Latest Updates: freedom of religion RSS
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thabet
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abunoor
ISNA Commends Malaysian Court Ruling re: use of word Allah by Christians
ISNA Commends Malaysian Court Ruling that Affirms Religious Freedom of Christians
(Plainfield, IN – January 4, 2010) The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) commends the landmark ruling by a Malaysian Court on December 31, 2009, that affirms the religious freedom of Malaysian Christians. The ruling asserts that Christians have the right to use the word “Allah” to translate “God” into Bahasa Melayu, the Malaysian language. It strikes down a government ban that was placed in 2007 on the use of the term in Christian literature.
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johnpi
The Sikh Coalition, an advocacy group for Sikhs in the US, is publicizing an attack in West Texas on a Sikh student who was delivering pizzas.
The local police department failed to designate the attack as a hate crime, failed to take the attack seriously by designating it a misdemeanor assault, and so far have failed even to file the misdemeanor charge against the attackers.
Here’s a description of the attack. Note that it appears from the language that the attackers had mistaken him for a Muslim. See if you think this sounds like a misdemeanor:
He brought pizzas into a home on a delivery and four men took the pizza. Without paying, they began eating, while at the same time hurling racial epithets at the Sikh man and threatening him.
“I’m going to **** you up in Iraq, I’m going to **** you up in Afghanistan, I’m going to **** you up over here.”
The men then grabbed the Sikh student and threw him into a swimming pool. The four attackers surrounded the pool, kicking him in the head and body. Every time he tried to escape, they would stomp or hit at him. For 20 minutes, he swam for his life trying to escape. He eventually seized an opportunity to flee and barely made it to his car with two men in pursuit.
I found this story over at The American Muslim, but it’s also been published in newspapers in India, Pakistan and New Zealand, so it certainly is getting widespread attention.
I have several criticisms of the Sikh Coalition’s advocacy. Nowhere in the press release do they name the town where this happened, or what specific police department failed to do its job. Consequently, the effect of this advocacy is greatly diminished as the opportunity to hold the town and police department up for public opprobrium and shame (powerful behavior changers) has mostly been lost.
In the press release it says, “Due to the sensitive nature of the case we have been asked not to release personal information at this time.” Why? If this has been reported to the police it is a public matter, likely published in the town paper’s police log.
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johnpi
Study: Religion repressed in third of all nations holding 70 percent of the world’s population.
People living in a third of all countries are restricted from practicing religion freely, either because of government policies and laws or hostile acts by individuals or groups, according to a study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center, “Global Restrictions on Religion.”
That amounts to 70 percent of the globe’s population, since some of the most restrictive countries are very populous.
Of the world’s 25 most populous countries, citizens in Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and India live with the most restrictions when both measures are taken into account, the study found.
“Where those two come together is where it’s most intense,” said Brian Grim, senior researcher at the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life.
The United States, Brazil, Japan, Italy, South Africa and the United Kingdom have the least amount of restrictions on religious practices when measured by both government infringement and religion-based violence or harassment, according to the study.
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thabet
Merve Kavakçı makes an argument which I know Aziz is fond of too:
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thabet
Just over half of those polled say they do not support a ban on minarets in Switzerland.
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thabet
Muslim councillor ‘adjourned meeting for prayer’:
The development committee at Tower Hamlets stopped after five minutes to allow Muslim councillors a prayer break during its last meeting.
Cllr Rania Khan faced shouts of “disgusting” from the public gallery as she left to pray and on her return said she had been disturbed by the “abuse hurled at her”.
Obviously, I don’t have details of exactly what went on or what was said. But if she told them she wanted a break so she can pray (Maghrib based on the report), then I think she made a mistake. She should have simply asserted her right to a break (as per the standard working practices of her organisation, which we should remember is accountable to the public) given her work schedule, which she says ran from 2-7pm. What she did in her break then would then have been largely her business.
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thabet
The police will not seek a ban for another protest Stop Islamisation of Europe are planning to hold outside Harrow mosque.
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thabet
Egyptian authority will issue an edict banning ‘full veils’:
Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, dean of al-Azhar university, called full-face veiling a custom that has nothing to do with the Islamic faith.
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koonj
Delightful. Austrian schoolgirls set their Muslim classmate’s hijab ablaze. (Hat-tip Yakoub Islam)
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thabet
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thabet
A US Congressional body which monitors religious freedom says India fails to protect its minorities:
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom says India was added to the list because of a “disturbing increase” in religious violence.
Indian officials aren’t pleased.
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thabet
Negligence (ans perhaps connivance?) by authorities and banned terrorist groups are blamed for the murder of Pakistani Christians in a town in central Punjab over the weekend.
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thabet
A mere 367 Muslim women may bring down the Fifth Republic.
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thabet
A Swedish city will no longer supply food to schools ‘based on ethical and religious grounds, such as halal meat’.
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thabet
A proposal by rightwing groups to ban new minarets in Switzerland has been overwhelmingly dismissed in parliament.
In Belgium, Vlaams Belang (a Belgian ethnic-nationalist party) held a protest yesterday against the proposed mosque at the Sint-Bernardsesteenweg in Antwerp.
And in Oldham, a ‘giant’ mosque has been given the go ahead. What’s so giant about it?
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thabet
Muslims living in the Isle of Man face online opposition to their campaign for a mosque.
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thabet
The Catholic Church in Malaysia has lost the latest round of a legal battle with Malaysian authorities over the use of the word ‘Allah’ as a translation for ‘God’ in Catholic publications.
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aziz
Should prisons allow inmates to observe muslim holidays? Should schools?
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thabet
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s annual report named Myanmar, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam as “egregious” violators of religious freedom. Bangladesh was dropped to from the ‘watch list’.
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thabet
A Muslim chef who accused the Metropolitan Police of religious discrimination when told he must handle pork has lost his tribunal case.
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thabet
Perhaps someone at the UN should invite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to talk about the persecution of religious minorities?
(Via Kawthar.)
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thabet
Something you won’t read in an OIC report:
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johnpi
Asma Uddin at altMuslim may be engaging in false equivalency in this statement:
Although the UK is not a supporter of the Defamation Resolution, its use of visa controls to punish those who have expressed “extreme” views is based on the same communal theory of rights as the Resolution. The idea behind both is that individual rights – such as the right to free speech – should be curtailed for the sake of public sentiment.
Putting aside Jacqui Smith’s repulsive Reaganesque rhetoric, I don’t see a standard of ‘communal values’ or “public sentiment” being applied by the UK government, but instead a more narrow standard of violence prevention. The specific justifications cited in her article for the various individuals who have been banned concerns incitements to violence:
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thabet
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thabet
Something Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won’t be talking about to UN conferences on human rights.
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johnpi
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has been known to claim the Republican party is “still a big-tent party.” But yesterday, while guest-hosting a radio show, he said the Republican base rejected Romney because he was a Mormon. I’m shocked – shocked! – to hear the Republicans discriminated against someone because of his religion…
Steel is not long for his position at the RNC.
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thabet
About 50 Muslim men took their prayer rugs to the Sliema front yesterday after the planning authority sealed off their place of worship.
I found the language of ‘rights’ from both sides interesting: one Muslim interviewed called the public gathering an expression of a ‘fundamental human right’ to pray, while a Maltese onlooker is quoted as saying that as Muslims don’t have a ‘right’ to pray in public because Malta is a Catholic country.
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johnpi
Muslim NGOs criticize Malaysian government’s decision to require both parents consent before allowing a child to change religion.
Pembela, (link to website and article explaining the organization’s goals) a coalition of Muslim NGOs, believes the cabinet ruling will deny the parent who converts to Islam his or her right and responsibility over the future of the children. They feel that the decision is not fair to those who want to convert to Islam.
The decision was described earlier as an attempt to ease interfaith conflicts that have strained race relations after an estranged father got a ruling from a Malaysian Shariah court that his children must be converted to Islam over the objection of the non-Muslim mother. This has led to much criticism from non-Muslims that their rights cannot be adequately and fairly protected in Islamic Shariah courts.
Prominent Muslims are on the defensive that non-Muslims can obtain fair arbitration in Shariah courts. Former Mufti Mohamad Asri Zainul Abidin, who is described as popular with young Muslims, “defended the role of Syariah courts in arbitrating these matters,” according to the Malaysian Insider, “stating that the problem in Malaysia was not the fairness of Islamic jurisprudence but the inefficiency of the Syariah courts locally.”
“The problem is not Islam but Syariah courts not reflecting true Islam,” he said, and then goes on to discuss the lack of timeliness of the Shariah courts, which I’m not sure what has to do with this case.
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Kawthar
The “Selangor Islamic Religious Council” of Malaysia sent a letter to the Ahmadiyya community, informing them that they are forbidden from performing Friday prayers at their own mosque.
