The city of Melbourne has been ordered to apologize for discriminating against the meditation group Falun Dafa by barring it from the city’s 2003 “Moomba” Parade. Judge John Bowman ordered the Melbourne city council to publish an apology within 14 days in three Chinese newspapers. The city council had bowed to Chinese government pressure to ban Falun Dafa from participating in the parade.
Protestants in Belarus allege that their members have been harassed “simply because they study the Bible at home with their friends.” Non-Christian groups and new religions have made similar charges, claiming that secret police agents regularly break up peaceful meetings of members studying in private homes. Now, four Protestant churches in Belarus are asking the constitutional court to repeal a law that forbids religious groups from worshipping outside of officially recognized religious buildings. The law has been widely criticized as one of the most repressive in Europe. It also puts restrictions on religions that have been working in Belarus for less than 20 years, barring them from publishing literature or setting up missions.
Christian leaders in Canada fear that a law designed to protect homosexuals from “hate speech” might in fact make it illegal to quote from portions of the Bible. Canadian Bill C-250 calls for the proscription of public statements condemning homosexual behavior. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops warned in a letter to Justice Minister Irwin Cotler that this could result in a prohibition against quoting certain biblical scriptures or teaching time-honored Christian doctrines that oppose homosexual acts as sinful.
The Justice Commission of the Italian Senate has approved a law making “mental manipulation” a crime punishable by from two to six years in prison. Penalties are more severe if the crime is committed within the context of a group “practicing or sponsoring activities aimed at creating or exploiting the physical or psychological dependence of members.” If passed, the law is expected to face problems of constitutionality, according to Italian legal expert Massimo Introvigne of the Milanbased Center for Studies on New Religions. Italy’s Constitutional Court in 1981 struck down the law against “plagio,” which he characterized as “a crime very similar to the present mental manipulation.” He warned, however, that “the draft law’s approval by the Commission is symptomatic of a new climate in Italy.”
Israel’s Supreme Court has ruled that foreigners who convert to Judaism in Israel are eligible for citizenship under the Law of Return. However, it sidestepped the key issue of whether the eligibility extends to conversions officiated by non-Orthodox rabbis. The case has been closely watched by the Reform and Conservative movements, the two largest in the United States, which have been denied recognition in Israel. Currently non-orthodox conversions are recognized only if they occur outside of Israel. Meanwhile Catholic press reports complain that priests and nuns living in Israel and in the Occupied Territories, some of whom have been there for more than a decade, are facing a hard time because of the authorities’ refusal to renew their visas.
Iran’s judiciary has reportedly quashed a death sentence for blasphemy against dissident intellectual Hashem Aghajari. The ruling sparked major student protests and badly damaged Iran’s image abroad. On the other hand, Iran’s cinemas have succumbed to hard-line pressure and stopped showing a hit film that poked fun at clerics. Entitled “The Lizard,” the movie follows the fortunes of a thief who escapes prison by donning the turban and robes of a mullah. Ironically, he proves a crowd-pleaser as a preacher. The film had barely passed the country’s zealous religious censors and played to packed cinemas, breaking box office records.
Aum Shinrikyo is still a danger to society, a Japanese government has decided. The group, which has changed its name to Aleph, is using businesses to expand membership and remains faithful to its convicted guru’s violent teachings, a government report said. The group’s leader, Shoko Asahara, was sentenced to death in March for ordering a murderous nerve gas attack in 1995 against the Japanese subway system. Aleph remains under close surveillance by Japanese authorities. Its remaining members claim to have been unaware of the subway plot and have apologized for their leaders’ actions. Aleph says its businesses are intended mainly to raise funds to compensate victims of the subway gassing and other cult crimes.
A minority Hmong Christian from northern Laos says the government required him to renounce his faith before releasing him from three months in detention, Radio Free Asia reports. Tong Tu Vang says he was required to sign a statement in which he agreed to renounce the Christian religion. The statement also stipulated that he would revert to animism as practiced by the majority of the residents of his area.
President Pervez Musharraf ’s has announced a possible revision of Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy law, which mandates death for anyone who criticizes the Islamic religion.
His statements were welcomed by the country’s Catholic bishops, protestant leaders and human rights activists, who have been calling for the abolition of the blasphemy law. The blasphemy law is thought to be the cause of hatred and fear between the faithful of various religions in Pakistan.
A Russian court has banned the activities of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow, intensifying a drive against what authorities view as “totalitarian sects” with a pro-U.S. agenda. The decision drew a strong response from the U.S. State Department, with a spokesman urging the Russian government to honor commitments to respect the right of all faiths to religious freedom.
Meanwhile, tensions between Catholics and Orthodox continue to simmer. The mayor of Novgorod, bowing to the opinion of the city’s Orthodox bishop, has denied the Catholic pastor of the Church of the Assumption permission to build a small Carmelite convent next to the parish church. The bishop maintained that the region lacks any Catholic tradition. However, others contend that before the Communist revolution of 1917, there was indeed a Catholic parish in Novgorod with 5,000 faithful, two churches and several chapels.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom strongly criticized Saudi Arabia for discrimination and has again recommended sanctions unless its record improves. “The government of Saudi Arabia engages in systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, or belief,” the congressionally mandated panel said in its annual report. The commission, which was set up to monitor State Department religious freedom policy, criticized the department for not taking a stronger stance against the Saudi government. It made similar criticisms regarding both Egypt and Iran.
In a property dispute favoring a Muslim business at the expense of a Christian church, riot police have evicted church staff from the office of the Archbishop of the Episcopal Church of Sudan in Khartoum. Three truck-loads of armed police reportedly arrived without warning and ordered the building to be emptied, threatening violence to force compliance. Sudanese authorities said that the building had been sold to an Arab business by the bishop of the church last year. However the church claims the “bishop” was a fraud and a government agent. The Archbishop of Sudan protested the police action, saying “I call on the government to restore the Church’s property to its rightful owner — the Church.”
Syria will no longer allow foreign students to study Islam in private Syrian schools, according to instructions handed down by the Interior Ministry. One such student was Capt. James Yee, the American Muslim military chaplain at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, who was accused of mishandling classified information and other charges. Yee studied Islam and Arabic in Damascus in the mid-1990s.
Dushanbe city authorities have officially written to the Jewish community ordering them to vacate their century-old synagogue by July, the synagogue’s chief rabbi Mikhail Abdurakhmanov told Forum 18 news service in May. The synagogue has been earmarked for demolition under a plan to build a new residence for the president.
Four Vietnamese Christians who organized and led weekly worship services in a
house church have been sentenced to prison for “disturbing public order.” They
received sentences of 26 to 36 months, according to a report released by the
Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House, in Washington, D.C. The Center
has also received information that the government is forcing Christians to take
pain-inducing drug injections in an effort to persuade them to abandon their
faith. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch joined in condemning Vietnam for its
repression of ethnic minority Christians in the Central Highlands following
reports of bloody clashes with security forces. The number of Christians killed
by the Vietnam’s communist government in an Easter crackdown could be as high as
280, with 26 people still missing, according to International Christian Concern,
which monitors the persecution of Christians worldwide.