The BBC's flagship News at Six on BBC One featured a right-wing fundamentalist Christian who had previously supported the execution of gay people to comment on the birth of a surrogate son to Sir Elton John and his civil partner David Furnish. Incredibly, the BBC did not seem to realise that the same preacher had faced bankruptcy after losing an attempted private prosecution for blasphemy against the director general of the BBC after the character of Jesus described himself as a little bit gay in Jerry Springer: The Opera.

On the 28th December, Sir Elton and his partner, the film-maker David Furnish announced the birth of their son, Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John, to an unnamed surrogate mother.

The same night, the BBC broadcast a report by Lizo Mzimba on the birth of the child. With the introduction not everyone is pleased to see such a high profile same sex couple start to raise a surrogate child , Mr Mzimba proceeded to interview Stephen Green, of right-wing group Christian Voice, without any warning that he is someone who has in the past supported the death penalty for gay men.

In an interview that was visibly edited together, Mr Green told the BBC: This isn't just a designer baby for Sir Elton John, this is a designer accessory… [cut] Now it seems like money can buy him anything, and so he has entered into this peculiar arrangement…[cut] The baby is a product of it. A baby needs a mother and it seems an act of pure selfishness to deprive a baby of a mother.

...Read the full article

Update: BBC claim nobody else available

31st December 2010. See article from pinknews.co.uk

The BBC has mounted a defence of its decision to include an interview with a supporter of state sponsored execution of gay men in its coverage of the birth of Sir Elton John and David Furnish's first child. A spokesman for the corporation told PinkNews.co.uk that the interview with a right-wing Christian fundamentalist allowed the BBC News at Six to reflect a genuine debate over the issue of surrogacy for gay couples.

In a statement, the BBC said: The practice of surrogacy is a sensitive subject and remains controversial in some quarters. Our short news bulletin featured Elton John talking about wanting to have a child and an opposing viewpoint. All sides of the debate on surrogacy have been widely reported in the news media and our coverage has reflected this.

The BBC has refused to answer whether other organisations were also contacted to comment on the birth of Sir Elton's child, or if Christian Voice, a small fundamentalist group with around 500 supporters was the only organisation contacted. A BBC source told PinkNews.co.uk it is Christmas so a lot of people are away or not answering their telephones.

The BBC also declined to comment on whether the reporter or producers working on the report, or the programme editor were aware of Green's background. Although, PinkNews.co.uk points out that a simple search on Google or Bing reveals considerable coverage of Green's past activities and extremist views.

PinkNews.co.uk commented:

The BBC has effectively admitted interviewing a known homophobic extremist in order to reflect what they perceive is a genuine debate over gay couples having surrogate children. The corporation makes no apology for the choice of interviewee. PinkNews.co.uk believes that the BBC were unable to find anyone else willing to give an interview on camera in opposition to Sir Elton's decision to have a child.

The decision to include an interview with Stephen Green was hurtful not just to the millions of LGBT licence fee payers but also to millions of Christians who do not hold or subscribe to the extremist views of Christian Voice. Most Christians would not support the abhorrent views of Mr Green and his small band of supporters who simply smear the name of the Christian faith.

Update: Ofcom

6th January 2011.

Ofcom reported receiving 95 complaints about using Stephen Green for sound bite balance

Top Gear's Christmas special had a bit of fun with religious themes.

The show with Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond,  nd James May included a joke with a little baby Stig doll as Jesus in a manger.

The show was a ratings hit, but the send-ups and flippant remarks triggered a few nutter whinges.

The presenters posed as the Three Wise Men to drive through Middle East countries. At one stage, they even wore burkas.

The Daily Star reports a few minor whinges on TV discussion forums and that hate preacher Anjem Choudary said: The burka is a symbol of our religion and people should not make jokes about it in any way. It would have been equally bad even if they'd not been in a country mainly populated by Muslims.

Comment: A Bastion Against PC

30th December 2010. From Andrew

What the fuck?

Seriously, that's the only way I can express my thoughts for what has to be the most ridiculous subject ever.

Why is it, Top Gear goes to a foreign country and makes a few HARMLESS jokes, and the nutters are in uproar? Why is it people can come to the UK with their views and opinions, and be honoured for them, yet when we make a slight hint of a joke about a god that MIGHT NOT EVEN EXIST (face it, have you seen him?) there's pandemonium.

Why is religion such a pain in the ass? I salute the Top Gear team for doing what Top Gear has always done. Provided entertainment. They have not been trampled on by those silly PC pricks who claim you can't say that, it might upset 1 out of 6 billion people.

Five muslims suspected of planning an attack on the Danish newspaper that published the controversial Mohammad cartoons have been arrested.

Denmark's PET security police said the suspects had planned to enter a Copenhagen office block housing several newspapers including offices of the daily Jyllands-Posten to kill as many as possible of those around . It is likewise the PET's view that the attack was due to be carried out in the coming days.

The Danish justice minister said those detained had a militant Islamic background and called the plan the most serious such attempt in Denmark so far.

Three of the detainees were Swedish citizens, the Swedish security police force SAPO said in a statement. Four were arrested in Denmark and one in Sweden.

Pakistan's government in the National Assembly has just categorically denied any move to amend or repeal the blasphemy laws.

The government considers that its prime responsibility is to protect this law and it will never support any private members' bill even from the treasury benches in this regard, said Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Khursheed Shah in a policy statement made on the floor of the National Assembly.

The categorical announcement of the government came at a time when the religious parties have given a deadline of December 31 to the government to come up with a clear stance on the blasphemy law.

Syed Khursheed Shah, who recently took over the charge of the Ministry of Religious Affairs said the government will never allow anybody to violate this law. However, he assured the minorities that the government would also prevent exploitation of this law.

A counter petition has launched to protest Apple's decision to ban an iPhone app opposing gay marriage.

The Manhattan Declaration app, which allowed Apple users to add their name to the ecumenical document in support of the sanctity of life, traditional marriage and religious liberty, was pulled from the App Store over the Thanksgiving holiday after a group of activists rightfully charged the app as anti-gay.

Some 7,700 Change.org members petitioned the company to ask them to pull the app, contending the statement contained hateful and divisive language.

Supporters of the Christian declaration are now fighting back with a petition of their own. As of Friday afternoon, over 37,000 people have signed the petition launched by the organizers of the Manhattan Declaration asking Apple to reinstate the app.

The petition addressed to Apple founder Steve Jobs and the company itself asserts that the positions espoused in the declaration are based on biblical Christianity. The letter rejects claims that the declaration promoted hate or homophobia: Disagreement is not hate, the petition states. We urge you and Apple, therefore, to promote communication and civil dialogue on these important social issues by reinstating the Manhattan Declaration App.

Update: Petition Refused

29th December 2010. See article from christianpost.com

More than 46,000 people signed a petition asking Apple to reinstate the Manhattan Declaration app, which is based on a document that upholds religious understanding of marriage and the sanctity of life.

But organizers behind the Manhattan Declaration said they were notified last week that the resubsmission was not accepted.

Apple is telling us that the apps' content is considered 'likely to expose a group to harm' and 'to be objectionable and potentially harmful to others, they said: Apple's statement amounts to the charge that our faith is 'potentially harmful to others.'

Those behind the Manhattan Declaration called the latest rejection by Apple appalling.

Organizers plan to take their rejected app matter to Apple's App Review Board.

Pakistan's religious parties have announced a complete shutter-down strike across Pakistan on December 31, 2010.

Jamaat-i-Islami's deputy chief, Professor Abdul Ghafoor Ahmed, said that the strike will be held to protest against the conspiracies of present rulers to repeal the blasphemy law. Ghafoor said that he regretted that anti-Islam elements and their local agents were out to repeal the blasphemy laws in Pakistan to achieve their malicious goals against Muslims. He said that the blasphemy laws had been drafted by clerics from all schools of thought and passed by the National Assembly unanimously.

The JI deputy chief further called on the trader's community and transporters to take active part in the strike.

In addition to the strike, the religious political parties will hold a mass congregation in Nishtar Park in Karachi on January 9, 2011.

Turkish forces in the occupied area of Karpasia in Northern Cyprus banned the celebration of Christmas.

For the first time in 36 years Christians trapped in the occupied area were forbidden from celebrating Christmas.

On Christmas morning, Father Zacharias and a large number of people went to the Church of Saint Sinesios in Rizokarpaso to begin Matins for Christmas.

Meanwhile men of the occupied forces rushed to the church, interrupted the service, urged the priest to remove his vestments, and ordered everyone leave the church. When everyone had left, the doors were sealed.  The same happened in the Church of the Holy Trinity.

Saudi's religious police, The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Haia) has directed all its branch offices to be on the lookout for any year-end celebration, the director general of the Haia in Makkah province Sheikh Ahmad Al-Ghamdi said in a statement to Arab News.

The Haia will immediately dismantle any form of preparations for the celebrations but if these preparations are out of its jurisdiction, it will take up the matter with the authorities concerned, he said, pointing out such prohibitions apply to the celebration of the Hijra new year or the birth of Muhammad.

Sheikh Al-Ghamdi asked the parents to consolidate the Islamic identity of their children and said Saudi citizens and Muslim expatriates should stick to the calls of their Islamic identity: This, however, does not prevent Muslims from participating in the celebrations of the non-Muslims on condition that this participation should not touch the basics of the Islamic faith .

The Haia representatives and other authorities concerned are checking markets these days to check for goods with a New Year theme and confiscate them.

The Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh issued a fatwa saying that it was against Islam to memorialize the births of prophets, the advent of new calendar years or other holidays.

Clashes broke out between armed Christian and Muslim groups near the central Nigerian city of Jos after Christmas Eve bombings in the region killed more than 30 people and left 74 critically injured.

Witnesses said buildings were set ablaze and people forced to run for cover as the police and military struggled to disperse crowds.

Houses are on fire all over the place and I can see injured people covered in blood being dragged by friends and family towards the hospital, a witness said.

Update: 80 killed

30th December 2010. See article from christiantoday.com

The death toll for the Christmas Eve bombings in central Nigeria and the Christian-Muslim clash that ensued has risen to at least 80 people.

The latest death toll includes those killed in the connected conflict between Muslim and Christian youths on Sunday in central Nigeria. Another 100 people were wounded and are in the hospital.

On Christmas Eve, two bombs exploded near a busy market where people were Christmas shopping in Jos, the capital of Plateau state. Another blast occurred in a predominantly Christian neighbourhood and a fourth bomb exploded near a road leading to the main mosque in Jos.

The radical Muslim group Boko Haram, which has a history of violence against Christians, has claimed responsibility for the bombings in Jos and the church attacks in the northern town of Maiduguri.

The Coptic community in Gothenburg has about 200 members. On Christmas Eve the community's pastor, Father Shenouda, was visited by police officers who said that there were calls on the internet for what the police called activities against certain Christian churches in Europe.

Father Shenouda contacted his community members and told them that Sunday's mass was canceled. The church is closed for up to two weeks, to enable the police to look for possible bombs. The Coptic Christmas Eve is on Jan. 6th, and they hope to be able to use the church by then.

The new CEO of Morality in Media has whinged at the US Justice Department, claiming government officials aren't prosecuting pornographers enough.

The failure of the U.S. Department of Justice to vigorously enforce federal obscenity laws has given a green light to the porn crime syndicates and harmed nearly every family in America, claimed Patrick Trueman, who formerly was Morality in Media's director of the War on Illegal Pornography coalition.

He is founder of Pornography Harms, a program that warns about the supposed harms of porn consumption. It touts it has 15,000 Facebook followers.

Trueman joins Robert Peters, Morality in Media's longtime president and newly named general counsel, on staff.

Indian film actor Kamal Haasan has said that a song in his latest film Manmadan Ambu will be deleted from the movie in the interest of all religions .

The decision to delete the song has been made with a view to ensure people of all faiths see and enjoy the film. Had it been my production, I would have released the censor board certification which did not object to the contents, said Kamal.

The Hindu Makkal Katchi objected to the song saying it hurt the sentiments of Hindus. The song Kannodu Kannai Kalandhal reportedly speaks about a woman's desire and has references to deities Aranganathar and Sri Varalakshmi.

Opulent Christmas decorations at shopping malls in Indonesia could incite anger among muslims, the country's highest Islamic authority claimed.

Jakarta's glitzy malls have been decorated with Christmas lights and bunting, faux snow, Santas and nativity scenes. Retailers say the giant Christmas trees, paper mache reindeers and carols serve no religious purpose and are there to attract more shoppers during the holiday seasons.

But Ma'ruf Amin, of Indonesia's Ulema Council, warned otherwise: Christmas describes a certain religion, and if the religion advertises it too overtly -- even though they have only a small number of followers -- it will cause jealousy and anger from other groups. You can attract buyers without using religious symbols . Even the majority (Muslims) celebrate their big days modestly.

Two people have been arrested after the death of a Bangladeshi woman who was publicly caned for allegedly having an affair with her stepson, police say.

A kangaroo court of village elders and clerics sentenced Sufia Begum under Sharia law to 40 lashes for adultery.

The 40-year-old died of her injuries almost a month after the beating in Rajshahi district, her family says.

Ms Begum was admitted to a hospital in Rajshahi, a city in the district of the same name, with severe injuries a week after the beating. Doctors in Rajshahi recommended she be sent to the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, for further treatment because her injuries were so severe. But her brother told the BBC the family could not afford to take Ms Begum to Dhaka, and she died on 14 December.

Bangladesh banned such punishments in the name of religious edicts or fatwas by Muslim clergy earlier this year.

Thousands rallied in Karachi and other cities Friday to warn government officials any effort to repeal Pakistan's blasphemy laws would have serious consequences.

Several Pakistani lawmakers proposed changing the law after last month's bollox conviction of a Christian for blasphemy against Islam, the latest in a long line of cases abusing the law by those with a score to settle.

Asia Bibi is the first woman condemned to die under Pakistan's blasphemy law merely on the say so of an aggrieved local woman.

Protest leaders are calling for a nationwide strike if the government tries to heed calls from the West to change the blasphemy law.

The BBC has angered the nutters of Christian Voice with a TV drama in which the Virgin Mary is branded a prostitute and sex cheat.

In The Nativity , written by Tony Jordan, 15-year-old Mary is attacked by people who do not believe her claim that she is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph accuses her of whoring and even suggests that her pregnancy might have been the result of rape.

But Stephen Green, of Christian Voice, said: There is no justification for any of this in the gospels. They do say Joseph was suspicious, but that was it. It doesn't suggest any physical or verbal abuse. It's typical of the fertile imagination you need for something like EastEnders. The kids that do nativity plays in school will be perplexed that someone has come up with this revisionist, puerile idea.

The BBC can't help themselves. Three quarters of our population are Christian. At the BBC, this proportion is reversed. You have a huge proportion of militant, liberal atheists who are keen to dump on Christianity. They wouldn't mock the birth of Muhammad , or anything to do with his life story. They wouldn't ridicule Hinduism or Sikhism, but Christianity is their big target.

Defending the drama, Jordan said: The story is told using modern language and the characters have modern attitudes. Personally, I believe in the immaculate conception but I think it's perfectly understandable if people struggle with the concept. I think the questions asked in our drama are the kind that any man watching a prime-time TV drama in 2010 would quite reasonably ask. I think it perfectly believable that Joseph should get angry with his betrothed and only agree to take her with him to Bethlehem when she risks being stoned by angry neighbours.

If my own wife came to me and said: 'Tony, I'm having a baby which isn't yours but, don't worry, I was visited by the Angel Gabriel and it's actually God's baby,' I think I would feel more than a little miffed.

A Church of England spokesman said: Tony Jordan's adaptation presents a gritty interpretation of the events of the first Christmas. We hope it will bring home the story of Jesus being born in a humble stable to many new viewers.

Update: Seeking a Haven from Nutters

24th December 2010. See article from guardian.co.uk

Sorry, asylum rooms only for couples in a properly consummated marriage

The BBC have rejected accusations that its The Nativity drama contained an anti-Jewish libel after a leading rabbi complained about the portrayal of one its characters.

Jonathan Romain, a prominent figure in the group Reform, said that the BBC was spoiling the season of goodwill by including a scene that showed a rabbi denying shelter to a pregnant Mary.

It shows the mother of Jesus trying to flee a hostile Bethlehem crowd and a rabbi refusing her the haven of his synagogue, letting her escape through a back door instead.

Romain said many Jews would be aghast that amid a story central to the beliefs of millions of Christians an anti-Judaic aspect has been twisted into the narrative . The Gospels tell us there was no room at the inn, not that a rabbi kicked Mary out of a synagogue . Having survived Mel Gibson's anti-Jewish Easter onslaught The Passion now the season of goodwill has been spoiled.

It would be tragic if a 30-minute television programme undid years of inter-faith dialogue, he added.

The BBC rejected his suggestion that the scene constituted an anti-Jewish libel, saying there was absolutely no truth to claims the rabbi was depicted in a negative way.

The Fort Worth Transportation Authority (The T), has adopted a policy that bans buses and bus benches from carrying religious and atheist ads.

The adoption came weeks after atheist ads declaring Millions of Americans are good without God were launched on four city buses. The ads sparked debate and drew criticism from nutters who considered the campaign an insult to Christianity, especially during the Christmas season.

The board of directors' revised existing guidelines by expanding the list of banned ads to include religious, nontheistic or faith-based ads.

The agency's staff recommended adding the exclusion of any faith-based ads because of the distraction from its core business and excessive staff time that have been required to respond to the recent controversy over religious versus atheist ads on The T's buses, The T stated.

The Good without God ads were sponsored by the Dallas-Fort Worth Coalition of Reason. The group said the campaign was designed to raise awareness about people who don't believe in a god and to guide those interested to the 15 area nontheistic groups that make up the DFW coalition. The atheist group had also planned to run the ads on Dallas buses, but the Dallas Area Rapid Transit rejected the campaign.

A blue mobile billboard truck carrying a pro-Christian message is currently shadowing the buses. The billboard reads I still love you. – God and 2.1 billion people are good with God.

Human Rights First condemns the passage of the controversial United Nations resolution entitled Combating defamation of religions and warns that such measures prohibiting the defamation of religions violate fundamental freedom of expression norms and are counterproductive to efforts to confront the problems of bias-motivated violence, discrimination and other forms of intolerance.

The resolution was introduced by Morocco on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). It was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly with 79 votes in favor, 67 votes against and 40 abstentions. Last year 80 countries voted in favor of the resolution, 61 against and 42 abstained.

Today's vote affirms that support for the defamation concept continues to dwindle. Nevertheless, we deeply regret that this text continues to distract governments from real issues that deserve greater attention , such as fighting the spread of religious violence and hatred, as well as how to counter practices of discrimination that many members of religious and other minorities face in all parts of the globe, said Human Rights First's Tad Stahnke. Today's vote is unfortunate for both individuals at risk whose rights will surely be violated under the guise of prohibiting 'defamation of religions,' as well as for the standards of international norms on freedom of expression.

Last month a UN committee dropped sexual orientation from a yearly resolution  condemning the unjustified killing on grounds of race, nation, ethnicity, religion or language or other discriminatory reasons.

The move was proposed by Morocco and supported by African countries and the middle East It was passed 79-70 with 17 abstentions.

The proposal will now be voted on by the general assembly.

US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice said the US would seek to reinstate references to gay people in the UN resolution condemning executions.

Update: Restored

23rd December 2010. Based on article from opposingviews.com

The United Nations have restored an LGBT provision to a resolution that opposes the unjustified killing of various minority groups, after it had been removed last month at the request of several African and Arab countries.

Human rights advocacy groups were shocked at the removal of the provision of sexual orientation in the U.N. resolution, which seeks protection to vulnerable groups from extrajudicial and arbitrary executions. The resolution originally included language in 2008 that explicitly protected LGBT people, but which was taken out this year when Morocco and Mali introduced an amendment to replace it with discriminatory reasons on any basis. That amendment passed in November by a 79-70 vote, upsetting many nations and organizations such as the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice was credited with introducing a measure to restore the language. We are going to fight to restore the reference to sexual orientation. We're going to stand firm on this basic principle, she vowed on December 10. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon agreed, saying When there is tension between cultural attitudes and universal human rights, universal human rights must carry the day. The U.S. was able to recruit the votes of several member states, including Albania, Rwanda, South Africa, and Colombia, and the vote this time was 93-55, with 27 abstentions. The new resolution was then approved by the General Assembly with 122 in favor, 0 votes against, and 59 nations abstaining. After the vote, Rice commented, The United Nations General Assembly has sent a clear and resounding message that justice and human rights apply to all individuals regardless of their sexual orientation.

After a second review, the Philippines MTRCB (Movies and Television Review and Classification Board) gave Father Jejemon a G rating (for General Patronage).

That was after the two controversial scenes, shown in the trailer, were cut, one showing the Holy Eucharist accidentally dropping into the cleavage of a woman communicant and the other with the Holy Eucharist caught in the dentures of another woman communicant.

Some sectors, including priests, denounced the scenes as sacrilegious and called on the public to boycott the movie.

I meant no harm nor malice with those scenes, said Dolphy actor Dolphy.

The mayor of a Jewish suburb of Nazareth sparked 'outrage' on after refusing to allow Christmas trees to be placed in town squares, calling them provocative.

Nazareth Illit is a Jewish city and it will not happen -- not this year and not next year, so long as I am a mayor, he said of the northern Israeli town.

Distinctly unfestive posters have appeared around east London's Poplar and Limehouse areas.

The poster reads

the evils of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me an STD.

On the 2nd day debt, on the 3rd rape, the 4th teenage pregnancies and then there was abortion, raves, claiming God has a son, blasphemy, exploitation, promiscuity, nightclubs, crime, paedophilia, paganism, domestic violence, homelessness, violence, vandalism, alcohol, drugs.

In Islam we are protected from all of these evils.

The poster also includes a mobile number that is now unobtainable and a website www.xmasisevil.com that has been taken down but is still available in Google cache.

The East London Advertiser reports that Police, MP, community leaders and the Mayor of Tower Hamlets have all stepped in to get rid of the posters as one community leader feared they could lead to revenge attacks.

Neighbours In Poplar alerted MP Jim Fitzpatrick who asked Tower Hamlets council to take them down. He said: These posters are extremely offensive and have upset a lot of people—that's why we jumped on it and asked the council to remove them.

Meek was so 19th century. Updated it reads: The easily offended will inherit the Earth

Christian street preacher Dale Mcalpine is to receive £7,000 in damages after Cumbrian police admitted wrongful arrest, unlawful imprisonment and a breach of his human rights.

According to the Christian Institute, which funded Mcalpine's legal defence, Cumbrian police have accepted that they acted unlawfully.

Mcalpine was arrested in April by Cumbrian police in Workington after he mentioned that homosexuality was among the sins listed in the Bible. His comments were not made in his main public sermon but in response to a question about homosexuality put to him by a passerby.

He was arrested by PC Craig Hynes for a racially aggravated offence under Section 5 of the Public Order Act and, after being detained at the station for more than seven hours, was charged with using threatening, abusive or insulting words to cause harassment, alarm or distress . The charges were later dropped.

The arrest sparked fears for freedom of speech for Christians and was also criticised by prominent gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.

The Christian Institute is appealing to the Government to amend Section 5 of the Public Order Act, which makes it a criminal offense to use threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour in a way that could alarm or distress another person. It wants the Government to repeal the word insulting .

An Egyptian who left Islam to become a Christian and consequently lost his wife, children and business is waiting to see if the government will now take away his freedom for defaming Islam.

Ashraf Thabet, 45, is charged with defaming a revealed religion, Article 98f of the Egyptian Penal Code. The charges stem from Thabet's six-year search for spiritual meaning that eventually led him to become a Christian. During his search, he shared his doubts about Islam and told others what he was learning about Jesus Christ.

Local religious authorities, incensed at Thabet's ideas, notified Egypt's State Security Intelligence service (SSI), which arrested and charged him with defamation. If found guilty, Thabet would face up to five years in jail. But because prosecutors have made no move to try the case, Thabet lives in limbo and is subject to a regular barrage of death threats from people in his community in Port Said in northeast Egypt.

...Read the full article

According to a translated news report, a teacher was explaining the different climates in a geography class and cited the village of Trevelez due to its cold and dry climate.

According to the report: the teacher told his students that such a climate was conducive to making hams (this refers to the procedure that it's necessary between the pig is killed and the ham is actually ready to be eaten). Then the student asked the teacher not to speak of hams since it offended him, because he was a Muslim.

The teacher told the students that in his classes, he did not consider the religion of their students, but apparently the family did not stay at home when they learned the facts, to the extent that they went to the National Police to file a complaint.

According to El Diario de Cádiz , the teacher is accused of being the author of an alleged crime of abuse of workers, also alleging racist and xenophobic motives.

His school colleagues can't believe what has happened and speak about the impeccable record of teaching reported.

24th

A number of political and religious parties and groups have announced that a campaign to protect the blasphemy law would be launched and gave a call for countrywide protest demonstrations on Dec 24 and a shutter-down strike on Dec 31. They also resolved to hold a public meeting in Karachi on Jan 9.

The decision was announced by JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman who said that all religious parties were united on the issue. He vowed to resist any move by the government to make changes in the existing blasphemy law.

The issue came to the light when PPP's MNA Sherry Rehman submitted a private member bill to the National Assembly Secretariat last month, seeking some changes in the blasphemy law with an aim to avoid the misuse of the law.

The JUI-F chief, who presided over the conference, said all the mosques in the country would organise protest demonstrations on Dec 24 after Friday prayers.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman made an appeal to traders' organisations and associations of small and big markets to extend their support to the movement and make the shutter-down strike a success. He said that their protest would be so forceful that no one would dare to think about changing the blasphemy law.

25th

The Pakistani Christian leaders in All Christian Parties Conference held here today in Lahore, decided to march from Lahore Press Club to Punjab Assembly Building on December 25th, 2010, to press upon government to repeal blasphemy law.

Thousands of Egyptian American Copts, led by Coptic bishops and clergymen representing other Christian denominations, protested on December 14 in front of the United Nations in New York against the on-going persecution of their Coptic brethren in Egypt.

The message given by the bishops of the Coptic church was Enough is Enough and that Copts will no longer keep quiet as they have reached the limit of their endurance of persecution and must speak out. They condemned the use of live ammunition on Coptic protesters and the Media attack on Pope Shenouda III.

The rally at the United Nation was preceded by a joint prayers service at the Armenian Orthodox Church of St. Vartan in Manhattan, in which bishops of the Coptic Church in the United States, Canada and Australia, were joined by the Armenian Orthodox Bishop, representatives of Iraqi churches, including Reverend Andrew of the Syriac Catholic Church, which suffered a bloody terrorist attack on Our Lady of Deliverance church in Baghdad on October 31.

After the joint church service, Coptic Bishops gave speeches in which they for the first time criticized President Mubarak, who do not want to give us the right to pray, and the Egyptian government which is not doing enough to protect its Coptic citizens from Muslim on-going attacks on them, and openly accused State Security of instigating attacks against the Copts.

They condemned the Egyptian police for firing at unarmed Coptic citizens. They asked for equal rights in their Egyptian homeland and freedom of religion.

The Bishops called on Copts and Christians worldwide to keep up the pressure on the Egyptian government to abandon its discriminatory policies against the Copts, as we pressured the racist regime of South Africa until it abandoned racism.

After the church service, the march, led by the clergy who were holding photos of Pope Shenouda, went to the United Nations.

Christians held photos of victims of Muslim violence and of Coptic girls abducted, raped and forced to convert to Islam. They chanted Why, why. do we have to die? and We Need Justice as well as other slogans asking for killing of Christians in Egypt to be stopped, as well as the burning of churches and Coptic homes.

The rally then went on to the headquarters of the Egyptian mission to the United Nations where Bishop David presented a petition on behalf of the Copts with demands to the Egyptian government so that peace would prevail in Egypt.

A card to keep for life... OR ELSE...

Muslims have convinced themselves that they are super-humans. They believe that the world should be very attentive to the Muslims' religious and cultural sensitivities while they can persecute any minority

On an international level, people from every religion exchange greeting cards to commemorate different occasions. We all know that most of these cards are meant for the wastebasket. What if a Christian or Jew saw a Muslim salesperson throwing his card with Jesus or Moses' name on it and called the police to register a case of blasphemy against him/her and the police arrested the violator? Most western readers would laugh out loud at this unlikely scenario but it is not a laughing matter for a physician from Hyderabad, Pakistan, who, unwittingly, threw a Muslim's visiting card in the trash basket. He apologised to the offended party and yet the police arrested him under pressure from religious fanatics.

...Read the full article

Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, an Iraqi-born Swede, who set off a car bomb in the Swedish capital before killing himself with a second bomb strapped to his body, declared his motives in emails to a Swedish news agency.

The emails refer to a Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks, whose 2007 drawing of the Prophet Muhammad as a dog infuriated Muslims around the world, and to Sweden's 500 soldiers in Afghanistan.

The email warned:

In the name of God the merciful. Prayers and peace to the Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him.

Thanks to Lars Vilks and his paintings of the Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him, and your soldiers in Afghanistan and your silence on all this so shall your children, daughters, brothers and sisters die in the same way as our brothers and sisters and children die.

Now the Islamic states have fulfilled what they promised you. We are here in Europe and in Sweden, we are a reality, not an invention, I will not say more about this.

Our actions will speak for themselves, as long as you do not end your war against Islam and humiliation of the prophet and your stupid support for the pig Vilks.

Shock and protest reign in the Pakistani civil society. Naushad Valyani, a Muslim doctor in Hyderabad (Sindh province) was arrested for blasphemy in the last few days. The physician is alleged to have snatched and thrown in the trash business cards from a sales representative, named Mohammad, who proposed the purchase of certain drugs.

This fact is totally illogical. It is a perfect example of how the blasphemy law is exploited for personal vendettas, Rev. Robert McCulloch, a missionary of St. Columba in Hyderabad and administrator of St. Elizabeth Hospital said..

The case was raised by Mohammad Faizan, representative of a well-known multinational pharmaceutical company, against the doctor who belongs to the Ismaili Muslim community. When Faizan realized that the doctor was not going to give him attention, and that he threw his card away on which is written the name of the Prophet Mohammad, he accused him of blasphemy. His suit is supported by other representatives of pharmaceutical companies that have staged a protest calling for the indictment of the doctor for blasphemy.

Some police officers registered the complaint and arrested him.

Civil society is shocked by the level reached in the abuse of the blasphemy law: 99% of Muslim citizens are named Mohammad. So then we commit the crime of blasphemy every time a newspaper page or any written text that contains the name is destroyed? Human rights activists, when asked for comment, said This is simply absurd. If this goes ahead, the nation will collapse into a sectarian disaster. This episode should make us reflect and may help the Government to propose a major change in the law, they said.

Several organizations working for human rights demand the immediate release of the doctor, asking the drug companies not to exploit the incident, not to use blasphemy as a form of pressure on doctors and to drop the charges.

An Indonesian court has sentenced a US retiree to five months in jail for blasphemy for pulling the plug on a mosque's loudspeaker.

The August 22 incident during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan resulted in Gregory Luke needing a police escort from his home on Lombok island as a mob tore it to pieces around him.

He was found guilty of committing blasphemy, carrying out an act of violence and hampering people in Kute village from doing their religious activities, chief judge Suhartoyo told a court in Praya, Lombok.

The verdict was two months lighter than the jail term sought by prosecutors a day earlier. The Indonesian criminal code stipulates that an act of blasphemy carries a maximum five-year jail term.

Setting out mitigating circumstances, the judge said: The defendant has never committed a crime before, acted politely during the trial and expressed regret for his act. He also participated in promoting tourism here.

In comments to local media, he has said he went to the mosque to ask for the volume to be turned down and was set upon by a group of local youths, who pushed him to the ground and pelted him with rocks.

A mob then chased him to his home and ransacked it as police looked on, apparently unable to intervene, he said. No one has been charged with any offence related to the mob attack on his house.

Word TV, a Christian TV show run by evangelical pastor Charles McVety, has been shut down temporarily after the Canadian TV censor ruled that it had discriminated against gays.

'Outraged' nutters have called the ruling an act of censorship, while McVety himself has condemned the ruling, calling it a gross breach of democracy and reminiscent of totalitarian regimes of the past.

Crossroads Television System, a Christian broadcaster took McVety's show off the air after the Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council (CBSC) ruled in June that the program put them in violation of their code of ethics.

The CBSC panel, which released the decision on Wednesday, rebuked McVety for claiming that the homosexual movement is driven by a conspiratorial agenda and suggesting that they prey on children.

The panel complained that he had described the Pride parades, which they said had become mainstream, as sexual perversion and sex parades. They also chastized him because he said Toronto was being advertised as a sex tourism destination ... with full opportunity for sex with hot boys.

McVety had also said that homosexual activists seek to indoctrinate children because unfortunately they have an insatiable appetite for sex, especially with young people. And there're not enough of them, so they want to proselytize your children and mine, our grandchildren and turn them into homosexuals .

The panel wrote: Given the central role that the manifestation of gay pride plays in the LGBT world, the immediately preceding comments constitute a derision of the traditions and practices of that community.

The panel also stated that McVety broke the code of ethics by attributing to the gay movement a malevolent, insidious and conspiratorial purpose, a so-called 'agenda'. This constitutes abusively discriminatory comment on the basis of sexual orientation, they wrote.

CTS TV, who made the decision to cancel the show, told LifeSiteNews, that as a member in good standing of CBSC they have a responsibility to comply with the Canadian Association of Broadcaster's Code of Ethics and Equitable Portrayal Code. It is our policy in these circumstances not to air the program until we have assurance from the program that content will be compliant. CTS anticipates that the program Word TV will be reinstated in short order.

Update: Reinstated with conditions

See article from jewishtribune.ca

The recent decisions by Crossroads Television System (CTS) – first, to remove the popular Dr. Rev. Charles McVety's Word TV, and subsequently to re-instate it, albeit with conditions of pre-screening and censorship – are not the end of the story, according to the Christian Evangelical leader.

Another finding against him is expected with possibly more to come, Rev. McVety said, referring to a discussion he had with Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) chair Ron Cohen. It was the CBSC findings upon which the CTS decisions were based.

Word TV was pulled last week because of statements the council determined – behind closed doors – that Rev. McVety, president of Canada Christian College and the Canada Family Action Coalition, allegedly made against the gay community in violation of sections of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters code of ethics.

According to a media release from Rev. McVety, which compared CBSC practices to kangaroo courts, the accused had been told nothing about the proceeding, shown none of the evidence, told nothing of the accusation, was allowed no defence and is permitted no appeal. This is undemocratic. It flies in the face of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In an interview, Cohen acknowledged that Rev. McVety, the strongest voice of Canadian Evangelical Christians, was denied the opportunity to attend meetings where accusations had been made against him or to defend himself.

A work of video art briefly depicting a figurine of Christ with ants crawling on it has been yanked from the Smithsonian's Portrait Gallery after complaints from a Catholic group and members of Congress.

The four-minute video titled Fire in My Belly was made by the late New York City artist David Wojnarowicz. It features an 11-second segment of a small crucifix teeming with the insects. It had been on exhibit since Oct. 30 as part of a show on sexual difference in American portrait art.

The piece was labeled hate speech by Catholic League president William Donohue who also claimed that it was designed to insult Christians.

After he was alerted to the piece, Donohue began a campaign to urge Congress to cut public funding for the Smithsonian museum complex, he told The Associated Press: This is not the first time the Smithsonian has offended us, he said. I'm going to cast my net much wider. Why should the government pay for this? ... How dare they take our money to fund attacks on (our religion).

The call was taken up by the office of House Representative John A. Boehner.

While the amount of money involved may be small, it's symbolic of the arrogance Washington routinely applies to thousands of spending decisions involving Americans' hard-earned money, said Kevin Smith, a spokesman for Boehner, the likely next Speaker of the House.

Smithsonian officials told the Post they removed the offending piece to make sure the show's other pieces weren't overshadowed by the controversy.

The decision wasn't caving in, claimed museum director Martin E. Sullivan: We don't want to shy away from anything that is controversial ...BUT.. we want to focus on the museum's and this show's strengths.

Update: Art sponsors not pleased by censorship

15th December 2010. Based on article from sfist.com
See also Large crowd of Houston art lovers protest Smithsonian censorship of A Fire in My Belly from culturemap.com
See also Canadian artist wants work pulled from U.S. exhibit marked by controversy from montrealgazette.com

Rep. John Boehner was unhappy that some Catholics found the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery's LGBT-themed Hide/Seek exhibit offensive. Boehner threatened increased scrutiny of the museum's funding as a roundabout way of getting the Gallery to pull works that don't jive with his constituency.

Except taxpayer dollars don't pay for the exhibitions or the works themselves, only the museum facilities. (Which are admittedly fairly important for holding an exhibition.)

The Andy Warhol Foundation, on the other hand, does provide a great deal of private funding to the museum - over $375,000 in the past three years to be exact - and they're not happy about seeing A Fire in My Belly disappear from the exhibition.

In a letter from President Joel Wachs sent to Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough, the Warhol Foundation spoke out saying:

Such blatant censorship is unconscionable. It is inimical to everything the Smithsonian Institution should stand for, and everything the Andy Warhol Foundation does stand for. ...we cannot stand by and watch the Smithsonian bow to the demands of bigots who have attacked the exhibition out of ignorance, hatred and fear.

Within the Smithsonian, at least one member of the Museum's advisory panel has resigned in protest. In an email posted on the Washington Post, commissioner James T. Bartlett wrote: I believe it is a fundamental right of museums and their curatorial staffs to make such decisions [about exhibition content], even if some art is deemed objectionable by external critics. I choose firmly and resolutely not to be part of an institution that is and can be put ad infinitum in this position.

Barbaric footage showing a woman being flogged repeatedly by a laughing policemen has sparked outrage after it was posted on the internet.

The YouTube video from Sudan shows an unidentified woman in a long black dress and headscarf being ordered to sit down before a uniformed police officer starts whipping her.

Howling in pain she screams Enough, enough and I want my mum .

A second officer - who laughs when he realises he is being filmed - later joins in with the cruel punishment

The woman's alleged crime is not known but there are suggestions circulating on the web that it could be for wearing trousers.

Flogging is common in northern Sudan but the violence in this particular video has sparked outrage and Sudan's judiciary has now launched an investigation into the incident. Sadistic: The policeman orders the screaming woman to place her legs out in front of her so he can whip them.

The video led to 50 women sitting down outside the justice ministry in Sudan in protest at laws which they say humiliate women. Dozens were arrested. The women held banners before being surrounded by riot police telling them to move.

Mike Blakemore from Amnesty International said: This horrendous footage provides a chilling reminder that flogging continues to be used as a form of punishment in Sudan. It is a practice which particularly affects women and Amnesty International is calling for an immediate end to this brutal practice. The law which enables flogging to persist is discriminatory and inhumane. Flogging of this kind amounts to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and in some cases can constitute torture. No one should be subjected to such treatment.'

Chinese authorities last week launched a crackdown directed at Christians who belong to China's huge network of unregistered house churches, calling a cult one of the fastest-growing populations of Christians in the world.

According to a news release from ChinaAid, the powerful Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party launched Operation Deterrence on Dec. 1.

ChinaAid said according to the Politburo's top-secret instructions, the crackdown on the largest component of the mainland Chinese church is to continue through March 2011.

CCP Central Committee for Comprehensive Management of Social order, the foot soldiers of China's security apparatus, have been told to collect information about house churches throughout the country and turn these reports in to their superiors. A long blacklist of church leaders and influential believers has also reportedly been drawn up.

Iran's supreme court has upheld a sentence of blinding with acid for a man who blinded his lover's husband, under the Islamic eye-for-an-eye justice code, a government daily said.

The convict, named only as Mojtaba threw acid in the face of Alireza a taxi driver in Iran's clerical hub city of Qom, after an illicit affair with the victim's wife, Mojdeh, said the newspaper Iran.

Qom prosecutor Mostafa Barzegar Ganji said the victim had used his right to qisas.

We have asked for forensic specialists to oversee the blinding of the convict, he said, quoted in Iran.

Update: More Nastiness

31st December 2010. See article from guardian.co.uk

In a literal application of the law of an eye for an eye, an Iranian man convicted of blinding another man in an acid attack has been sentenced to lose an eye and an ear.

The man, identified only as Hamid, was also ordered to pay blood money after he was found guilty of the 2005 attack, according to Iran's semi-official Fars news agency. Hamid told police he had mistaken his victim – identified only as Davoud – for a former classmate who had bullied him at school.

A human rights organisation has learned that Bhutanese police are preparing to arrest two more Christians for their involvement in showing a movie about Jesus.

International Christian Concern (ICC) reported that Prem Singh Gurung has been sentenced to three years imprisonment for showing the film.

On October 22, ICC wrote a letter to the representatives of Bhutan at the UN protesting the sentencing of Gurung. ICC said that Gurung has the right, under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to express his religious beliefs. That includes the right to receive and exchange information and ideas through any media.

In response to the letter, Bhutanese officials defended the sentencing, saying that while they respect the freedom of religion, no person shall be compelled to belong to another faith by means of coercion or inducement.

ICC said officials haven't demonstrated any evidence of forceful conversion by Gurung.

The nutters of the Westboro Baptists have taken aim at a gay themes play in LA.

They were set to protest outside the downtown Pico Playhouse who are putting on a production of The Laramie Project .

This is a play by Moisés Kaufman and is based on news reports, journal entries and more than 200 interviews of people in Laramie in the aftermath of the murder of Matthew Shepard. It covers the town's reactions, the funeral and the trial of the killers (the court found that their motive for the attack was that Matthew Shepard was gay). The play does not advance a gay agenda (contrary to what the WBC contends) and has been performed nationwide and all over the world (including high school and college productions) since 2000. The Westboro Baptists are featured in it (they picketed Matthew Shepard's funeral) and they often picket its performances.

The Westboro Baptists have outlined their objections in typical hateful style:

Judy Shepard raised her son to be a disobedient pervert, and God cut that child off. His blood is on her hands! From the day that he was cut off to today, Judy Shepard has spent all her resources on teaching the young people of this nation the same rebellion that caused God to cut off her own son; and making a profit on it! How sick is it to make money off of a child who is dead at your hands?! Matt Shepard has been in Hell now for twelve years, with eternity left to go on his sentence; without appeal, parole, or time off for good behavior. All else about Matt is trivial and irrelevant. Deal with it! Be not deceived; God is not mocked. Gal. 6:7.

God Hates Fags! God Hates Fag-Enablers! Ergo, God hates fag-infested & fag-enabling Los Angeles, CA and all having to do with spreading sodomite lies via The Laramie Project; a tacky piece of cheap, lying, fag propaganda masquerading as legitimate theater.

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is abomination. Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith. Lev. 18:22, 23

The Imam of Hajji Osman Alaf Mosque in Iraqi Kurdistan's second largest city, Sulaimaniyah, has told his followers that anyone who believes Female Genital Mutilation is not a recommendation from the prophet Mohammed is ignorant.

Imam Mala Yassin Hakim Piskandi said female circumcision was a Sunnah, a term used to refer to the practices carried out or recommended by Mohammed, the prophet of Islam.

He said, the Sunni Shafeyi, a school of jurisprudence which most Kurds follow, took a tougher stance regarding female circumcision, considering it an obligation, but that the other three Sunni schools of jurisprudence regarded it merely as a Sunnah, meaning it was recommended, but not compulsory.

When men and women have intercourse, their sexual organs should be circumcised and clean, he quoted Prophet Mohammed as saying.

He added that practicing a Sunnah act is good, but that not practicing it is not sinful. But in some cultures, including among some Kurds, uncircumcised women are regarded as unclean and are not allowed to cook.

Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim state, with nearly 90% of the population following the religion that first came to South East Asia in the 13th century.

But confessional freedom is guaranteed in the constitution. All persons have the right to worship according to their own religion or belief, it declares, and as my report from Jakarta earlier this year concluded, even the Islamist parties that win small but significant shares of the vote are keen not to alienate the electorate by coming across as too militant. They will push locally for Islamic laws, yes, (and the situation in Aceh) is exceptional for too many reasons to go into here) but the country's pluralism is engrained and the exercise of freedom much cherished after decades of dictatorship.

However, this liberty has one major omission. You cannot officially be an atheist in Indonesia. For the constitution also says that the state shall be based upon belief in the one, supreme God - although it deliberately doesn't specify which.

...Read the full article

A street preacher has been awarded more than £4,000 in damages after a judge ruled it was wrong for police to arrest and handcuff him for speaking out against homosexuality.

Anthony Rollins was preaching in Birmingham city center in June 2008 when a member of the public, John Edwards, took offense at comments he made describing homosexual conduct as morally wrong.

According to the Christian Institute, which backed Rollins' case, police arrived on the scene after receiving a call from Edwards and PC Adrian Bill proceeded to handcuff Rollins without any further inquiry.

Birmingham County Court ruled that PC Bill had committed assault and battery against Rollins by handcuffing him unnecessarily. Judge Lance Ashworth QC said in his ruling that the arrest demonstrated a lack of thoughtfulness. He ruled that hehad made the arrest as a matter of routine without any thought being given to Rollins' Convention Rights , which pertain to free speech and religious liberty.

After his arrest, Rollins was taken by PC Bill to the station where he was held for three hours but never questioned for his account of events. He was charged with breaching Section 5 of the Public Order Act but the charges were dropped before the case came to trial.

Rollins decided to sue West Midlands Police after a complaint he made to the Independent Police Complaints Commission about his treatment was rejected.

Sorry our rooms are only for couples in a properly consummated marriage

Enter the Chymorvah Private Hotel in Marazion, near Penzance, and in the bedrooms you will find open Bibles and Christian leaflets.

Here at Chymorvah you will be met by a friendly welcome. Besides excellent food in plenty and comfortable beds, you will find a warm hospitality and much happiness, mingled with good service.

But only if you are heterosexual and married.

And this, according to that bastion of paranoia, the Christian Legal Centre, has landed them deep in the soft and smelly, for they are now facing a discrimination claim brought by a gay couple who were refused a double bed.

Martyn Hall and his civil partner, Steven Preddy, from Bristol, have lodged a claim for damages, alleging sexual orientation discrimination. The couple are claiming that the refusal to allow them to share a bed was: Direct discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

They are relying on Equality Act regulations and are claiming up to £5,000 in damages against the hotel owners, who are now facing a civil action at Bristol County Court this coming Monday.

The Christian Institute, which is assisting the Christian couple, is outraged, and has issued a statement saying: This case is about liberty of conscience. This guesthouse is Mr and Mrs Bull's own home. They have rights too, and they should not be forced to act against their sincerely held religious beliefs under their own roof. This Christian couple are being put on trial for their beliefs. Equality laws are being used as a sword rather than a shield.

A judgement on the case will be made after Christmas.

To his parents, the cause of the boy's fatal illness transcended any microbe. We tried to fight the devil, but in the end the devil won, Herbert Schaible told a city social worker just days after his son's death on Jan. 24, 2009.

But a Philadelphia forensic pathologist told a jury that a 2-year-old boy would almost certainly be alive had he received routine medical care before he died last year of pneumonia.

This type of pneumonia, this type of bacteria, is preventable through vaccination and treatable with antibiotics, testified Assistant Medical Examiner Edwin Lieberman, referring to the disease that killed Kent Schaible in January 2009.

Lieberman defended his decision to classify the death as a homicide as a prosecutor began her involuntary manslaughter case against the boy's parents, Herbert and Catherine Schaible.

The Schaibles are members of the First Century Gospel Church which preaches forgoing medical care in favor of prayer and faith healing.

Authorities allege that when their son became ill with fever, cough, diarrhea, and loss of appetite, the Schaibles cared for him at home for almost two weeks, praying for him to get well as he died.

Update: Convicted

12th December 2010. Based on article from stuff.co.nz

A fundamentalist Christian couple who relied on prayer, not medicine, to try to cure their dying toddler son have now been convicted of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment.

We were careful to make sure we didn't have their religion on trial but were holding them responsible for their conduct, jury foreman Vince Bertolini told The Associated Press: At the least, they were guilty of gross negligence, and (therefore) of involuntary manslaughter.

The Schaibles are now awaiting sentencing on 2nd February.

Ice cream company Antonio Federici is challenging ASA's ban on religiously satirical ads

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has demanded that the Antonio Federici ice cream company signs an undertaking not to run the ad again, or any other advertising which may cause serious or widespread offence.

But the family behind the Antonio Federici ad has refused to make that promise and is seeking legal advice.

The ASA has threatened to ban all advertising for the brand if it refuses to comply.

The move comes after the ASA's decision to ban an advert depicting two gay priests enjoying a tub of ice cream, based on just eight complaints.

Antonio Federici described the decision as, openly homophobic and astonishing given the Chairman of the ASA (Lord Chris Smith) was himself the UK's first openly gay MP.

A spokesman for Antonio Federici said: We come from the Father Ted school of advertising where freedom of speech should be a right. We have a long and honourable tradition of satirising politics and religion. What's changed?

In October the National Secular Society called on the communications minister Ed Vaizey to institute an inquiry into the ASA's decision arguing they had reinstated the blasphemy law unilaterally.

Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, said: The advertisements for this ice cream were mildly satirical, featuring priests and nuns apparently enjoying the sensuality of the ice cream – and each other. This is either the result of religious activists flexing their 'blasphemy muscles' or religious believers who aren't very confident in their faith and feel that even the mildest humorous reference must be suppressed. I hope that Federici bring this to court and have this over-the-top censorship overturned.

In October 2010, the ASA wrote in their published assessment of the advert:

The ASA noted the CAP Code stated that ads should contain nothing that is likely to cause serious or widespread offence. Particular care should be taken to avoid causing offence on the grounds of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or disability .

We noted the ad used the text We Believe in Salivation as a theme to refer to the taste of the product and to the image of the priests, who were portrayed in a seductive pose as if they were about to kiss passionately. We considered the portrayal of the two priests in a sexualised manner was likely to be interpreted as mocking the beliefs of Roman Catholics and was therefore likely to cause serious offence to some readers. We concluded that the ad breached the Code.

The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 11) clause 5.1 (Decency).

Fifty Israeli rabbis have signed an open letter warning Jews not to rent or sell property to non-Jews, saying those who do should be ostracised .

The letter instructs that it is forbidden in the Torah to sell a house or a field in the land of Israel to a foreigner, referring to the Pentateuch -- the first five books of the Bible.

Signed mostly by state-employed rabbis, the document warns that he who sells or rents them a flat in an area where Jews live causes great harm to his neighbours.

After someone sells or rents just one flat, the value of all the neighbouring flats drops... He who sells or rents (to non-Jews) causes his neighbours a big loss and his sin is great, the letter said, in what was largely understood to refer to Israel's Arab minority. Anyone who sells (property to a non-Jew) must be cut off!!

According to the Israeli news website Ynet, the letter is to be published in religious newspapers and distributed in synagogues across the country later this week.

The advice was condemned by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who issued a statement :

Among Israeli citizens, there are non-Jews. How we would react if someone claimed that it is forbidden to sell houses to Jews? We would be outraged, as we are when we hear such calls among our neighbours.

This kind of speech should be banned in a Jewish and democratic state that respects Jewish tradition and the Bible.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel called on Netanyahu to discipline state-employed rabbis who signed the letter: Rabbis who are civil servants have an obligation to the entire public, including Israel's Arab citizens. It is unthinkable that they would use their public status to promote racism and incitement.

Hunman rights watchdog Amnesty International said the letter clearly targets the Palestinian citizens who make up 20 per cent of Israel's population, and highlights the continuing discrimination they face in housing and other areas.

Iranian officials have sentenced a man to death for allegedly running a porn site in Canada.

According to the Toronto Globe and Mail, Saeed Malekpour was sentenced after being convicted as corrupt on Earth and a warrior against God.

Malekpour is an Iranian-born Canadian resident and returned to Iran to visit his sick father in October of 2008, that's when he was put in Tehran's Evin Prison and where he was given the news of the verdict.

His wife said her husband's lawyer is appealing the case to Iran's highest court.

Meanwhile, the Canadian government is blasting Iran over the death sentence. Melissa Lantsman, spokeswoman for Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon, said:

Canada remains deeply concerned by the continued flagrant disregard of the Iranian authorities for the rights of Iranians. This appears to be another case in which someone in Iran is facing a death sentence after a highly questionable process.

We continue to call on Iran to respect its domestic and international obligations and ensure fairness and due process for all its citizens and others.

In what is viewed as a precedent by right groups, Egyptian state security forces opened fire on November 24 on Christian Copts, killing four, wounding 78, detaining hundreds and charging 170 with grievous charges -- enough to keep them behind bars for 10-15 years, says Coptic political analyst Magdy Khalil.

Working at the construction site of their new church in Talbiya, Omraniya, an area south of Cairo densely populated by poor Christians, the congregation was surprised at dawn by nearly 5000 security forces, opening fire on them with live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas. They responded by hurling stones or throwing back at them their tear gas bombs (video). To protest against this attack, nearly 3000 area Copts went to the Governorate building, where they were met again with a hail of live ammunition and tear gas; many were wounded and arrested. Coptic youth hurled stones, broke glass and two kiosks.

Rights lawyers learned lately of 22 Coptic minors were arrested by security from the church site. Some, as young as 16, were hiding inside the church building but hunger brought them out after 2-3 days, when forces caught them, saying they would send them to their families, but instead arrested them, reported Mariam Ragy.

Lawyer Adel Mikhail, who represented two of them on December 1, said: They are just overwhelmed and terrorized kids, mostly 16-year-olds, who had nothing to do with the protests. They were at church doing odd jobs like moving sand. Police interrogated them on the day of the incidents without the presence of lawyers, who were prevented by security. They were all charged with attempted and premeditated murder, destruction of state property with intention of terrorism, theft of Interior Ministry's property, intentionally disrupting public transport, and rioting.

The Governor of Giza went on national TV to justify his actions, claiming the Copts hid by some sort of material a dome which indicates that the building would become a church for religious services and not a community services center as claimed. But prior to the demonstrations the Governor had sent to the Church congregation his secretary, who congratulated them on the Governor changing the permit to allow the building to be a church.

Malaysian religious authorities have confirmed the caning of three women convicted of having sex outside of marriage.

This marks the first time the Sharia Law sentence was meted out to women in Malaysia. The punishments were carried out earlier this year and each woman was caned six times.

The Sharia laws apply only to native Malays and not the Chinese and Indian minorities who live in the pacific nation.

Malaysian Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said: The punishment is to teach and give a chance to those who have fallen off the path to return and build a better life in future . He said he hoped the punishments would not be viewed in such a way as to defile the purity of Islam .

A Pakistani court has temporarily blocked government-proposed amendments to relax blasphemy laws, amid renewed protests from rights activists and religious minorities.

Islamabad has been trying pass a bill to ease the country's much abused blasphemy laws, which allow the death penalty for derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed or Koran.

Judge Khwaja Mohammad Sharif on Monday ordered the bill to be frozen while the court assessed whether parliament has legislative authority over blasphemy laws.

Aziz Baig, a member of the public, had submitted a citizen's petition arguing that lawmakers did not have the constitutional right to amend laws relating to religion.

Dozens of members of the militant group of Islamic Defenders Front staged a noisy protest in front of an Indonesian film company that just released a horror movie starring Japanese adult movie actress Maria Ozawa, who is known as Miyabi.

Reject Miyabi, the mother of all sinners, who propagates immoral behavior in this country, group leader Salim Alatas shouted in front of the Maxima Pictures office in West Jakarta.

After an emotional dialogue with a company executive, the protesters grabbed all the movie posters plastered on the office walls, and ripped them up and burned them.

Two days before the same group went to Soekarno-Hatta international airport in Jakarta and threatened to capture Ozawa upon her arrival and send her home.

Police forced the crowd to a parking area in front of the airport office, far from the terminal.

Well-known in Indonesia as Miyabi, which Ozawa used early in her career as an adult video actress, she was to attend the premiere of her second Indonesian movie Hantu Tanah Kusir, (The Ghost of Tanah Kusir Cemetery) .

The film followed the success of Menculik Miyabi, (Kidnapping Miyabi) , a teen comedy released last May after heated controversy delayed filming and forced scenes featuring her to be made in Tokyo instead of Jakarta.

The movies contain no sex-scenes and have been passed by the Indonesian censor.

The nutter cause has been supported up by some newspapers. Republika daily has dedicated front-page stories opposing Ozawa and other adult movie actress in Indonesian horror movies, including Japanese actresses Rin Sakuragi and Leah Yuzuki and U.S. actress Tera Patrick, although the latter three have not stirred much controversy as they are not as popular as Ozawa. It carried large sketches of the faces of foreign porn actresses that have appeared in Indonesian movies headlined National films on the brink of destruction.

 The speaker of Pakistan's Punjab legislative assembly barred a lawmaker from a minority community from speaking on the issue of a Christian woman sentenced to death on charges of blasphemy, prompting other minority legislators to walk out of the House.

Joel Amir Sahutra raised a point of order in the assembly, saying that he wanted to speak about the case of Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old mother of five who was sentenced to death after being convicted under the discredited and much abused blasphemy law.

Speaker Rana Iqbal Ahmed refused to allow Sahutra to speak on the issue, describing it as sensitive .

Protesting against the speaker's attitude, legislators belonging to minority communities walked out of the House.

However, when Ali Haider Noor Niazi of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan party began speaking emotionally on the same issue, the speaker predictably did not stop him.

Niazi began shouting within the assembly as he criticised those who were trying to defend the woman. Niazi criticised Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer for raising his voice in favour of Asia Bibi: The governor has no right to make efforts for Asia's pardon, he said. Niazi was also of the view that those demanding the woman's release are blasphemers .

The minority legislators later ended their boycott of the proceedings after submitting a resolution to the assembly secretariat in which they demanded the formation of a judicial commission to investigate all cases registered under the blasphemy law. The resolution also demanded the framing of a new law to stop misuse of the blasphemy laws.

Iranian authorities amputated the hand of a man in a prison in the western province of Kermanshah.

The sentence was carried out on Wednesday in the presence of local judiciary officials and other prisoners, according to the state-run news agency ISNA. The report did not identify the man other than to say that he had been convicted of stealing.

A Pakistani Muslim cleric has offered a reward for anyone who kills the Christian woman sentenced to death by a court on charges of insulting Islam.

Maulana Yousef Qureshi, the imam of a major mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar, offered a $5,800 (3,700 pounds) reward and warned the government against any move to abolish or change the blasphemy law.

We will strongly resist any attempt to repeal laws which provide protection to the sanctity of Holy Prophet Mohammad, Qureshi told a rally. Anyone who kills Asia will be given 500,000 rupees in reward from Masjid Mohabat Khan, he said referring to his mosque.

Qureshi, cleric who has been leading congregation at the 17th century Mohabat Khan mosque for decades, later told Reuters he was determined to see her killed. We expect her to be hanged and if she is not hanged then we will ask mujahideen and Taliban to kill her.

Qureshi is not believed to have a wide following.

Two Islamic laws applied in the Indonesian province of Aceh violate people's rights and are implemented abusively, a new report has concluded.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says two of five local laws based on the Sharia legal code discriminate against women. It says the laws against seclusion - association by unmarried individuals of the opposite sex - and dress codes are also not applied to wealthy people.

The report by HRW, Policing Morality: Abuses in the Application of Sharia in Aceh, Indonesia , says: These two laws deny people's right to make their own decisions about who they meet and what they wear, said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch: The laws, and their selective enforcement, are an invitation to abuse, she said.

The prohibition of men and women who are not blood relatives or married to one another from being together in an isolated place has been used to bar people simply meeting and talking in a quiet place, the report says. Abuses include aggressive interrogations and attempts to force people to marry.

Surveys in the province have regularly highlighted local residents' unhappiness with the laws.

Christian Voice is demanding Tesco pull a sinful Twilight advent calendar from its stores because it offends Christians.

Christian Voice says mixing religion with the cult vampire series is deeply offensive to Christians.

It's sickening to see the message of Jesus Christ being hijacked to peddle a brand like Twilight, which to all intents and purposes proclaims an anti-religious cult, said Stephen Green, national director of the group: Twilight may be fiction, but it is dangerous to mix-up such a story in the minds of impressionable children with that of the Nativity.

The Twilight Eclipse calendar features a picture of actress Kristen Stewart, and her two rivals in love - Edward the vampire and Jacob the werewolf.

Tesco apologised if anyone was offended but said it always gives customers a choice, adding: Twilight is a very popular brand and we aim to provide the types of products our customers would like to buy.'

Danish broadcaster SBS owns the right to a satiric show about a cell of bumbling European Muslim terrorists created by Omar Marzouk, but the show has been on the shelf for the past two years.

Henrik Bo Nielsen of the Danish Film Institute has seen an episode from the show and doesn't understand what's the problem with broadcasting it. It's a very funny satire series and he's seen nothing which could cause concern. The Institute granted millions to support the project.

SBS first changed the name of the series from The Terror Cell to The Cell . Then they moved the planned broadcast from Kanal 5 to the less viewed 6'eren. Now they've postponed broadcasting it at all.

SBS spokesperson Jesper Jürgensen says that the series could annoy some viewers. The current terror threat against Denmark also played a role in the decision to drop the series.

Mogens Jensen (Social Democrats), says that it looks like a type of self-censorship, and that's obviously regrettable.

Creator Omar Marzouk told BT that he's furious that SBS don't dare show the series, which makes fun of extremists.

SBS invested 4.5 million Danish Kroner in the show, and got another 4.5 million in state subsidies from the Danish Film Institute. They need to broadcast the year after they get the money, or else they need to repay it.

Muslim inmates at a prison in northwest Punjab Province on Oct. 29 stoned a Christian wrongly convicted of blasphemy nearly to death, according to his father.

Imran Masih, a 19-year-old member of the Protestant Church of Pakistan, is still recovering in District Hospital Hazro, where he was admitted to the Intensive Care after the assault.

Imran Masih was brought to the hospital in a very serious condition, Dr. Sultan Malik told Compass. He had lost a lot of blood. He was shifted to the ICU and is still under treatment.

Masih was working at a barbershop in July 2009 when the owner, Nadeem Haider, accused him of stealing 5,000 rupees (US$60). Haider, who had been pressuring Masih to convert to Islam, had the Christian arrested, according to investigators.

'Justice' Risalat Khawaja sentenced Masih to 10 years of prison under Pakistan's blasphemy statues, widely condemned internationally for their use against oppressed minorities to settle grudges.

Zubair Malik, investigation officer on the prison inquiry commission looking into the assault on Masih, said that on Oct. 29 Masih was sitting outside his barrack after Friday prayers when a group of inmates pounced on him, yelling that he was a blasphemer and must be killed. With rocks from fields within the prison premises, they tried to stone him to death as prison guards looked on, Malik said, stopping the assault only after Masih was nearly dead.

Clashes broke out between Christian protesters and Egyptian security forces over the construction of St. Mary and St. Michael church in Talbiya, resulting in the killing of two Copts, hundreds of injuries and the arrest of more than 200 Copts.

Nearly 5,000 security forces with over 45 vehicles cordoned off the church site at 3:00 am on November 24 , while builders were working on the roof. They used tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition.

Later on Muslims joined security forces in pelting Copts with stones from under the bridge of the ring road overlooking the Church.

This was the second time within three days that security forces stormed the Church, but this time they successfully entered and occupied the building. According to eyewitnesses, security forces fired tear gas inside the church, where nearly 200 people were keeping vigil, afraid that security might enter and demolish the building.

The forces arrived and told us over the microphone to stop working and leave the church, then they started firing tear gas and rubber bullets, one of the witnesses said. They went to church and fired tear gas on women and children who were in church. They ran after us over a quarter of a mile to arrest us.

Copts said they were unable to hide inside the church, so security tracked them down in the streets surrounding the church and inside the neighboring houses where they fled. Over 200 Copts were arrested.

Later in the early hours of November 25, authorities charged 170 Copts with 14 various offenses, including attempted murder of Assistant Security Director of Giza, attacks on the Central Security Forces, attempts to kill officers at police station construction, and vandalizing central security cars, robbery of auto batteries of central security, congregation in violation of the law, riots, and the use of lethal weapons and firearms without a license, not carrying identity cards, and throwing bricks.

The lives of people without faith have nothing beyond the constructs they confect to cover the abyss , Cardinal George Pell has said.

A minority of people, usually people without religion, are frightened by the future, Cardinal Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, said during his homily at the St Mary's Cathedral Mass.

Life without God was life without purpose, without constraints , he said.

Cardinal Pell said education was not enough to create a civilised society, that faith was necessary too. He cited the example of 20th century Germany, which he said was the best educated society in the world when Hitler became leader.

Australian society will become increasingly coarse and uncaring … if Christian principles are excluded from public discussion. The secularists pursuing this aim won't be successful.