behalf of the Turkish government and people, Koru said the Kingdom has rescinded the death penalty and that the authorities are processing papers to release Bogday.

Bogday, a hairdresser in Jeddah, was sentenced to death for swearing at God during an argument with his neighbor, an Egyptian tailor. Police arrested Bogday after the tailor lodged a complaint. The case received much publicity in the Turkish and Western media.

Ersin Taze, another Turkish barber who was facing the death penalty for allegedly slandering the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), was released and then repatriated to Ankara six months ago.

Update: Close Shave

27th January 2009

A Turkish barber, sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia but later pardoned, has been released and is returning to Turkey, the Turkish Embassy in Riyadh reported yesterday.

Sabri Bogday will return to Turkey on the first plane from Jeddah to Istanbul, officials said. The barber called his family yesterday after being released and said he would be in Turkey on Tuesday.

A teenager was brutally murdered by her boyfriend's Muslim flatmate because he did not approve of him going out with a Catholic.

Lidia Motylska, 19, was strangled in an alleyway in Leeds by Iraqi immigrant Abobakir Jabari who objected to his Kurdish flatmate's relationship with her.

Jabari, 39, who was given British citizenship in 2005, pleaded guilty at Sheffield Crown Court to murdering the petite Polish teenager.

The court heard he garrotted her from behind, using the cord from his tracksuit bottoms, before inflicting "gratuitous" wounds on her lifeless body. He stabbed her repeatedly in the chest and stomach and slit her throat.

Sentencing Jabari to life imprisonment with a minimum tariff of 19-and-a-half years, Mr Justice McKinnon said the murder involved an exceptional degree of violence.

The head of the West Papua Provincial Legislative Council (DPRD) repeated the province's intention to secede from Indonesia if the anti-pornography bill passed into law, during a rally in front of the Bali governor office in Denpasar, on Saturday.

Jimmy Demianus Ijie told Balinese protesters that West Papua would galvanize international support for secession if the government enforces the anti-pornography bill in West Papua.

Jimmy said the West Papuans could not accept the bill because it smelled of Sharia law and it had no respect for the constitution, which, he said, embraces Indonesia's five major religions and its hundreds of cultures.

He said the bill was an insult to church congregations in West Papua, who had expressed their stand against the bill: The church played a major part in assisting the government in returning West Papua to Indonesia, and because the church is West Papua's representative, this is a stab in the back, too.

He further supported the Bali People's Component's (KRB) attempt to file a judicial review at the Constitutional Court: If the judicial review fails, we will secede.

KRB coordinator Ngurah Harta said the judicial review would be filed next week, pledging to hold a civil disobedience campaign if the review fails.

The Lahore high court has banned the screening of Bollywood flick Dostana across Pakistan, saying it has some highly objectionable gay content.

The court held that the movie propagates homosexuality, which is not only illegal in Islamic Republic of Pakistan but also considered a crime punishable by whipping, imprisonment, or even death.

The petitioner maintained that Dostana promotes gay marriage which is prohibited in Islam and all other religions. Gay marriage is an atrocious and obscene act, more likely to be performed by someone of unsound nature, the petitioner said.

The Lahore high court subsequently directed the chairman of Pakistan Film Censor Board not to allow screening of the film and furnish the transcript of Dostana before the court at the next hearing of the case.

Update: Passed

18th November. See article from indiaglitz.com

The Lahore High Court has stated that the film can be released if it is certified by Pakistan censor board.

Today after the private screening, the officials of Censor Board signaled green lights for release of film in 4 cinema halls of Lahore…

Students are slowly returning to classes at a Kandahar City girls' school following an attack last week that left several girls with acid burns on their faces.

Compared to the first couple of days, there are more students coming to the school, said Mahmood Qaderi, the principal of Mirwais Minna girls' school.

None of the school's 1,500 students or teachers attended classes in the days following last Wednesday's attack. The students were seriously burned after two men on a motorcycle threw acid on them as they walked to the classes.

Afghanistan's government condemned the attack and blamed the country's enemies, a reference normally used to describe Taliban militants. Girls were banned from schools under the Taliban's hardline Islamist regime, which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

Qaderi said government officials have pledged to improve security near the school.

Susan Ibrahimi, one of the students burned by the acid, said she won't be deterred from going to school. The 18-year-old, who received minor burns to her face, said she supports Afghan President Hamid Karzai's weekend call for the public execution of the attackers: Whoever threw this acid poison at us, these people should be hanged. We don't want to forgive those people.

We are just educating our youth, said an unidentified teacher. They can't stop us. Even if they burn me, I wouldn't stop. I'd come to school and teach classes.

Update: Suspects Rounded Up

28th November. See article from independent.co.uk

A terrorist cell accused of squirting acid in schoolgirls' faces has been rounded up in southern Afghanistan. The country's President, Hamid Karzai, called for the perpetrators to face public executions.

Amazon UK has barred the sale of a new Scientology exposé penned by a former member of the church's elite paramilitary group.

The British incarnation of the world's most popular etailer is no longer offering The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology, by John Duignan, who spent 22 years inside the top secret organization.

In a recent post to an anti-Scientology discussion forum, an Anonymous Brit says that after pre-ordering the book, he received an email from Amazon announcing it had been removed from sale for legal reasons.

The book is also no longer available at Waterstone's and is out of stock at US Amazon

The US listing describes the book like this:

For the first time ever, a former high-ranking member of the Church of Scientology is lifting the lid on life inside the world s fastest growing cult. The Complex reveals the true story behind the religion that has ensnared a Who's Who list of celebrities such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, and convinced thousands of ordinary people to join up.

Duignan describes how two years ago he staged a dramatic escape from the elite paramilitary group at the core of the Church, the Sea Organisation, and how he narrowly evaded pursuit by Scientologists from the Office of Special Affairs. He looks back on the 22 years he served in the Church's secret army and describes the hours of sleep deprivation, brain-washing and intense auditing or religious counselling he endured, as he was moulded into a soldier of Scientology.

He talks about the money-making-machine at the heart of the Church, the Scientology goal to Clear the Planet and Get Ethics In, the training programmes, the Rehabilitation Project Force and the punishments meted out to anyone who transgresses, including children. We follow his journey through the Church and the painful investigation that leads to his eventual realisation that there is something very wrong at Scientology's core.

The Complex was published by the Dublin, Ireland-based Merlin Publishing.

Violent Muslim mobs attacked the home of Gulsher Masih after his daughter who was accused of desecrating the Quran on Oct. 9.

Both he and his daughter have been detained in Faisalabad since Oct. 10, and the rest of the family has gone into hiding.

A mob numbering in the hundreds gathered at the house of Masih last month armed with sticks, stones and bottles of kerosene after accusations that he had encouraged his daughter to tear pages from the Quran were broadcast over loudspeakers from a mosque.

A mob came and they stoned their house, and they put the kerosene oil on the whole house to put it on fire, said Yousef Benjamin of the National Commission for Justice and Peace. However, just before that the police came in.

Under pressure from the mob, police on Oct. 10 charged Masih’s daughter – and Masih himself, for defending her – with violating section 295-B of the Pakistani Penal Code, which prescribes life imprisonment for those convicted of desecrating the Quran.

Update: Released

19th December 2009. See article from asianews.it

Gulsher Masih and his daughter Sandal, from a village near Faisalabad, indicted and arrested on charges of blasphemy against Islam in October last year, were released on December 14. Khalil Tahir, Gulsher and Sandal's lawyer, confirmed the ruling of the court in Faisalabad to AsiaNews.

The two Christians were accused of blasphemy under Article 295 paragraph B of the Pakistan Penal Code October 9, 2008. They were charged with having torn some pages from the Koran in the village of Tehsil Chak Jhumra, located in the district of Faisalabad.

Khalil Tahir, a Christian MP and lawyer, told AsiaNews that although it is very difficult to defend Christians accused of blasphemy in Pakistan, thank God I was able to successfully demonstrate their extraneousness to the facts. All charges against them were groundless, because based on personal disagreements.

The decision by Peter Black Welsh Assembly Member to invite the poet Patrick Jones to read his poetry in the National Assembly has been condemned by nutters.

Christian Voice described the event, due to be held on 11th December, as a disgrace to the Assembly itself.

But Peter Black, who is the LibDem's culture spokesman, has now invited Jones, an atheist, to read his poems, which call for an end to Christian worship, in Committee Room 24 of the Assembly at 12 noon on Thursday 11th December.

Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, said:

'This is a creepy event at which Jesus-hating AM's can swoon over poems packed with hatred for Christianity and which speak of Mary Magdalene and the poet having sex with the Lord Jesus Christ. They will also hear Jones' unfettered hatred of Christianity, which he has somehow managed to convince himself is indistinguishable from Islam.

'What they will not hear is Jones insult the prophet Mohammed. He dare not do that at all, let alone in the sexual way he insults Jesus Christ, whom he sees as a soft target.

'Christians in Wales must not take this lying down. We need to stand up for our Lord against this attack on His honour and on the Church itself by Peter Black. He has gone out of his way to show contempt for Christians in Wales . As he is the LibDem Culture Spokesman, that means insulting Jesus Christ is now official LibDem policy. The LibDems have thus become a political party Christians can no longer in conscience vote for or take any part in.'

Hundreds of people rallied Saturday in the Hindu-majority holiday island of Bali against a tough anti-pornography law branded by critics a threat to religious freedom.

About 400 people marched through the Balinese capital Denpasar in defiance of the law passed by mainly Muslim lawmakers in Jakarta last month.

Protesters denounced as too broad the law's definition of pornography, saying it was a threat to Indonesia's diverse non-Muslim minorities and could shatter national unity.

High-spirited protesters in traditional sarongs and translucent temple blouses marched toward the provincial governor's office, cheering wildly at traditional dances and performances by local pop singers in curve-hugging pants.

The chair of the West Papua provincial parliament, Jimmy Demianus Ijie, said the law passed after years of deliberation in Jakarta criminalised Papuan culture, where many people go semi-naked.

A challenge to the law would be launched in Indonesia's Constitutional Court next week, activist Ngurah Harta told the protest: We have to win this judicial review or we will hold a massive civil disobedience campaign.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) has reported that blogger Roshdi Algadir was arrested by religious police in Saudi Arabia on 4th November.

He was taken from his place of work in Al-Dammam city, held for three hours, beaten up and forced to sign an agreement never again to publish his work on the internet. The reason behind the attack is a poem that Algadir has posted on his blog (in Arabic).

Roshdi Algadir, winner of an international award for his collections of poetry, had posted some of them on his blog. Following this he was surprised by members of the Hisba apparatus who snatched him from his work, beat him and accused him of apostasy.

Algadir is insistent that poetry should only be subject to the critiques of literature, but the way he was arrested confirms the insistence of the apparatus to act against the interests of freedom of expression in the name of religious repression.

Gamal Eid, executive director of ANHRI stated: The members of the Hisba apparatus threaten the legal system and all the citizen's rights in the name of protecting the Islamic religion. The existence of this apparatus is an insult to Islam, depicting it as it does, as anti freedom of speech and anti freedom of expression.

A poet has been forced to launch his new collection in the street after a bookstore cancelled the event because of a campaign by Christian nutters.

Darkness is Where the Stars Are is a collection of 30 to 40 poems from the Welsh publishers, Cinnamon Press.

Patrick Jones was due to sign copies at Waterstone's in Cardiff but the shop cancelled the event at the last moment.

The company said it was not a censor but felt it was prudent to cancel the event because of its duty to customers. The book remains on sale in Waterstones.

Jones said he was not going to be beaten down by religious activists, and signed copies for a small group of people in the street: I'm really proud of this book and I'm really sickened. There shouldn't be censorship of this sort - it doesn't set out to be offensive. He said he had not singled out Christianity in his poems, but was questioning beliefs in society.

Christian Voice said the book was obscene and blasphemous and called on the chain to remove copies from stores.

The national director of Christian Voice, Stephen Green, said the decision was a triumph for the Lord, not for us. The Lord had not even showed me what we should do at Waterstone's, only that it should be Christlike. Just the knowledge that we were on our way has put the fear of God into the opposition.

Australian Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner has defended a colleague's published novel over criticism it contains graphic and sexual material.

The book The Twelfth Fish - written by Labor backbencher Graham Perrett - is a perfectly reasonable mainstream novel, he says.

But nutters of Salt Shakers, a Christian ethics and lobby group, says leaders of the nation should not be encouraging reading that contains extremely graphic and sexual material.

The book contains five racy sex scenes, coarse language and racist remarks.

I have read the book and I think some of the expressions that have been made about this book are entirely exaggerated, Mr Tanner told ABC Television: If you look around at a few books here and there, you'll find equivalent sex scenes.

He described Salt Shakers as one of those rather obscure and extreme groups that sometimes get into public debate.

I suspect my mum would be a little bit worried about some of the content of the book, but it's an adult novel. It had been a long time since books with sex scenes were banned in Australia, Tanner said.

Perrett, a first-time parliamentarian, wrote the book before being elected the member for Moreton in Queensland.

Heads of state convened at the UN headquarters to talks on how to foster religious tolerance, but predictably little headway was made because of underlying differences.

The conference was sponsored by Saudi Arabia and brought together representatives from 80 countries to overcome religious and cultural divisions. Saudi Arabia’s leadership role in the conference made representatives and human rights groups question the amount of progress the gathering would yield.

Saudi Arabia follows the world’s strictest form of Islam, Wahhabism, and bans all other forms of public worship, including other branches of Islam.

Saudi Arabia is not qualified to be a leader in this dialogue at the United Nations, said Ali Al-Ahmed, a Saudi national who serves as director of the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs, to The Washington Post: It is the world headquarters of religious oppression and xenophobia.

Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, also made negative comments on Saudi Arabia’s qualification to lead the conference: There is no religious freedom in Saudi Arabia, yet the kingdom asks the world to listen to its message of religious intolerance.

The usual underlying tensions created divisions with leaders taking sides along Arab versus pro-Western lines. Jordan’s King Abdullah II criticized Western policy, saying its ignorance has subjected Islam to injustice.

But given the split between countries and the added complications with mixing religion and politics, sources say there is no chance for a resolution and maybe not even a declaration at this conference.

A proposed Saudi text, for example, wanted to condemn the mocking of religious symbols that is highly offensive to Saudis and many Muslims. But European countries rejected the text because they see this as infringing on freedom of speech.

United Nations General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann revealed himself as a nutter and said that the world body should ban defamation of all religions and disagreed that such a move would impinge upon freedom of speech.

Yes, I believe that defamation of religion should be banned, he said at a press conference No one should try to defame Islam or any other religion adding: We should respect all religions.

D'Escoto, a former Nicaraguan foreign minister who himself is a priest, said that religion was a very divisive subject and that's why the meeting would concentrate on common ethical values to make a common front against hunger, ignorance and disease.

A taxi driver who said religion forbade him from carrying a blind man and his guide dog has been fined.

The taxi was booked with Cable Cars in Nottingham for Christopher Odel.

The job was accepted by the firm, but when Ali Reza Roshanmoniri arrived at the school on the afternoon of August 27 he refused to take Odell and his dog.

This broke the conditions of the licence he was granted by Broxtowe Borough Council, who prosecuted Roshanmoniri for failing to carry a disabled person with a dog, an offence under the Disability Discrimination Act.

John Cunliffe, representing the council, told Nottingham Magistrates Court: Most of the operators are aware that Mr Odell is blind and accompanied by his guide dog. On seeing Mr Odell's guide dog he said it was against his religion to carry dogs in his vehicle. It was explained to him that the dog was a working dog and could not be refused carriage.

The member of staff who ordered the taxi phoned Cable Cars, who immediately sent another taxi and said the driver would be taken off for the rest of the day. She later made a complaint to Broxtowe Borough Council, who confirmed that the driver had been suspended.

Roshanmoniri was fined £300 after responding to a summons with a guilty plea. He will have to pay this, along with £150 in legal costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

Rashed Ahmed paints the fiery eyes of a python on to a giant piece of white cloth in the grounds of Dhaka University, as a huge crowd of painters, actors and writers cheer the fine arts student on.

Each of those gathered then has a tilt at drawing their own symbols, leaving a personal mark indicative of the Bangladeshi cultural heritage they say hardline Muslims are determined to destroy.

Large groups of Bangladeshi artists -- including film-makers, singers and writers -- began daily protests last month after authorities removed two newly commissioned sculptures of local folk singers erected outside Dhaka's airport.

A group of Muslim hardliners calling themselves the Anti-Statues Resistance Committee complained that the sculptures were idols, which are strictly forbidden in Islam, and threatened to attack the artwork with power tools.

One of the group's leaders Mufti Fazlul Haq Amini, a former MP, says that he will demolish all statues if his party wins the December 18 parliamentary elections.

A Montreal man brought before magistrates on a charge of blasphemy has been acquitted because the words fuck you do not refer to God or any sacred item.

Charles-Yves Dupuy was arrested under Montreal’s blasphemy bye-law after he used the words against two police officers in May 2006.

But last week, according to this report, Judge Pierre Bouchard said that while the words were widely regarded as incorrect, impolite and crude, they should not be considered blasphemous under the bylaw.

According to police, the officers asked for Dupuy’s name, figuring he had broken the bylaw. They arrested Dupuy for obstruction of justice when he refused to tell them his identity. The judge acquitted Dupuy, saying he did not have to give police his name in the first place and therefore did not obstruct the officers’ work.

Israeli police have broken up another brawl among rival monks in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, believed by some to be the site of Jesus's crucifixion, burial and resurrection.

The church in Jerusalem's Old City, one of the most revered sites in Christianity, is home to six different Christian sects who frequently fight over the rights to maintain and worship in different sections of its hallowed halls.

This time, the fight followed an Armenian procession marking the fourth-century discovery of a cross believed to have been used in Jesus's crucifixion.

Greek Orthodox monks had apparently wanted to post a monk inside the Edicule, a structure built on what is believed to be Jesus's tomb, and blocked the procession when the Armenian clergymen refused.

Riot police broke up the fight and arrested a bearded Armenian monk and a Greek Orthodox monk bleeding from a gash on his forehead.

An art gallery will not face any legal action over nutter claims that it displayed an indecent statue of Jesus Christ.

The artwork was part of an exhibition at Gateshead's Baltic Centre featuring several plaster figures with erections.

A private prosecution was being brought by Christian group member Emily Mapfuw on the grounds the statue outraged public decency.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) stopped the action on Monday and said the gallery had no case to answer.

Nicola Reasbeck, Chief Crown Prosecutor, said: The CPS has the right to take over a private prosecution and prosecute it ourselves, take it over and stop the case, or allow the private prosecution to continue.

Having considered the evidence in this case with great care, we are satisfied that there is no case to answer. We have taken into account all the circumstances, including the fact that there was no public disorder relating to the exhibition and that there was a warning at the entrance to the gallery about the nature of the work on display.

The case has therefore been discontinued.

The statue was part of Baltic's September 2007 to January 2008 exhibition by Chinese-born artist Terence Koh, Gone, Yet Still.

Governments across Europe must do more to safeguard freedom of speech for Muslim reformers who face threats from extremists, a think tank has warned.

The UK-based Centre for Social Cohesion highlighted the cases of 27 writers, including Sir Salman Rushdie, activists, politicians and artists.

The centre said they had suffered violence and intimidation for criticising Islam or seeking reform.

It said governments had a duty to ensure free speech for all citizens.

The report - Victims of Intimidation: Freedom of Speech within Europe's Muslim Communities - said official failure to offer victims the protection they needed had left "significant numbers" of Muslims unable to express themselves.

It said this also created the impression that more Muslims were opposed to free speech than was actually the case.

The centre called for European governments to promote greater religious and social harmony by demonstrating that they see Muslims and those of Muslim background as complete citizens, neither restricted in their freedoms nor unduly permitted to issue threats against others.

Douglas Murray, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion and co-author of the report, said Muslims found it increasingly difficult to criticise elements of their faith or culture without fear of reprisal.

In a free society, no belief or set of values should remain beyond open criticism. To grant a belief system amnesty from discussion concedes that intimidation and violence can succeed.

Unless Muslims are allowed to discuss their religion without fear of attack there can be no chance of reform or genuine freedom of conscience within Islam.

Burkha is the new bikini

Bali Police chief Insp. Gen. Teuku Ashikin Husein said his institution had no option but to enforce the new pornography law in the province.

I have no option. The police must enforce every positive law in the country, he said in Denpasar, as quoted by Tempointeraktif.com.

Ashikin said the law would be implemented through a government regulation which had yet to be established.

Last week, Bali's governor and speaker of the provincial legislature announced that the province would not be able to enforce the newly passed law, saying it was not in line with Balinese philosophical and sociological values.

Bali leaders and members of the public have united in an organization named the Bali People's Component to challenge the new law through the Constitutional Court.

Domestic violence cover up?

Domestic violence is more common in Muslim households because men think they have a God-given right to beat up their wives, according to a leading female Muslim medic.

Fatima Husain, a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology, has told how she sees Muslim women coming for treatment with strangle marks around their necks and bruises on their pregnant bumps.

Dr Husain, who works at Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals in Berkshire, told the Muslim News that many women ask to be referred to her specialist clinics because she is a hijab-wearing Muslim, allowing her to discover the true scale of domestic violence in her religious community.

She said: I've seen injuries on some of my patients that I wouldn't dream would happen to pregnant women. I've seen strangle marks, finger marks on their necks and bruises on their pregnant abdomens.

Domestic violence is supposedly equally divided amongst the various groups but I get the impression it is more common in Muslims. Some Muslim men think they have a God-given right to be physically violent to their spouses. I see the result of all this when they are admitted as my patients.

Burkha is the new bikini

Indonesia watched its new anti-pornography law leap into action last weekend, as police raided a Jakarta nightclub and arrested three employees. The officers detained three erotic dancers in the raid. The women now face up to 10 years in prison.

The new law retains a broad definition of pornography that many fear could be abused by law enforcers and radical organizations. The law is wide open to interpretation and could even apply to voice, sound, poetry, works of art or literature, says Kadek Krishna Adidharma, one of many Balinese who see the law as an attempt by the Indonesian Muslim majority to impose their will on the rest of the country: Anything that supposedly raises the libido could be prosecutable.

The law has a long list of possible offenses. Anyone displaying nudity could be fined up to $500,000 and jailed for up to 10 years. Public performances that could incite sexual desire have been banned, and civil society groups will be allowed to help enforce the legislation.

While it is true that pornographic magazines and pirated DVDs are easily available in Indonesia, advocates for the rights of religious and ethnic minorities say the problem will not be righted by the new legislation. They point to existing provisions in the criminal law as sufficient to deal with the problem, and complain that the new law poses a threat to non-Muslim Indonesians. The law imposes the will of the majority that embrace Islam, is a form of religious discrimination and against the spirit of tolerance taught by the country's founders, says Theophilus Bela, chairman of the Christian Communication Forum.

Four provinces with sizeable non-Muslim populations — Bali, Yogyakarta, Papua and North Sulawesi — have already rejected the law and said it will not be enforced in their regions. It remains to be seen how and if that will be tolerated by Jakarta. Major protests are planned for this month in Bali, where the governor has been a vocal opponent of the law and pledged that it will not be implemented. Many Balinese are now calling for greater autonomy and say dire consequences lie ahead if their demands are not met. There is even a possibility that Bali will ask to separate from Indonesia, says Rudolf Dethu, a Balinese who has helped organize protests against the law: It's that serious.

A Malaysian court hearing the appeal by an evangelical church to use the word "Allah" in its Sunday School materials has been adjourned to next month.

The Evangelical Church of Borneo, otherwise known as SIB (Sidang Injil Borneo), and its president Pastor Jerry Dusing filed the appeal at the High Court against the Internal Security Ministry and the Malaysian Government.

The hearing will resume on November 12.

On August 15 last year, SIB was preparing to bring in three cartons containing six different publications from Indonesia to be used as Sunday School materials when they were withheld by a customs officer and later handed over to the Internal Security Ministry (ISM.

Nearly a month later, Dusing received a letter from the ISM stating that the import of the publications had been denied, that Christian publications containing the word “Allah” cannot be distributed in Malaysia. The letter also stated that the publications can raise confusion and controversy in Malaysian society.

In response the church sent an appeal letter dated September 24 to the minister, stating that the previous prime minister had allowed the use of the word “Allah” in their publications.

Critics are blasting the United Nations for hosting a meeting to talk about religious and cultural 'tolerance' sponsored by Saudi Arabia, a country in which the US government has said religious freedom is non-existent.

Following up on an interfaith meeting they held in Madrid in July, the Saudis asked the United Nations to hold a meeting on the Culture of Peace, but some think it’s a move to lend support to the defamation of religions resolution that the world body will vote on this fall.

The White House announced that President Bush will attend the meeting on Nov. 13, and will also meet with King Abdullah while in New York.

The President appreciates King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia's initiative in calling for this dialogue and remains committed to fostering interfaith harmony among all religions, both at home and abroad, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement.

Israeli President Shimon Peres will also attend the conference. Jordan, Bahrain, Lebanon, Kuwait, the Philippines and Finland have also agreed to attend.

Critics say that Saudi Arabia's track record on religious tolerance and human rights shows that its dialogue initiative is just talk.

We'd like to see a conference like this take place inside Saudi Arabia and the fact that it isn't speaks volumes. That's true of the Madrid conference and true of the one at the U.N., said commission chairwoman Felice Gaer.

The practice of religions other than Islam, and Wahhabi Islam in particular, in Saudi Arabia is forbidden, so religious leaders of other faiths could not go to Saudi Arabia, she said. Churches are also forbidden in the country.

Carl Moeller, president and CEO of Open Doors USA, a Christian ministry dedicated to supporting persecuted Christians around the world, said: This is a very, very bad place and it's hard to believe than their king, the head of this government, would be calling for some religious tolerance conference," Moeller said. "It may be a public relations coupe, but I don't know that there will be much change on the ground for Christians in Saudi Arabia.

Commission chairwoman Gaer thinks it's more than a public relations move for the Saudi government, it’s a cooperative effort between Muslim nations to reinforce the defamation of religion resolution they're sponsoring before the General Assembly this fall.

Gaer said the Saudi-sponsored inter-faith meeting in Madrid, like the U.N. resolution, was part of an attempt to legitimize sharia law by making attendees sign a declaration that said the participants would encourage: respecting heavenly religions, preserving their high status, condemning any insult to their symbols.

This was a Madrid declaration calling for or affirming the idea of the global blasphemy law in slightly moderated language. This would give them the freedom to declare anything from cartoons to incitement to a whole range of things to be defamation.

The foreign minister of Denmark warned last week that unless the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) removes a proposal to equate criticism of religion with racism, Denmark – and perhaps other European countries – will not attend the conference, the follow up to the 2001 UN anti-racism conference in Durban that is slated to take place in April 2009 in Geneva.

If the OIC pushes through the draft resolution, they shall not expect European or western countries to be present at the table, Foreign Minister Per Stig Meller saidm.

His remarks came shortly after the Draft Outcome Document was published at the second preparatory session as a proposal for the Durban II conference.

Discussions at preparatory meetings have also raised concerns that Durban II will reprise the anti-Israel agenda of Durban I which became notorious for singling out Israel as a racist state.

UN Watch, a NGO that has been monitoring the preparatory conferences, said that the dominant theme of the 88-page Durban II draft declaration (Draft Outcome Document) is that the United States, western Europe, Israel and the other liberal democracies – their principles, institutions, policies, respective histories and national identities – are singularly racist and discriminatory against Islam. Free speech, wealth, globalization, security measures to combat anti-western terrorism, all of these are attacked as causes of racism, discrimination and the ‘defamation of Islam.’

In what lawyers described as a landmark ruling, a court in Malaysia ordered the release of one of the country’s best-known bloggers, ruling that the government acted beyond its authority in invoking a threat to national security.

Raja Petra Kamarudin, who was arrested September 12 and detained without trial, was expected to be released later Friday.

Lawyers have long complained that Malaysia’s mildly authoritarian government uses the Internal Security Act as a tool against the opposition. The act allows for indefinite detention without trial. Raja Petra, one of the most vocal critics of the current government, was detained for comments posted on his Web site that the government said insulted Muslims and the Prophet Muhammad. He was also accused of posting articles that defamed the country’s leaders and incited hatred against the government.

The court ruled that these were not sufficient grounds for detention under the Internal Security Act. The government can appeal the decision but the judge, Syed Ahmad Helmy Syed Ahmad, ordered that Raja Petra be released without delay.

Tommy Thomas, a prominent Malaysian human rights lawyer, estimates that more than 20,000 people have been detained under the act.

Update: Exile

26th April 2009. See article from advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org

Popular Malaysian blogger and editor of the Malaysia Today website, Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK), failed to attend his sedition trial on April 23, 2009. As a result, the Sessions Court in Petaling Jaya issued a warrant of arrest against RPK. News reports state that Sessions Judge, Rozina Ayob, issued the order after prosecutor, DPP Shahidani Abd Aziz, applied for the warrant due to his absence. DPP Shahidani was reported to have said that the prosecution had no choice but to get the order to proceed with the trial.

On his website Kamarudin said that he had gone into  exile over a family dispute arising from comments about the Perak royal family

It appears we were a little hasty in celebrating the demise of the Dutch blasphemy laws.

Danish journalist Flemming Rose has contacted MWW, relating the concerns of a Dutch colleague about this supposed repeal. All is not as it seems.

The intention is to introduce the concept of indirect insult and expand an existing law which protects people on the basis of race, age, disability, and sexual orientation to include protection on the basis of religion or conviction. This means that remarks directed at Islam, Christianity, Buddism or - depending on your interpretation of conviction - even homeopathy and astrology, could be interpreted as indirect insults to people, and prosecuted as such.

According to a commenter on the original story, this law carries a maximum sentence of 12 months, whereas the original defunct blasphemy law carried a maximum 3 month sentence.

Writes Rose:

This spring the Dutch minister of justice Hirsch Ballin wrote a note to parliament asking them to consider stiffening blasphemy laws. In the aftermath of the scandal surrounding the arrest of Gregorius Nekschot parliament refused to go along, and this proposal is the compromise that the government came up with.

The United Nations condemned the stoning to death of a 13-year-old girl in Somalia who was found guilty of adultery after she was raped while traveling to visit her grandmother.

Aisha Duhulow was forced into a hole, buried up to her neck and pelted with stones by 50 men in a stadium full of spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, the UN Children's Fund, Unicef, said. She pleaded for her life before the Oct. 27 execution, it added.

Duhulow was raped by three men and asked prosecutors for protection after the attack, according to Unicef. Instead, she was sentenced to death. A child was victimized twice -- first by the perpetrators of the rape and then by those responsible for administering justice, Unicef representative for Somalia Christian Balslev-Olesen said in a statement.

The Chief Constable of West Midlands Police was personally responsible for the disastrous decision to complain about Channel 4's Undercover Mosque documentary exposing extremism in a Birmingham mosque, an inquiry has been told.

Paul Scott-Lee, head of the region’s force, approved the decision in a conversation with another senior officer, the Home Affairs Select Committee heard.

But nobody has been disciplined for the humiliating incident, which led to the force being sued for libel in the High Court and forced to offer a grovelling apology.

Philip Gormley, Deputy Chief Constable of West Midlands Police, was quizzed in Westminster by MPs conducting an inquiry into the way forces work with the media.

Instead of prosecuting the preachers, West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service issued a press release accusing programme makers of distorting comments, and reported Channel 4 to TV watchdog Ofcom for heavily editing the words of imams to give them more sinister meaning.

But Ofcom dismissed the complaint, while Channel 4 and documentary-makers Hardcash Productions successfully sued for libel.

Gormley told MPs the Chief Constable, who has announced plans to step down next year after seven years, was responsible for the decision: He was involved in the conversation that came to that determination. The senior investigating officer at the time, in terms of the officer in overall control, was the assistant chief constable. It was at that level.

Conservative MP James Clappison asked him: So the assistant chief constable referred it to the chief constable, and the chief constable agreed? To refer it to Ofcom?

Gormley replied: Yes. Asked whether anyone had been disciplined, he said: No, nobody has been.

The head of the Islamic Medical Association sent a homophobic letter to a magazine for GPs, saying gay people needed the stick of law to put them on the right path the General Medical Council heard.

Dr Muhammad Siddiq was working as a GP at the Walsall Teaching Primary Care Trust when he wrote the letter to Pulse in July last year.

A GMC fitness to practise panel, in Manchester, heard Dr Siddiq's letter read: There is punishment and fine if you throw rubbish or filth on the streets, the gays are worse than the ordinary careless citizen, they are causing the spread of illness and they are the root cause of many sexually-transmitted diseases.

They need neither sympathy nor help, what they need is the stick of law to put them on the right path.

Update: Walk Out

1st November 2008. See article from freethinker.co.uk

According to this report, Siddiq dismissed his barrister at  hearing and then left the proceedings when he was refused an adjournment to find new counsel.

In his absence, a journalist working for Pulse, the magazine for GPs, told the panel that Dr Siddiq had confirmed in a conversation many of the views expressed in the letter.

Anthony Lithgow testified that the GP thought homosexuality should be illegal, gender reassignment surgery is a waste of money and that  gays “prey on society.”

Update: Suspended

Based on article from telegraph.co.uk

Dr Muhammad Siddiq wrote gay people needed the stick of law to put them on the right path and were the root cause of many sexually transmitted diseases in a letter to Pulse magazine last July, the General Medical Council heard.

The fitness to practise panel also heard Dr Siddiq refused to accept the findings of an assessment in April last year into his ability to perform minor surgery and had continued to perform circumcisions at the Luqman Medical Centre, in Walsall, despite being advised not to.

Andrew Popat, chairing the GMC hearing, said: Dr Siddiq's actions were found to be inappropriate, not in the best interests of his patients, and in relation to the letter to Pulse, liable to undermine public confidence in the medical profession and liable to bring the profession into disrepute.

The ruling took place in Dr Siddiq's absence as he dismissed his barrister last week and left the GMC claiming he could not receive a fair trial.

His medical registration has been suspended for 12 months.

The Moroccan government has banned an issue of the French magazine L'Express International, claiming it insults Islam in articles exploring the relationship between that religion and Christianity.

Information Minister Khalid Naciri said that he had no choice but to ban the current issue because of the offensive nature of the articles it contained. The minister said the kingdom's press code allows the government to shut down or ban any publication deemed to offend Islam or the king.

The cover of this week's L'Express is titled The Jesus-Muhammad Shock.

The weekly said the series of articles was inspired by a meeting planned this week in Rome between Christian and Muslim scholars and is intended to help the dialogue between Islam and Christianity.

Naciri did not specify exactly what was considered offensive, but told The Associated Press that our country should not be used by anyone to spread articles that could be prejudicial to our religion or undermine public order.

A statement on L'Express' Internet site said the magazine did not understand Morocco's reaction, particularly because pains had been taken to adhere to Islamic norms, notably by covering the face of Muhammad with a white veil in side-by-side cover portraits of Jesus and Islam's prophet, in line with Islamic law. The French edition leaves the face uncovered.

The articles provide broad outlines of the two monotheistic religions. One article comparing Jesus and Muhammad quotes verses from the Quran that it says show that the Muslim holy book justifies violence toward those who refuse to obey Muslim law. It says that Muhammad the pacifist and Muhammad the warrior are united in one figure.

A Muslim police chef is claiming religious discrimination over sausage and bacon breakfasts.

Hasanali Khoja is accusing the force of religious discrimination after it refused to guarantee in his contract that he would be excused from handling pork products.

Khoja is being supported by the National Black Police Association, which has urged potential recruits not to join the Met, because of "racism" within the force.

He claims that while working as catering manager at Hendon Police College, in north London, he was asked to move to another team where he would be expected to cook what officers nick-name the 999 breakfast"- a large fry-up including sausage, bacon and black pudding.

I felt very unhappy about it. I was very upset and angry, said Khoja, who joined the Met in 2005. I never enrolled to cook pork. I had a letter from the human resources department saying that I would not be required to cook any pork. But this was not exactly what I wanted as a guarantee.

Khoja is now bringing an employment tribunal case which is expected to be heard next May.

His solicitor Khalid Sofi said: We are confident that we have a very good claim. Religious discrimination law obliges employers if possible to accommodate genuine religious needs. The Met is a very large organisation and should have the flexibility to accommodate people in this way. But they were not able to guarantee that he would not have to handle pork products.

He is now at work at another Met building in Earl's Court, west London, where he does not have to handle foods which contravene his faith, but has been downgraded from senior catering manager to higher catering manager.

Indonesia Goes Burkha

The House of Representatives pushes through an overly broad bill that could energize Islamic fundamentalists even more

Analysts and critics are warning that the bill will embolden the country’s already-unswerving Muslim fundamentalists.

Provisions of the Bill

• Article 29
  Any person who manufactures, produces, duplicates, reduplicates, distributes, broadcasts, imports, exports, makes for sale, trades in, leases or makes available pornography shall be punished with a prison term of 6 months to 12 years and/or a fine of Rp250 million or Rp6 billion.
   
• Article 30
  Any person who makes available pornography …shall be punished with a prison term of 6 years and/or a fine of Rp250 million to Rp6 billion
   
• Article 31
  Any person who loans or downloads pornography…shall be punished with a maximum prison term of 4 years and/or a fine not to exceed Rp2 billion
   
• Article 32
  Any person who exhibits, possesses or stores pornography shall be punished with a maximum prison term of 4 years and/or a fine not to exceed Rp2 billion
   
• Article 34
  Any person who consents to be a pornographic object or model shall be punished with a maximum prison term of 10 years and/or a fine not to exceed Rp5 billion
   
• Article 36
  Any person who exhibits themselves or others in a performance…that contains nudity, sexual exploitation, coital acts or other pornographic content shall be punished with a maximum prison term of 10 years and/or a fine not to exceed Rp5 billion.

...Read full article

Update: Papua Protests

5th November 2008. Based on article from radioaustralia.net.au

About a thousand Christians in the Indonesian province of Papua have protested against an anti-pornography bill passed by parliament last week, saying it conflicts with their traditional culture.

The protesters say the bill, which has the support of a number of Islamic parties, could threaten Indonesia's national unity.

Minority groups, especially Christians and Hindus, say the new law is too vague, and a threat to artistic, religious, and cultural freedom.

Always fine whines

A Muslim warehouse employee at Tesco has lost his claim for religious discrimination after he had objected to handling alcohol. Mohammed Ahmed said the job was against his Islamic beliefs. He accused Tesco of victimisation and harassment during a three-day employment tribunal in Birmingham.

His job at the supermarket's Lichfield depot involved the transportation of various goods, including alcoholic drinks, on fork-lift trucks. The Saudi Arabian national told the tribunal he was not informed that he would be handling alcohol when he started the job last year. Tesco denied this.

Ahmed said: It's not fair but what can I do? They [Tesco] were not taking into account my religious beliefs. I will consult with solicitors. He refused to touch alcohol because it was against his religious principles as a Muslim, he said, and asked to be found other work. He told the tribunal that Tesco failed to co-operate and alleged he was told by a supervisor, You do the job or go home, a claim also denied by the store. After eight months working for the company, he left in protest.

Justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin (Christian Democrats) has finally given into pressure and is to recommend that blasphemy is no longer a criminal offence.

Although the law, which was brought in to protect Christians from being insulted is almost defunct, in the past the minister has believed it to be useful to protect Muslims from Islam-bashing, says Friday's Volkskrant.

The law was last used in 1968 against the writer Gerard Reve. He was found not guilty.

Hirsch Ballin had suggested expanding the current legislation to cover all religions but MPs were against the move, arguing it would conflict with freedom of speech, the Volkskrant says.

A company responsible for advertising on the Egged bus company has refused to place a political advertisement on Jerusalem city buses showing female candidates for the city council, so as not to offend the haredi public.
The poster disqualified by...

The advertisement rejected last week by the Canaan advertising company, which is charged with advertising with the Egged bus cooperative, includes the portrait of two  women and a man running for city council on a joint religious-secular list called Wake up Jerusalem-Yerushalmim. The municipal elections will take place on November 11.

A spokesman for the company stood by the rejection of the ad. All advertisements are subject to the approval of the Egged censor, Canaan company spokesman Ohad Gibli said: In order not to offend the sensitivities of a certain public, certain criteria have been defined regarding the content of advertisements. Pictures of women cannot appear on buses that go through haredi neighborhoods, Gibli said.

Egged spokesman Ron Ratner said the bus company was never asked about advertisements with the portraits of women running for the city council, and would never have nixed them: Egged never received a query on this issue and would never have rejected such an advertisement of a public figure so long as it was positive, modest and respectable, and did not hurt public sensitivities. The Egged spokesman said he thought the whole issue was a PR ploy since the would-be city councilors never contacted Egged on the issue.

It is very sad that in Israel of 2008 women suffer such brazen discrimination, which is absolutely unacceptable, said Wake up Jerusalem-Yerushalmim spokeswoman Meirav Cohen, whose portrait was one of those appearing on the banned advertisement.

In the meantime, the ads in question have gone up on bus stations, which are the responsibility of another advertising company.

A Muslim artist exhibiting her work at a west London gallery, has received death threats via email.

Staff at SaLon gallery in Notting Hill said they had received violent emails about Sarah Maple and her family.

Gallery director Samir Ceric said he was sad, upset and disappointed at the way art was being treated and called the violent reaction to her work an attack on freedom of expression.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said officers were investigating the damage to the gallery's window but could not comment on the threatening email.

This Artist Blows

SaLon Gallery presents Sarah Maple’s first solo show. Exhibition until 16th November 2008. SaLon Gallery, 82 Westbourne Grove, London W2 5RT

A Gulf diplomat has urged foreign governments to prosecute individuals who make offensive and defamatory statements against Islam and other faiths during a heated debate at United Nations headquarters.

Speaking on behalf of members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Nasser Abdulaziz al Nisr, Qatar’s ambassador to the United Nations, told delegates at a recent meeting that freedom of expression should not permit the abuse of religions.

Speaking in New York, Nisr described blasphemy as unacceptable, while western governments allege leaders from the Islamic world are trying to stifle basic freedoms and infringe the rights of non-Muslims: Our countries categorically reject all forms of incitement, discrimination, hostility, violence, attempts to justify the distortion of religions and hostility-based incitement of religions in the name of freedom of expression. The responsibility rests, therefore, with the governments to address such conduct by legal and executive possible means, including amending legislation that allows such practices in the name of freedom of expression and opinion.”

Nisr was speaking in advance of a vote in the UN General Assembly’s committee on human rights on a draft resolution intended to combat defamation of religions. The draft resolution is supported by the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference and has passed every year since 2005. Although not binding in international law, the resolution sets a global moral standard.

A coalition of countries that advocate free speech, including the United States, is trying to thwart the OIC resolution this year by persuading more moderate Muslim nations to vote against it.

A girl stoned to death in Somalia this week was 13 years old, not 23, contrary to earlier news reports. She had been accused of adultery in breach of Islamic law.

Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was killed on Monday 27 October, by a group of 50 men in a stadium in the southern port of Kismayu, in front of around 1,000 spectators.

Inside the stadium, militia members opened fire when some of the witnesses to the killing attempted to save her life, and shot dead a boy who was a bystander. An al-Shabab spokeperson was later reported to have apologized for the death of the child, and said the militia member would be punished.

At one point during the stoning, Amnesty International has been told by numerous eyewitnesses that nurses were instructed to check whether Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was still alive when buried in the ground. They removed her from the ground, declared that she was, and she was replaced in the hole where she had been buried for the stoning to continue.

Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was accused of adultery, but sources told Amnesty International that she had in fact been raped by three men, and had attempted to report this rape to the al-Shabab militia who control Kismayo. It was this act that resulted in her being accused of adultery and detained. None of men she accused of rape were arrested.

According to a report, Zakaria Stapa, a professor in the Islamic faculty of the National University of Malaysia, has called on Muslims to stop practicing yoga, saying it could cause them to deviate from their faith.

Muslims in Malaysia practiced yoga not just for exercise but also as part of the growing urban lifestyle and involved chanting mantras while in various positions, he said.

Why should we look for other alternatives to exercise and search for peace? Yoga could cause (Muslims) to stray from their faith because its movements are according to the style and traditions of Hinduism.

Now it looks as if a yoga fatwa is to be issued.

Harussani Zakaria, a controversial cleric from the northern Perak state, said the government-backed National Fatwa Council would soon release a decree which would decide if Muslims were allowed to practise yoga.

If it involves any faith or religious elements it is definitely not permissible, but if it is just a form of exercise that is all right. But Muslims cannot practice yoga in its original form because it involves another religion.