Religion News on the Web
Selected religion-related news from around the Web
January 29, 2011
- The Australian
The Australian: Malaysia steers moderate course with Najib at helm
Although he probably wouldn't approve of
the term, among Muslim heads of government, and in the context of
Malaysian politics, Najib is a liberal. He has recast Malaysia's foreign
policy, reached out to its ethnic minorities with a "1 Malaysia" slogan
and campaign, and set the economy on a path of reform and hi-tech
growth.
January 24, 2011
- The Weekly Standard
Weekly Standard: Blasphemy in Pakistan
Over the past 30 years, under Pakistan’s laws criminalizing blasphemy
against Islam, hundreds of Christians, Ahmadis, Hindus, Sikhs, and
unorthodox and reformist Muslims have been tried and imprisoned by the
state or killed by extremists.
January 18, 2011
- The New York Times
NYT: A dress code for Russians? Priest chides skimpiness
A top official for the Russian Orthodox Church on Tuesday proposed
creating an “all-Russian dress code,” lashing out at women who leave the
house “painted like a clown” and “confuse the street with striptease.”
January 11, 2011
- The Associated Press
AP: Iran rounds up Christians in crackdown
Iran has arrested about 70 Christians since Christmas in a crackdown that demonstrates the limits of religious tolerance by Islamic leaders who often boast they provide room for other faiths.
January 10, 2011
- The Wall Street Journal
WSJ: Islamists rally for Pakistan's blasphemy laws
Tens of thousands of Islamists rallied Sunday in Pakistan's southern
port city of Karachi in support of the nation's controversial blasphemy
laws, and clerics threatened to kill anyone who challenged them.
January 10, 2011
- The Associated Press
AP: Debate in Turkey over Armenia friendship monument
Modern art or a blight on the landscape? A giant monument to friendship
between historic enemies Turkey and Armenia has become a symbol of
controversy rather than healing.
January 09, 2011
- The Associated Press
AP: Turkey's Kurds campaign for language
As a child, Emrah Kilic couldn't understand a word his grandmother was
saying. That's because she was speaking Kurdish, the family's ancestral
language, whose public use was harshly suppressed in the name of forging
a unified Turkish nation.
January 08, 2011
- The Australian
The Australian: Church calls the unfaithful home
Lapsed Catholics will be wooed as never before later this year when the
church in Australia launches Catholics Come Home, a media campaign
credited with lifting mass attendances in the US by up to 17 per cent.
January 05, 2011
- Los Angeles Times
LA Times: Opinion: The real blasphemy
In June 2009 in Punjab, Pakistan, Asia Bibi, a mother of five and a
farmhand, was asked to fetch water. She complied, but some of her Muslim
co-workers refused to drink the water, as Bibi is a Christian and
considered "unclean" by them.
January 04, 2011
- Religion News Service
RNS: Technology unites missionaries, families around the world
Janine Winkler loves reading books to her 2-year-old grandson Judah, but instead of sitting on her lap at her home in Michigan, he's usually half a world away in Nigeria, where his father works for Wycliffe Bible Translators.
January 04, 2011
- The New York Times
NYT: Killing of governor deepens crisis in Pakistan
The assassination of an outspoken secular politician by one of his elite police guards on Tuesday plunged the government deeper into political crisis and highlighted the threat of militant infiltration even within the nation’s security forces.
December 31, 2010
- The New York Times
NYT: Pakistanis rally in support of blasphemy law
A crippling strike by Islamist parties brought Pakistan to a standstill
on Friday as thousands of people took to the streets, and forced
businesses to close, to head off any change in the country’s blasphemy
law, which rights groups say has been used to persecute minorities,
especially Christians.
December 29, 2010
- The Economist
The Economist: Shaking the mountains
A group of special Indian police barged into a white-painted,
single-storey house on the crisp morning of October 27th. They let their
lathis do the talking.
December 16, 2010
- Los Angeles Times
LA Times: Formerly persecuted minority gains clout in Afghanistan
Along rutted streets in newly revitalized neighborhoods hang green, red, yellow and black banners commemorating Imam Hussein, the prophet Muhammad's grandson, whose death more than 1,300 years ago continues to forge the identity and fuel the grievances of Afghanistan's Shiite Muslims.