Rowan Williams

Episcopal Life Online - WORLD REPORT:

"Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has deplored attempts by governments in Europe to prohibit Muslim women from publicly wearing the burqa, a garment that covers the entire body.

'Governments should have better things to do than ban the burqa,' Williams, the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, told an interfaith meeting organized by the National Council of Churches in India at its headquarters in Nagpur, during a visit to India.

..."I believe that the state ought not to be addressing issues like these. Instead, it should leave such concerns to the religious communities," stated Williams at the Oct. 14 meeting in Nagpur. He described the French ban as "a sign of being overanxious."

More than 100 church leaders, led by the NCCI's president, Methodist Bishop Taranath Sagar, and Bishop Purely Lyngdoh, moderator of the Church of North India, attended the meeting alongside Muslims and Sikhs, and members of the Hindu community.

"We are glad that the archbishop spoke out clearly on the burqa controversy. He is very objective and respects other faiths," A. Majid Parekh, a Muslim leader in Nagpur, told ENInews after listening to the Anglican leader.

Williams told ENInews that the controversy generated by bans on the burqa, the Sikh turban and the Christian cross in some European countries, "shows the extension of secularism too far. This ought to be resisted. The communities should have the right to decide on such issues." Williams said he had protested when a British Airways employee was told she should not wear her necklace cross visibly while at work.

He told the meeting that attacks against migrants in Europe were not the result of Christian prejudice against non-Christians but a "crude nationalist prejudice against migrants and outsiders."

On the link between religions and terrorism, the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion said that terrorism is a product of "bad" religion. "The positive affirmation of faith in God and respect for one another is the solution for it," he stated."

Iranian-backed TV broadcasts US Koran desecrations, inflames deadly Kashmir riots; 15 dead:

AINA:

On March 30 an administrative judicial court in Egypt dismissed a lawsuit filed by Mrs. Camilia Lutfi, mother of the Coptic Christian twins boys Mario and Andrew (right), against the Interior Minister, and the director of the Civil Status Department for refusing to re-instate the Christian religion on their birth certificates, and invalidate those which were forcefully changed to "Islam" in 2005 by their father Medhat Ramsis Labib, who had converted to Islam.

After his conversion, Andrew and Mario became Muslims in what is called "Islamization by dependence," by which children follow the religion of a converted parent (to Islam only) until they reach the age of puberty (fifteen), because Islam is "the best among all religions," according to Egyptian Court rulings.

The purpose of Lutfi's litigation was to restore back to her twins their identity as Christians, before reaching the age of 16 in June, when they will have their national ID cards issued. Camilia said that because of the developments in their case, her worst nightmares would materialize, in which they would have Islam as religious affiliation on their ID cards. "If they change to Christianity after that, they will be considered apostates," she told Freecopts advocacy. She expressed her surprise at the intransigence of the judiciary in dealing with the issue of her sons, especially after they have already reached the legal age of 15-years, when they can choose their own religion. "The boys have lived this tragedy for the last ten years, through no fault of their own."

ElYoum 7 Newspaper reported that 15-years-old Mario and Andrew were extremely disappointed with the court verdict, saying "faith is not by force, we want to remain Christians and we do not wish to become Muslims." Both boys are practicing Christians and were consecrated last year as deacons in their regular church in Alexandria.

The court explained in its verdict, which was issued on April 14, that Camilia Lutfi has not presented a verdict from a relevant court (it did not say which court) proving the change of her sons' religion from Islam to Christianity. "How come that when their father changed their religion from Christianity to Islam, he required no court verdict, and now that they want to revert back to Christianity, the court requires a verdict?" she told Freecopts.

Although the mother's lawyers presented to the court a portfolio containing 15 different certificates proving they are Christians, contradicting what was written on their birth certificates, the court said in its reasoning that it does not recognize the validity of a certificate issued by the Church as a document of change of religion from Islam to Christianity, as "churches by law are not competent to issue such certificates." The courts only accept certificates of religion change from Al-Azhar (the Muslim theology school in Cairo). Moreover the Court said that there is no law to force the Interior minister and the Civil Status Department chief to change the religion of the boys on their documents without a court ruling to this effect.

Hmm, what marvellous freedom of religion there is in Egypt, hein? And this is happening NOW, not 500 years ago. Just as we speak. Of course, CNN, BBC or El País will not run a piece on these two teenagers. But their case exist (as it exists in other cases, some of them known, some of others unknown), nonetheless.

Indonesia's constitutional court upheld a controversial blasphemy law Monday that critics say limits religious freedom in the world's largest Muslim-majority country, ruling that the law is vital to religious harmony.

The 1965 law was challenged by a coalition of rights groups and civil society organizations who consider it discriminatory. But it is supported by religious conservatives, including the radical Islamic Defenders Front, which had gathered at the court and threatened to protest if the judges didn't uphold it.

Although the law recognizes six official religions in the country - the standard forms of Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism - rights activists say it discriminates against minority religions, including Muslims whose beliefs differ from the mainstream.

The vast majority of Indonesia's 235 million people are moderate Sunni Muslims.

Opponents say the law, which carries penalties of up to 5 years in jail and allows the government to ban groups that "distort" the official religions, should be struck down because it limits religious freedom - which is constitutionally protected in this secular country.

This has nothing to do with protecting other religions. Even the Govt defended the blasphemy law because:

The consequences [if the law is annulled] are that people, figures, could establish new religions, declare new prophets, new angels.

Oh, what a problem…

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Link.

The four of them were offered to renounce Christianity and go back to Islam but none of them accepted. Four martyrs more.

To know the backgroung of this story, click here.

Dina el-Gowhary, the 15-year-old Egyptian Muslim-born girl who converted to Christianity, was subjected to an acid attack, the latest in a string of failed attempts by Muslim fanatics against her and her father, 57-year-old Peter Athanasius (Maher el-Gowhary), who converted to Christianity 35 years ago. Several Fatwa's were issued calling for the "spilling of his blood," which makes their lives in constant danger in the face of the reactionaries and advocates for the enforcement of Islamic apostasy laws, which call for the death of a convert.

Dina said that three weeks ago as she ventured out from their hiding place in Alexandria with her father to get some bottled water, her jacket was set on fire due to acid being thrown at her. "My father quickly took my jacket off before the fire reached my arms. Ever since then I am terrorized to go out in the street, with or without my father."

Through an aired interview with Freecopts advocacy Dina addressed an open letter to President Mubarak of Egypt begging him to save her and her father and allow them to leave Egypt.

She said that she had written previously to President Obama, who got her message and responded to it (AINA 11-17-2009). It was reported that the el-Gowharys met with the US Committee on International Religious Freedom on their last visit to Egypt in January 2010, and that they have asked for asylum in the United States (Fox News video).

No international outrage, as ever.

That asylum, Mr Obama. When will it be given?

Read at El País:

7,000 Moroccan ulemas (Islamic scholars) rejected in a common message the Christian proselitism in their country and considered it even like a "moral rape" and "religious terrorism" that "tries to divert Moroccan children from their faith".

The collective text released this weekend is the last episode of the campaign by the authorities in Rabat against foreign Christians who settled in Morocco accusing them of proselytizing and trying to shake the faith of Muslims, a crime in the Moroccan criminal code.

Throughout the month of March about 70 Christians have been forced to flee the country, as calculated by the different churches, but the Moroccan Interior Ministry acknowledged only the expulsion of 16 who ran a small orphanage in Leuh Ain, in the Atlas Mountains .

The Christian victims of the decision of the Interior are all Protestants except a Franciscan who lived in Larache. It is the first Catholic ever expelled from northern Morocco, as the Archbishop of Tanger has said. He also denies that they had been proselytising, while attending the small community of foreign Catholics in that city.

The message of the ulemas expressed "full support and great pride" of those who subscribe to "the relevant historic decisions taken by the government to abort the hypocritical  part by a Christian group of proselitizing" in the country. Their performance with the children, the message continues, is "a moral violation, a form of religious terrorism and is equivalent to the abduction of innocent children."

"These tough decisions," the statement concluded, "reassure us about the future of the national faith protected by Divine Providence that watches and by His Majesty Mohammed VI, Commander of the Faithful, as defender of the faith (...)" . The text of the scholars of Islam was spread by its highest hierarchical body, the Supreme Ulema Council chaired by the monarch (NOTE: speaking about division of State and Religion).

The Archbishops of Rabat and Tangiers, the apostolic nuncio in Rabat and the official representative of Protestant churches in Morocco have demanded an explanation to the authorities on the wave of expulsions, but so far they have obtained none. Some Moroccan converts to Christianity have been the victims in March apparently of police harassment.

At least two governments, the U.S. and the Netherlands, have criticized the measures taken by the Moroccan authorities, but not the Spanish that is currently chairing the European Union. The bulk of the expulsions were carried, however, during the first weekend of March. At that time it was held in Granada the first summit between Morocco and the EU supported by Spain.

So, ehhm, our dear President stopped from critisizing Morocco because they were negotiating the "united economic space". Hasn't he sooo marvellous a relationship with Moroccan King? Weren't this Govt staunch defenders of Human Rights?

Oh, wait, the expelled ones were Christians...