The Swedish Justice Ombudsman will not look at a case in western Sweden where a man was paid damages for not being given an internship after he refused to shake a female boss’s hand for religious reasons. … Read More
Who is Dr Hassan Rohani?
http://www.youtube.com/v/sV35LcUPZeY?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Excerpt from: Who is Dr Hassan Rohani?
Moscow blasts UNHRC’s ‘Hezbollah-focused’ resolution on Syria
The council has denounced the Lebanese Hezbollah movement for supporting the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, but stopped short of calling for a halt to the flow of weapons into the country. The text, which was passed Friday, had been presented by Britain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States, which all back the opposition forces in the two-year conflict. “The resolution is biased and counterproductive,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in statement on Saturday. “It is directed against the government of Syria and ignores the crimes committed by the radical opposition.” “The document condemns the involvement of Hezbollah in the conflict. But its authors aren’t concerned that thousands of well-trained, armed and lavishly paid mercenary-terrorists from abroad are fighting in the war. The atrocities of jihadists are ignored, including those against religious minorities, women, and children.” The ministry stressed that an attempt “to legitimize the Syrian National Coalition” is made in the resolution, while many other moderate opposition groups, which pledged to respect human rights and expressed willingness to participate in the Geneva Conference on Syria, are left aside. There was no consensus over the document in the Human Rights Council itself, as Venezuela voted against the text and nine other nations abstained. The Russian statement also pointed out that several Arab states, which previously backed the resolution, in the end refused to become the co-authors of the document. Moscow sees it as direct evidence that “an increasing number of countries don’t intend to put their signatures under the confrontational endeavors of the HRC, which work against the political and diplomatic settlement in Syria and aren’t aimed at improving the situation with human rights in this country.” The UN Human Rights Council resolution was adopted a day after the US announced that it will arm rebels after having obtained what it said was proof the Syrian government using chemical weapons in the conflict. … Read More
The Amish Don’t Get Autism? And They Don’t Get Vaccinations – Possible Link?
The Amish do not experience autism, or most of the other learning disabilities that plague our technological society. They live in a society that consists of outdated technologies and ideals, at least by contemporary standards. … Read More
Duma approves criminalization of insulting religious feelings
In the current version of the bill, insulting religious feelings in public can be punished with up to three years in prison. Other possible sanctions include fines up to half a million roubles (about $15,600) and compulsory correctional work. Before the final reading MPs amended the draft adding criminal responsibility for obstructing the activities of religious organizations. Such a felony will be punished with up to one year in prison and those convicted will be barred from taking certain official posts for two years. Premeditated and public desecration of religious objects or books will also be punished – by fines of up to 200,000 roubles (over $6,200). The current bill is promoted by a large part of the Russian political establishment and strongly backed by the Russian Orthodox Church whose leader has publicly accused some unnamed forces of staging attacks on faith and religion in the country. The bill is intended to deter such incidents as feminist punk band Pussy Riot’s impromptu appearance in Moscow’s main cathedral in February last year, when they attacked the church and its alleged strengthening ties with Russian authorities and President Vladimir Putin personally. Three band members were apprehended and sentenced to two years in prison each for aggravated hooliganism, despite numerous objections from Russian activists and foreign rock and pop stars. One of those convicted has already been released on probation and two others remain behind bars. The case showed that the Russian legal system needed to deal with growing religious sentiment in society as did the subsequent events when vandals started felling memorial crosses and covering church walls with graffiti in protest at the arrests and sentence. Significant part of the society still oppose the bill saying that it contradicts the basic principles of a free and secular state, and the freedom of expression provided by the Constitution. The leader of one of Russia’s oldest political parties Yabloko, Sergey Mitrokhin, took part in protests on Tuesday picketing the State Duma office with a poster that compared the controversial bill with the Spanish Inquisition. The supporters of the bill, such as deputy head of the Lower House Committee for Religious Organizations Mikhail Markelov, claim that it is a reply to dangerous tendencies in society. “People who practice traditional forms of religion constantly face threats of various kinds. This includes the stunts by the Pussy Riot group, this includes the cemetery vandalism, and this also includes attempts on lives of spiritual leaders,” Markelov told reporters. The MP added that according to opinion polls the majority of Russians supported the bill protecting believers’ feelings. He added that such laws were a recognized international practice and had been enforced in many European countries. … Read More
New violence surge across Iraq kills at least 70
No one has claimed responsibility for Monday’s violence, but Al Qaeda-linked Sunni militants are known for the tactic of attacking security forces, as well as their own religious group – supposedly to provoke further bloodshed with the Shiites. The deadliest attack was carried out in the northern city of Mosul, where five car bombs targeting security forces left 29 dead and 80 wounded, officials say. A curfew was imposed, following the violence. “We have received many corpses…most of them were members of the security forces,” said a doctor at Mosul General Hospital. Other Sunni area attacks included Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Awja, as well as the towns of Dour and Taji, where 13 people have been killed. In Judaida al-Shat, a town in the Diyala province, a suicide bombing and two car bombs were set off in a coordinated fashion at a market, resulting in 13 deaths. Witnesses blame Al Qaeda. A vegetable salesman told AFP that “Al Qaeda…is trying to sow religious hatred in our region” and that in this community, his group (the Shiites) “lives peacefully with the Sunnis.” Ten people died in and around Kirkuk, a northern province, while an explosion in the mixed town of Maidan and one in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in the capital Baghdad has killed five people. The most at-risk areas for violence are considered to be ones where the Sunni, Kurdish and Turkmen ethnic groups share territory. The vast lands are being claimed both by the central government and the autonomous Kurds. Violence began to spark up again in April-May, which saw attacks deadlier in numbers than any that have taken place since 2008. Experts are already comparing the latest surge to the bloodiest years of 2006-2007. The Sunni Arab minority is unhappy with their place in the new political system, and their December 2012 protests have carried over into 2013, coinciding with a spike in violence at the beginning of the year. Prime Minister Nuri Maliki has tried to ease political tensions by staging a meeting with two of his biggest political opponents – the Sunni speaker of Parliament and the president of the autonomous Kurdish region. Nothing has yet come of the effort, and it is widely believed that political disagreements only serve to fan the flames of sectarian violence. … Read More
‘Abject failure’: UK ignored racial patterns in home crime for over a decade
RT: You’ve worked extensively on this issue – is there evidence of neglect on the part of authorities due to the racial or religious character of a crime? Andrew Norfolk: I think that conclusion is unavoidable. Just to give you one example in the North of England, we obtained over 200 confidential documents that showed there was a ten year history in one town of young girls typically aged between 11 and14-years-old being targeted and befriended and then being given alcohol and drugs and eventually being passed around ever increasing groups of men to be used for sex. That was known about for ten years by the police force concerned, by the local authority concerned and there was an abject failure to take the action that was needed to protect those children and to prosecute the offenders. RT: So why did nobody react in the appropriate way to this? AN: I think one of the factors that you have already been very clearly discussing is there was a terror of treading into what was seen as a cultural minefield. There was an additional problem in that some of these agencies genuinely don’t seem to have understood quite how serious these crimes were. There was a sense that girls were somehow consenting to their own abuse. The reality was far, far worse. RT: So what other factors could be in play here when we talk about a rise in the number of crimes committed by the Muslim committee? AN: The thing we on the Times have been arguing from the very first story we published about this more than two years ago was that here is a crime pattern, a crime pattern that the authorities have ignored for at least 10 years. If you’re going to address this you need to understand why this has happened. There are issues there to this day which to this day no research has been carried out to try to discover. For example issues surrounding the age of consent, in this country you have to be sixteen before you can legally consent to have sex. In the communities from which the main offenders come from, in their home communities back in Pakistan, village tradition says that puberty is the age of consent and religious law, Sharia, also says that puberty is the age at which a girl can be marriage. And the average age for puberty in this country is 11-years-old. RT: We’re bviously dealing with a cross-cultural problem here. What does this situation say about the authorities’ efforts to integrate these committees? AN: Multiculturalism is a very thorny issue in this country. The idea that you should allow different communities to develop separately and to continue with traditions which make them feel more comfortable with their life in a country where those traditions are completely alien. The Times would never suggest the use of young girls or sex is condoned in those societies, but the fact is there was clearly a lesser degree of shame. RT: So what’s the way out of this vicious circle – is there a way to tackle both the growing crime rate among the Muslim population and growing Islamophobia? AN: The way to tackle the crime, I am increasingly convinced for the Muslim community itself to take the lead in exposing and eradicating those who think it’s alright to do this to girls. There are some very encouraging signs finally that there are some leading Islamic organizations are prepared to grasp the nettle on this and do something about it. In terms of Islamophobia one of the troubles was because for ten years because no mainstream politicians or media were looking at this the field was left to the far right politics to spread poisonous distorted lies. They were claiming that somehow this was part of some global Islamic plot to impregnate every white girl in the country and spread the Islamic Khalifa – that was nonsense. When there are problems on the backstreets of northern towns the elite in London has to look and say: “we’re going to do something about it, we won’t leave it to the far right to rant about it.” … Read More
