Harper government bill would force citizens to bare their faces to vote
By ALAN FINDLAY, NATIONAL BUREAU
The Ottawa SunThe Conservative government revived a controversy focused largely on veiled Muslim women by announcing plans to legally require all voters to show their face before casting a ballot in a federal election.
Read the rest…
By Toby Helm, Chief Political CorrespondentExtremist literature that encourages hatred of gays, Christians and Jews can be easily found at many of Britain’s mosques, according to a new survey.
Researchers for the centre-Right think tank Policy Exchange claims it found the literature in a quarter of the 100 mosques and Islamic institutions they visited.
Many of the publications allegedly called on British Muslims to segregate themselves from non-Muslims and for unbelievers to be treated as second-class citizens wherever possible.
The literature also allegedly contained repeated calls for gays to be thrown from mountains and tall buildings and for women to be subjugated.
Read the rest…
Baghdad, May. 31, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Christian women in Iraq are being warned that they must wear the Islamic head scarf or face punishment, the Middle Eastern news agency AINA reports.
AINA says that the influential Iraqi Shi’ite leader Moqtada al Sadr has issued a statement calling upon all women, Muslim or Christian, to wear the traditional Islamic veil. Those women who refuse to obey this order should be confined to their homes, the radical Muslim cleric said. Al Sadr’s order could be enforced by the Mahdi militia group that he commands.
ISTANBUL, October 31 (Compass Direct News) - Islamic militants threatened to bomb a Christian family for refusing to convert to Islam as fighting between militants and government troops resumed in northwestern Pakistan yesterday.”Become Muslim - otherwise, we are going to destroy your house with bombs,” an anonymous caller told a Swat Christian family last night.
The family, who requested that their name and village be kept anonymous for security reasons, said that they stayed awake all night praying after the 10 p.m. threat. They said that a Muslim neighbor, a close friend, spent the night in their front room as a token of solidarity.
Last month the family received a similar threat; militants delivered the threat in writing to a campsite the family operates.
A tiny Christian community in North West Frontier Province has reported increasing pressure to conform to Islamic law in recent months. Since July, followers of Muslim cleric Maulana Fazlullah have worked to enforce Islamic law (sharia) in much of Swat Valley, prompting clashes with government troops this week.
A worker with the Church of Pakistan in Peshawar confirmed that Christians in Swat have been forced to accept Islamic law.
“Militants have begun to enforce Muslim customs, which is creating problems for the local community,” said Ashar Dean, assistant director of communications for the diocese.
President Hosni Mubarak has said Egypt is to build a number of nuclear power stations to generate electricity. Mr Mubarak said he had decided to go ahead with the programme because energy security was such an important factor in Egypt’s development.
Read the rest…
Symposium on Coptic Monasticism
Fr Macarius Wahba
After the great success of the two previous symposia on Saint Athanasius in the Christian Tradition and Saint Cyril of Alexandria, the Diocese of Melbourne and Affiliated Regions together with the Saint Athanasius Coptic Orthodox Theological College organised the third international symposium on Monasticism last month. The two-day symposium was held on Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 September and was attended by more than 80 participants in addition to the Coptic clergy of the Diocese.
Photo exhibition
His Grace Bishop Suriel, Bishop of the Diocese of Melbourne and Affiliated Regions gave the opening speech, and inaugurated the photo exhibition entitled, “Monasticism: Egypt’s Gift to the World.” The exhibition, which was organised by Mrs Inass Ramzy and included a collection of photos by Mr Emad Nassry, focused on the monasteries of Egypt. It was arranged geographically from Lower to Upper Egypt, with a commentary and an overview of the different sites. Special attention was accorded to collections such as rare manuscripts and authentic Coptic icons.
The symposium was held at the Diocese headquarters, located on 22 acres of land in the heart of Melbourne in Donvale. This property was purchased in 2002, and paid off this year, from the Carmelite Fathers. Father Ken Peterson from the Whitefriars gave an overview, accompanied by a power point presentation, of the history of the site, its beginning in the 1937 and its extension in the 1962.
Read the rest…
By Nader Shukry - Watani Newspaper
The story of the disappearance of Tereza Awad Yanni last month began as a classical case of the disappearance of young Coptic Women. On 26 September the family of Yanni, who is an 18-year-old from Beni-Sweif in Lower Egypt, reported her missing and, as is the usual practice, the police procrastinated endlessly, and later said the girl was nowhere to be found.
Cover-up?
But the non-classical part of the story materialised some two weeks ago. In an absurd twist of fate, the police detained the young woman’s family-her father Awad Yanni, her uncle Eissa Yanni, and two cousins of the girl-on charges that they had abducted their own daughter. One Bassam Mohamed Yasser had filed a complaint to the police reporting that the girl had been with him since her disappearance; he had married her urfi, meaning unofficially, and that she had disappeared from where they had been living two days earlier. He accused her family of having abducted her.
The Yannis were released at dawn the following day after being questioned by the prosecutor. But the question remains: what happened to the girl? Her family is torn with fear that Yasser has in some way seriously harmed her and filed the complaint as a cover-up. The police has not found the girl and, if events take the classic turn, there are very serious doubts they ever will find her.
Castel Gandolfo, Oct 28, 2007 / 12:53 pm (CNA).- After the beatification of 498 Spanish martyrs today in St. Peter’s square, the pope addressed the people in his weekly Angelus reminding them that martyrdom is not only asked of a specific few.”Martyrdom is not an exception reserved only to a few individuals, but realistic eventuality for the whole Christian people.”
The Holy Father continued, “Those who have given the supreme witness of their blood have been men and women, young and old, from all walks of life and every position of social standing.”
We are all called to participate in the building of God’s kingdom, however “not everyone is called to face a cruel martyrdom.”
Read the rest…
CAIRO - Muslims and Coptic Christians clashed after Friday prayers over a land dispute, leaving 20 injured, security officials said.
Police arrested 50 people following the clash in Minya province, about 130 miles south of Cairo, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
The clashes began after prayers when Muslim villagers in Izbat el-Abid protested against the extension of a monastery in a nearby village, claiming the construction was on state property, the officials said.
Police had to ask for reinforcements from throughout the province to control the clash, the officials added.
Coptic Christians make up an estimated 10 percent of Egypt’s 76.5 million people. They generally live in peace with the Muslim majority, though occasional clashes occur.
JERUSALEM, October 26 (Compass Direct News) - Rapid police and fire department response to a blaze in a Western Jerusalem Baptist church averted extensive damage from an act police suspect is arson.In 1982 ultra right-wing Jewish arsonists set a fire that razed a church that had stood on the same property.
The arson attack on Narkis Street Baptist Church at approximately 10:45 p.m. October 23 destroyed 60 chairs and caused smoke and water damage. The arsonist or arsonists forced entrance through a side door and used flammable material to kindle flames at three places in the sanctuary.
Pastor Charles Kopp of the English-speaking international Narkis Street Congregation said that the alertness of the building’s caretaker prompted a speedy fire department and police response. “They kept [the fire] from going big, destroying the piano or the pulpit or platform,” Kopp told Compass.
The German woman living in an adjoining church-owned building phoned Kopp at around 11 p.m. after loud voices woke her. When Kopp arrived, he saw water on the floor and burned chairs. The woman was unhurt, he said.
Throughout the week four congregations meet for services in the building. Kopp’s congregation, which gathers Saturday mornings, is attended by local Christians and visited by tourists from around the world. A Russian Messianic Jewish congregation, a Hebrew-speaking Messianic congregation and an English-speaking American Baptist congregation also meet in the building.
Read the rest…
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, October 24 (Compass Direct News) - Asabe Ladagu, a Christian widow in this capital city of Borno state in northern Nigeria, has survived without income the past 16 months. It was that long ago, the former librarian told Compass, that Muslim administrators at Ramat Polytechnic forced her into early retirement - without pay - after she and others requested land to build a chapel.”We were branded as dangerous people because we are Christians,” Ladagu said.
Ladagu had put in 35 years of government service as Ramat Polytechnic’s librarian and chief lecturer.
“I have been forced out of office now for more than 16 months, not retired and not on staff roll of Ramat Polytechnic,” Ladagu said. “Other Christian brethren too have either been forced out or have been the subjects of witch-hunts.”
Roots of the conflict go back to 1991, she said, when a Muslim student attacked a Christian student, threatening to cast the institution into religious crisis.
“The Muslim student slapped the Christian student on claims that Christian students were disturbing them with worship songs in a classroom,” Ladagu said. “At this time, we were using classrooms for our worship services, Bible studies, and prayers because we didn’t have a chapel.”
She and others were able to calm Christian students, averting large-scale violence at the institution. “Sensing that this ugly situation needed to be arrested, we, the leaders of the Christian community, felt that we should apply for land to build a chapel,” she said.
Read the rest…
Moscow, Oct 25, 2007 / 11:37 am (CNA).- Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, the leader of the Russian Catholics announced that tensions between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church could be overcome if we “put Christ in the center of our relations.”According to the AP, the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox continue to disagree: the archbishop admitted that the Orthodox “could have been better to us,” while the Orthodox Church asserts that Roman Catholics have been improperly seeking converts in Russian Orthodox areas.”
“During my 16-year service here, I never aimed at luring people from other religions to Catholicism,” said Kondrusiewicz, who was leaving his post in Moscow to head a 1.5 million-member Catholic community in neighboring Belarus. He will be replaced by Don Paolo Pezzi, who held the position of president at a St. Petersburg seminary.
Read the rest…
ISTANBUL, October 25 (Compass Direct News) - Muslims who attacked a Pakistani church and declared religious war against Christians from mosque minarets have apologized for their actions, human rights workers said.
Police no longer stand guard around Gowindh village’s sole church following its attackers’ apology October 12, a Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) member told Compass.
No charges have been brought against the 300 Punjabi Muslim villagers who vandalized the New Apostolic Church at 6 a.m. October 10. The mob broke church windows, threw dung on its walls and cut wires to the church’s loudspeaker.
But subsequent threats against Gowindh’s Christians were even more serious than the initial attack, Mehboob Khan of the HRCP told Compass.
Following these acts of vandalism, Muslim clerics called for jihad, Islamic holy war, against the Christian “infidels.” The clerics issued the call from the town’s eight mosques, Khan said.
Another HRCP worker who visited the village, located east of Lahore on the Indian border, said that the threats had included demands for Christians to convert to Islam.
“Become Muslims or be prepared to fight or die,” the clerics announced from the mosque loudspeakers, HRCP member Nadeem Anthony said. “This was the first time it happened, which is why the villagers were so scared.”
According to Anthony, the New Apostolic Church is more than 60 years old, built before the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947.
Read the rest…
Cardinal Tauran outlines difficulties of dialogue with Muslims
Paris, Oct 22, 2007 / 02:20 pm (CNA).- The president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, warned this week of the difficulties posed by inter-religious dialogue with Muslims, since they “do not accept discussions about the Koran, because they say it was written under the dictates of God.”
In an interview with the French daily La Croix, Cardinal Tauran said that currently inter-religious dialogue can take place “with some religions, yes. But with Islam, not at this time. Muslims do not accept discussion about the Koran, because they say it was written under the dictates of God. With such an absolutist interpretation, it’s difficult to discuss the contents of the faith.”
Referring to the recent letter sent by 138 Muslim leaders to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders about inter-religious dialogue, Cardinal Tauran said, “If believers were consistent with their faith, the world could be different. Because wars are not caused by religions, but by men,” he said.
Read the rest…
Sword, wooden club attacks follow calls for violent jihad by Muslim leaders.
KADUNA, Nigeria, October 22 (Compass Direct News) - One man has been killed with a sword and another bludgeoned to death in this city in central northern Nigeria following Muslim leaders’ appeal to wage violent jihad against youthful Christians.
Muslim extremists on October 12 murdered Henry Emmanuel Ogbaje, a 24-year-old Christian, at an area known as Gamji Gate. The following day, church leaders said, a young Christian identified only as Basil was beaten to death with wooden clubs in the same area.
Ogbaje was a Sunday school teacher with the Military Protestant Church at Kotoko Barracks in Kaduna, while Basil, church leaders said, was a member of the Our Lady of Apostles Catholic Church. He was from Kagarko Local Government Area.
Elder Saidu Dogo, secretary of the northern Nigeria chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), told Compass that Islamic leader Sheik Gumi had urged Muslims to wage jihad against Christians during Tafsir, the reading and interpretation of the Quran, in televised broadcasts during the Islamic month-long observance of Ramadan.
“I saw Sheik Gumi on the television, NTA [Nigeria Television Authority], during that period preaching this inciting sermon - in fact, the same sermon was again broadcast by NTA Kaduna, on September 21 and 22,” Dogo told Compass. “He specifically called for a jihad, and that when they go killing they should not kill the elderly people, because the elderly have spent their years already, but that Muslims should kill young Christians.”
Dogo said that Sheik Gumi justified his call for jihad by saying in the same way Muhammad captured the Arabian peninsula, and Usman dan Fodio influenced northern Nigeria. Sheik Gumi concluded that because the British took northern Nigeria from the Islamic reformer (1754-1817) by force, Muslims “should fight to take over Nigeria by going to war against Christians.”
Read the rest…
CNN Top World News
Loading ...
