For the first time in almost 1,000 years, many of the legendary Byzantine treasures of Mount Athos in Greece are on view to women.
Almost 200 works of art from the male-only Orthodox enclave in northern Greece are on show at the Petit Palais in Paris until July. Most of the works have never previously left the peninsula, from which women – and even most female animals – have been banned since 1045.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/06/mount-athos-treasures-on_n_198043.html
CNN.com, 4/29/09….The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.
The Washington Region Religious Campaign Against Torture rallied on Capitol Hill in March 2008.
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Data from a Pew Research Center survey conducted April 14-21, 2009, among 742 American adults. Other religious groups are not reported due to small sample sizes.
Question wording: Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, sometimes be justified, rarely be justified, or never be justified?
HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) – Afghanistan’s extremist Taliban publicly executed a young couple who had tried to elope, a provincial governor said Tuesday.
The pair were shot dead on Monday in front of a mosque in the southwestern province of Nimroz, an area where the Islamists have influence.
It followed a decree by local religious leaders that they should be put to death, governor Ghulam Dastageer Azad told AFP.
He branded their execution an “insult to Islam.”
“An unmarried young boy and an unmarried girl who loved each other and wanted to get married had eloped because their families would not approve the marriage,” Azad said.
The pair, both adults, were discovered by Taliban militants and returned to their village in Khash Rod district where the extremists are active.
“Three Taliban mullahs brought them to the local mosque and they passed a fatwa (religious decree) that they must be killed. They were shot and killed in front of the mosque in public,” the governor said.
Azad said some reports said that the families of the young couple might be associated with the Taliban. The Taliban could not be immediately reached for comment.
The 1996-2001 Taliban regime, which was based on an austere interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, carried out public executions by stoning for adultery, while a couple who had sex before marriage would be lashed 100 times and then made to marry.
Extrajudicial “honour killings” are also practised in Afghanistan by families who believe a relative has brought them shame, including by refusing to marry a chosen partner.
The Taliban are waging a bloody insurgency to take back power and have significant influence in several remote and mostly southern districts where they are reported to run their own courts.
In neighbouring Pakistan, the government Monday signed an agreement allowing the Taliban to impose their version of Sharia law in the Malakand district of around three million people in North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
Critics say it will embolden Taliban and Al-Qaeda extremists.
AP, 4/13/09, Noor Kaan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – A female provincial official known for fighting for women’s rights was gunned down in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, following a day of fighting in the region that left 22 militants dead, officials said.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmedi, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Gunmen killed Sitara Achakzai outside her home in Kandahar city and then drove off, said Matiullah Khan Qateh, police chief of Kandahar province. He said the four men drove up on two motorcycles and shot Achakzai as she was getting out of her car.
Achakzai, a dual German-Afghan citizen, spent the years of Taliban rule in Germany and returned to her native country to fight for women’s rights, said Shahida Bibi, a member of the Kandahar women’s association who worked with Achakzai.
A member of Kandahar’s provincial council, Achakzai was vocal in encouraging women to take jobs and encouraging them to fight for equal rights, Bibi said.
JERUSALEM — Two women serve in Israel’s new Cabinet, but some Israelis would rather not see them.
Ultra-Orthodox newspapers consider it immodest to print images of women.
The daily Yated Neeman digitally changed the photo, moving two male ministers into the places formerly occupied by the women.
The weekly Shaa Tova simply blacked the women out, in a photo reprinted Friday by the mainstream daily Maariv.
No response was available from the two papers.
During the election, campaign posters featuring female candidate Tzipi Livni were defaced near ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. – 4/3/09 AP
Newspapers aimed at ultra-Orthodox Jewish readers tampered with the inaugural photograph of the Cabinet, erasing ministers Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver.
Ahead of Pope Benedict XVI’s May visit to Israel, the rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitch, has said that it is not proper to come to the site wearing a cross.
Before 1967, when the Western Wall was under Jordanian rule, Jews were forbidden to pray there. In the Six Day War, Israel conquered east Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, from Jordan and prayer was opened to all religions.
On a historic visit to the Holy Land in 2000, Pope John Paul II prayed at the Western Wall, stuffing a written prayer between the cracks. Pictures from the visit clearly show him wearing a golden cross while praying.
Despite this precedent, Rabinovitch maintains his position against the display of religious symbols. In recent years there have been at least two incidents in which Rabinovitch has barred access to the Western Wall by Christian clergy wearing crosses. -excerpts from http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1237114844980&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
By Mohammed Jamjoom and Saad Abedine
(CNN) — A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a 75-year-old Syrian woman to 40 lashes, four months imprisonment and deportation from the kingdom for having two unrelated men in her house, according to local media reports.
According to the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan, troubles for the woman, Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi, began last year when a member of the religious police entered her house in the city of Al-Chamli and found her with two unrelated men, “Fahd” and “Hadian.”
Fahd told the policeman that he had the right to be there, because Sawadi had breast-fed him as a baby and was therefore considered to be a son to her in Islam, according to Al-Watan. Fahd, 24, added that his friend Hadian was escorting him as he delivered bread for the elderly woman. The policeman then arrested both men.
Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism and punishes unrelated men and women who are caught mingling.
The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, feared by many Saudis, is made up of several thousand religious policemen charged with duties such as enforcing dress codes, prayer times and segregation of the sexes. Under Saudi law, women face many restrictions, including a strict dress code and a ban on driving. Women also need to have a man’s permission to travel.
Al Watan obtained the court’s verdict and reported that it was partly based on the testimony of the religious police. In his ruling, the judge said it had been proved that Fahd is not the Sawadi’s son through breastfeeding.
The court also doled out punishment to the two men. Fahd was sentenced to four months in prison and 40 lashes; Hadian was sentenced to six months in prison and 60 lashes. In a phone call with Al Watan, the judge declined to comment and suggested the newspaper review the case with the Ministry of Justice.
Sawadi told the newspaper that she will appeal, adding that Fahd is indeed her son through breastfeeding.
The case has sparked anger in Saudi Arabia.
“It’s made everybody angry because this is like a grandmother,” Saudi women’s rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaider told CNN. “Forty lashes — how can she handle that pain? You cannot justify it.”
This is not the first Saudi court case to cause controversy.
In 2007, a 19-year-old gang-rape victim in the Saudi city of Qatif was sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison for meeting with an unrelated male. The seven rapists, who had abducted the woman and man, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison. The case sparked international outrage and Saudi King Abdullah subsequently pardoned the “Qatif Girl” and the unrelated male.
Many Saudis are hopeful that the Ministry of Justice will be reformed. Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz announced in February a major Cabinet reshuffling in which many hard-line conservatives, including the head of the commission, were dismissed and replaced with younger, more moderate members.
The new appointments represented the largest shakeup since King Abdullah took power in 2005 and were welcomed in Saudi Arabia as progressive moves on the part of the king, whom many see as a reformer. Among ministers who’ve been replaced is the minister of justice.
The actions of the religious police have come under increased scrutiny in Saudi Arabia recently, as more and more Saudis urge that the commission’s powers be limited. Last week, the religious police detained two male novelists for questioning after they tried to get the autograph of a female writer, Halima Muzfar, at a book fair in Riyadh, the capital of the kingdom.
“This is the problem with the religious police,” added Al-Huwaider, “watching people and thinking they’re bad all the time. It has nothing to do with religion. It’s all about control. And the more you spread fear among people, the more you control them. It’s giving a bad reputation to the country.”
Australian Associated Press: March 8, 2009
A senior Vatican cleric has defended the excommunication of the mother and doctors of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion in Brazil after being raped.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Catholic church’s Congregation for Bishops, told the daily La Stampa on Saturday that the twins the girl had been carrying had a right to live.
“It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated,” he said.
Re, who also heads the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, added: “Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian church is unjustified.”
The row was triggered by the termination on Wednesday of twin foetuses carried by a nine-year-old allegedly raped by her stepfather in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco.
The regional archbishop, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, pronounced excommunication for the mother for authorising the operation and doctors who carried it out for fear that the slim girl would not survive carrying the foetuses to term.
“God’s law is above any human law. So when a human law … is contrary to God’s law, this human law has no value,” Cardoso had said.
He also said the accused stepfather would not be expelled from the church. Although the man allegedly committed “a heinous crime … the abortion – the elimination of an innocent life – was more serious”.
Battista Re agreed, saying: “Excommunication for those who carried out the abortion is just” as a pregnancy termination always meant ending an innocent life.
The case has sparked fierce debate in Brazil, where abortion is illegal except in cases of rape or if the woman’s health is in danger.
On Friday, President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva hit out at Sobrinho’s decision, saying: “As a Christian and a Catholic, I deeply regret that a bishop of the Catholic church has such a conservative attitude.”
“The doctors did what had to be done: save the life of a girl of nine years old,” he said, adding that “in this case, the medical profession was more right than the church.”
One of the doctors involved in the abortion, Rivaldo Albuquerque, told Globo television that he would keep going to mass, regardless of the archbishop’s order.
“The people want a church full of forgiveness, love and mercy,” he said.
Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao also slammed the archbishop.
“Two things strike me: the assault on the girl and the position of this bishop, which is truly lamentable,” he said.
The girl, who was not identified because she is a minor, was last week found to be four months’ pregnant after being taken to hospital suffering stomach pains.
Officials said she told them she had suffered sexual abuse by her stepfather since the age of six.
Police said the 23-year-old stepfather also allegedly sexually abused the girl’s physically handicapped 14-year-old sister.
He was arrested a week ago and is being kept in protective custody. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.
The website of the news group Globo reported that another girl, aged 11, had been found to be seven months pregnant following alleged sexual abuse at the hands of her adoptive father.
The girl has said she does not intend to seek an abortion, according to reports.
CAROLYN THOMPSON | February 17, 2009 09:17 PM EST | AP |
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The crime drips with brutal irony: a woman decapitated, allegedly by her estranged husband, in the offices of the television network the couple founded with the hope of countering Muslim stereotypes.
Muzzammil “Mo” Hassan is accused of beheading his wife last week, days after she filed for divorce. Authorities have not discussed the role religion or culture might have played, but the slaying gave rise to speculation that it was the sort of “honor killing” more common in countries half a world away, including the couple’s native Pakistan.
Funeral services for Aasiya Hassan, 37, were Tuesday. Her 44-year-old husband is scheduled to appear for a felony hearing Wednesday.
by Robert Imrie
The Associated Press, Dec. ‘08
WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) – A judge Monday refused to dismiss reckless homicide charges against parents accused of praying instead of seeking a doctor’s care as their 11-year-old daughter died of untreated diabetes.
Marathon County Circuit Judge Vincent Howard rejected arguments that prosecuting Dale and Leilani Neumann violated their constitutional rights to freedom of religion and due process.
“The free exercise clause of the First Amendment protects religious belief, but not necessarily conduct,” Howard wrote in a 20-page decision.
Parents have a legal obligation in Wisconsin to project their children, care for them in sickness and do whatever may be necessary for their “care, maintenance and preservation, including medical attendance if necessary,” the judge said.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
OLYMPIA, WA — Several hundred people rallied Sunday at the state Capitol to protest a holiday display inside that provoked a national outcry by disparaging religion and declaring there is no God.
The “winter solstice” sign sponsored by the atheistic Freedom from Religion Foundation calls religion “myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”
An organizer at Sunday’s rally, Steve Wilson, said outrage over the display was growing, and that it was offensive to people of all faiths.
“When it comes to disparaging my faith on public property, that’s where I draw the line,” Wilson said.
Three counterprotesters stood at the side of the rally, holding up signs that said, “Get Over It.”
The sign went up Dec. 1 in the Capitol rotunda, alongside a “holiday” tree and a Nativity scene.
It generated national debate after TV talk-show host Bill O’Reilly made it an issue on his program.
Gov. Chris Gregoire’s office reported receiving hundreds of calls, mostly to protest the state’s decision to allow the sign to be displayed.
Gregoire and Attorney General Rob McKenna have defended the atheists’ right under the law to display their sign in the Capitol.
The state began granting broader access to religious displays a few years back, after a Jewish group added a Hanukkah menorah to the long-standing display of a massive evergreen Christmas tree — these days called a “holiday tree” — sponsored by the Association of Washington Business.
Organizers pleaded with Sunday’s crowd to keep messages positive, but there were still signs portraying Gregoire as a Grinch. Even scheduled speakers took political pot shots.
“You have led the state of Washington to be the armpit of America. And I’m afraid that our governor is the one adding the offensive odor to the armpit,” said the Rev. Ken Hutcherson, a Christian preacher known in the region for his commentary on social issues.
Also on hand was a manger scene made from balloons.
The wise men were missing, but the scene included an image of O’Reilly slugging Gregoire.
The atheist sign was briefly stolen Friday but was returned to the Capitol after somebody dropped it off at a Seattle radio station.
It was restored to its display site, along with the added message, “Thou shalt not steal.”
State Patrol troopers were on duty at the rally site, but no problems were reported. Source: seattlepi.com
A recent statement approved by U.S. Roman Catholic bishops warned President-elect Barack Obama that “aggressively pro-abortion policies, legislation and executive orders will permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans, and would be seen by many as an attack on the free exercise of their religion.” -pewforum.com, title by JSNTR
Telegraph.co.uk, Dec. 8, 2008
White-skinned albinos are being killed by their own people in Tanzania, who believe their body parts will add potency to black magic rituals.
In the past week, two Tanzanian albinos have been murdered for their limbs.
Elizabeth Hussein, 13, was attacked by men with machetes and Ezekiel John, 47, had his arms and legs cut off after being shot. Their deaths bring the toll to 35 murders in just more than a year, the Independent reports.
There is similar violence against albinos throughout east and central Africa.
The killings are orchestrated by witch doctors who claim they can make people rich using limbs and blood from their white-skinned neighbours.
In some parts of the country, albino children go to school with bodyguards and the graves of albinos are piled with rocks to deter grave robbers, the paper said.
Many albinos have fled the towns and cities to the remote island of Ukerewe where they can live in relative safety.
The island is believed to have the highest concentration of albinos, or zeru, in the world.
Albinism is an inherited disorder. It derives from a congenital lack of the melanin pigment which protects the skin, eyes and hair from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Some have very poor vision, though not all have red eyes as myth often suggests.
The Tanzanian Albino Society, funded by UK-based charity Action on Disability and Development, has been set up to fight discrimination against albinos in Africa.
TAS attempts to educate albinos about their rights and expose the violent killings.
from the November 13, 2008 edition
Washington – World leaders gathering at the United Nations this week for a special session of the General Assembly to advance interfaith dialogue should have no illusions that their efforts will miraculously promote mutual respect between religious communities or end abuses of religious freedom.
Saudi King Abdullah, who initiated this week’s special session, is quietly enlisting the leaders’ support for a global law to punish blasphemy – a campaign championed by the 56-member Organization of Islamic Conference that puts the rights of religions ahead of individual liberties.
If the campaign succeeds, states that presume to speak in the name of religion will be able to crush religious freedom not only in their own country, but abroad.
The UN session is designed to endorse a meeting of religious leaders in Spain last summer that was the brainchild of King Abdullah and organized by the Muslim World League. That meeting resulted in a final statement counseling promotion of “respect for religions, their places of worship, and their symbols … therefore preventing the derision of what people consider sacred.”
The lofty-sounding principle is, in fact, a cleverly coded way of granting religious leaders the right to criminalize speech and activities that they deem to insult religion. Instead of promoting harmony, however, this effort will exacerbate divisions and intensify religious repression.
Such prohibitions have already been used in some countries to restrict discussion of individuals’ freedom vis-à-vis the state, to prevent criticism of political figures or parties, to curb dissent from prevailing views and beliefs, and even to incite and to justify violence.
They undermine the standards codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the keystone of the United Nations, by granting greater rights to religions than to individuals, including those who choose to hold no faith – or who would seek to convert.
Another stark irony hangs over the UN special session this week. Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s worst abusers of religious freedom, a fact recognized by the Bush administration when it named it a “country of particular concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act in 2004. The king couldn’t hold such a conference at home, where conservative clerics no doubt would purge the guest list of Jews from Israel, Baha’is, and Ahmadis.
The Saudi government permits the public practice of only one interpretation of Islam. This forces the 2-to-3 million Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and other expatriate workers there to leave their convictions at the border, since non-Muslim places of worship are prohibited, non-Muslim religious materials risk confiscation, and even private worship is affected by the strictures.
It also violates the rights of the large communities of Muslims who adhere to Islamic traditions other than the one deemed orthodox by Saudi clerics. In the past two years, dozens of Shiites have been detained for up to 30 days for holding small religious gatherings at home. One Ismaili, Hadi Al-Mutaif, is serving a life sentence after being condemned for apostasy in 1994 for a remark he made as a teenager that was deemed blasphemous. The alleged crime of apostasy, in fact, can be punished by death.
The government’s policies are enforced by the Commission to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice, a roving religious police force, armed with whips, that regularly oversteps its authority and is unchecked by the judiciary.
Women seeking to exercise basic freedoms of speech, movement, association, and equality before the law have experienced particularly severe abuse.
In a particularly egregious recent case, a woman was gang-raped as punishment by seven men who found her alone in a car with a man who was not her relative. She escaped the sentence of 200 lashes and six months in prison only because of a pardon by King Abdullah, yet he also said he believed the sentence was appropriate.
Holding a session on advancing interfaith dialogue abroad is a pale substitute for hosting it in the kingdom, where the message of respect for freedom of religion and belief is most needed.
Against the background of Saudi repression and the kingdom’s role in exporting extremism, including through school textbooks preaching hatred of “unbelievers,” the UN and every world leader attending the special session should be demanding an end to severe violations of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia.
Dialogue is no substitute for compliance with universal human rights standards.
The monarch would make a far greater contribution by exponentially increasing his efforts to promote religious freedom at home, where religious intolerance reigns. A welcome first step would be to release Hadi Al-Mutaif and all other religious prisoners who remain behind bars in Saudi Arabia.
• Donald H. Argue and Leonard A. Leo are members of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
