Showing posts with label religious persecution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religious persecution. Show all posts
Friday, December 23, 2016
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Prince Charles: Rise of Religious Persecution beyond Belief
Read the Guardian article here
Listen to the full ‘Thought for the Day’ on Radio 4’s homepagehere
Monday, October 27, 2014
Iran's Non-Muslims Face Prison, Execution, Despite 'Reform' Claims, Says New UN Report
While persecution of religious minorities is nothing new in the Islamic Republic, the 28-page catalog of horrors compiled by Ahmed Shaheed, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Right in the Islamic Republic of Iran, undermines the claim that President Hassan Rouhani has ushered in a new era of tolerance.
“At least 49 Protestant Christians are currently detained, many for involvement in informal house churches,” the report states. “In April 2014, security forces reportedly raided an Easter service in a private home in southern Tehran and detained six individuals.” » | Benjamin Weinthal | Monday, October 27, 2014
Monday, May 16, 2011
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Riot police stand aside as motorists and residents in Cairo attack Coptic Christian demonstrators who set up a roadblock to press for more security after deadly sectarian clashes a week ago.Reporting from Cairo—
Scores of mostly Coptic Christian protesters were injured when their weekend demonstration blocking a street near the heart of downtown Cairo was attacked by motorists and residents as riot police stood by, prompting new questions about the ability and willingness of Egypt's military-led government to maintain security.
The attacks came hours after an explosion at the tomb of a Muslim saint in the northern Sinai town of Sheik Zweid and a week after sectarian clashes left 15 dead and 200 injured.
The violence erupted late Saturday on Cairo's busy corniche road that runs parallel to the Nile, within view of the balconies and terraces of the Marriott, Hilton and other major hotels frequented by foreign tourists.
For days, the protesters camped out on the street to call for government protection after a church was burned, sparkingdeadly clashes between Muslims and Christians in the Imbaba area of the city.
Late Saturday, crowds rushed in, lobbing gasoline bombs and charging at the several hundred demonstrators. The attackers also burned cars and trucks. Nearly 80 people were injured, including two with gunshot wounds, according to witnesses and the national health minister. » | Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Amro Hassan, Los Angeles Times | Monday, May 16, 2011
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A priest whose church was at the centre of sectarian riots at the weekend has said Egyptian Christians were "under organised attack" as religious authorities warned the country was at risk of civil war.Armed troops and riot police guarded the streets around St Mena's church and nearby burned-out shops and apartment blocks in the impoverished, crumbling Cairo suburb of Imbaba.
Inside, Father Cherubim Awad said a conspiracy was the only possible explanation for the violence that had engulfed relations between Christians and Muslims in recent weeks.
"Five churches were attacked on the same night," he said. "From the beginning of this year we have had all these attacks in a short space of time.
"There is some hidden hand behind this, whether from inside the country or outside it."
The street battles, which began on Saturday evening outside his church, demonstrated the breakdown in law and order in parts of Egypt that began during the uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak in February.
The police failed to intervene, while Fr Cherubim said that, after several hours, the army moved in to protect the church but not the surrounding buildings, and refused to try to break up the warring sides.
Sectarian violence has increased in Egypt. It began with a church bombing in Alexandria before the uprising began, but has worsened since.
A large gang of Salafi Muslims – followers of a purist sect to which most Islamist terrorist groups are aligned – led the attack on St Mena's, claiming a Christian woman who had converted to Islam to marry a Muslim was being held inside against her will.
"They performed evening prayer 200 metres from the church and after they finished they started shouting 'We want you to leave', meaning the Copts," Fr Cherubim said.
"They were shouting 'Islamiya, Islamiya, Islamiya, with our souls and blood we sacrifice ourselves for the crescent'. » | Richard Spencer, Cairo | Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Monday, May 09, 2011
Christians marching against the military in the Egyptian capital and calling for more rights have come under attack.
While some blamed hardline Muslims, others said the attack is symptomatic of rampant lawlessness in the country following the revolution that overthrew long-time leader, Hosni Mubarak.
Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh reports from Cairo.
Sunday, May 08, 2011
KANSAS CITY STAR: In the ancient Bahraini village of Aali, where some graves date to 2000 B.C., the Amir Mohammed Braighi mosque had stood for more than 400 years - one of the handsomest Shiite Muslim mosques in this small island nation in the Persian Gulf.
Today, only bulldozer tracks remain.
In Nwaidrat, where anti-government protests began Feb. 14, the Mo'men mosque had long been a center for the town's Shiite population - photos show it as a handsome, square building neatly painted in ochre, with white and green trim, and a short portico in dark gray forming the main entrance.
Today, only the portico remains.
"When I was a child, I used to go and pray with my grandfather," said a 52-year-old local resident, who asked to be called only "Abu Hadi." "The area used to be totally green, with tiers of sweet water wells.
"Why did they destroy this mosque?" Abu Hadi wailed. "Muslims have prayed there for decades."
In Shiite villages across this island kingdom of 1.2 million, the Sunni Muslim government has bulldozed dozens of mosques as part of a crackdown on Shiite dissidents, an assault on human rights that is breathtaking in its expansiveness.
Authorities have held secret trials where protesters have been sentenced to death, arrested prominent mainstream opposition politicians, jailed nurses and doctors who treated injured protesters, seized the health care system that had been run primarily by Shiites, fired 1,000 Shiite professionals and canceled their pensions, detained students and teachers who took part in the protests, beat and arrested journalists, and forced the closure of the only opposition newspaper.
Nothing, however, has struck harder at the fabric of this nation, where Shiites outnumber Sunnis nearly 4 to 1, than the destruction of Shiite worship centers.
The Obama administration has said nothing in public about the destruction. Continue reading and comment » | Roy Gutman, McClatchy Newspapers, with contributions from Hannah Allam in Cairo | Sunday, May 08, 2011
Thursday, March 19, 2009
HAARETZ: The United States government is taking part in efforts to extricate Jews in Yemen who have been the subject of physical harassment from their Muslim neighbors.
The rescue efforts focus on 300 Jews from the Yemenite town of Rada, north of the capital Sanaa.
The State Department has maintained a weeks-long dialog with Yemenite authorities over the fate of the country's Jewish community. The issue took on more urgency following the murder this past December of a prominent activist in the Jewish community, Moshe Yaish Nahari.
It is unclear if the U.S. involvement in helping facilitate the Jews' exit from Yemen is the result of an initiative by Washington or an appeal from Israel. The operation is the brainchild of the umbrella group United Jewish Communities, which is being aided by other organizations specializing in absorbing and resettling refugees. >>> By Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz Correspondent | Thursday, March 19, 2009
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE: The Bishop of Rochester has called on the Government to take action about a new law in Iran that would make the death penalty mandatory for apostasy.
Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali said in the House of Lords that many asylum seekers arrive in the UK because of religious persecution.
He asked: “What diplomatic efforts are Her Majesty’s Government making regarding the passing of the law on apostasy by the Iranian majlis, which makes the death penalty mandatory for apostasy and which will undoubtedly cause many more people to flee that country?”
Home office minister Lord West of Spithead said he was not sure “what exactly is going on about approaching Iran on that point”.
But he added: “We are not particularly happy about a number of things in Iran.” [Source: Religious Intelligence] By Adrian Hall | November 3, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
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