More than half of country’s Protestant churches ordered to close.
By Peter Lamprecht
ISTANBUL, April 10 (Compass Direct News) – An Algerian Christian was handed a two-year suspended sentence for “proselytism” yesterday amid an ongoing government crackdown on 26 of Algeria’s 50 Protestant congregations, a church leader said.
Bin Laden's 'right-hand man' set for life on British benefits after judges rule deportation would breach his human rights
By JAMES SLACK
One of the world's most dangerous terror suspects was last night preparing for a life on benefits in Britain after judges ruled that his deportation would breach human rights law.
Abu Qatada, dubbed Osama Bin Laden's "truly dangerous" ambassador in Europe, could be released from jail within months following the Court of Appeal verdict.
Pig farm plan stirs protests among Muslims Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: A plan to build a major pig farm outside Malaysia's largest city has triggered protests by some Muslim residents whose religion considers the animal unclean.
About 200 people carrying banners staged a demonstration outside the Selangor state government's office Wednesday and handed a protest note to officials, the national news agency Bernama reported.
THE HAGUE, 09/04/08 - A primary school in Amsterdam wished to provide its pupils with an understanding for other cultures. But during a visit to a mosque, the children were told they were dogs.
Floor sinks to accommodate prayer requirements for Muslim taxi drivers will be installed at Indianapolis International Airport by fall.David Dawson, a spokesman for the airport project, said this week that two bathrooms, one for men and one for women, will have the sinks. Both will be in a 900-square-foot building where taxi drivers gather before picking up passengers at the terminal.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt ordered the confiscation of a special edition of the German magazine Der Spiegel about Islam on Tuesday that the government says insults the Muslim Prophet Mohammad, Egypt's state news agency MENA said.
Comedian Ben Elton has accused the BBC of prohibiting jokes about imams and said the corporation was too "scared" to allow gags about Islam. He told Third Way, a Christian culture magazine: "I think it all starts with people nodding whenever anyone says, 'As a person of faith ...'
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's lower house of Parliament passed a resolution Monday seeking to bar television programs from showing dancing and other practices deemed un-Islamic.
The decision came just days after the private Tolo TV channel aired a dance number featuring men and women together on an Afghan film awards program.
Negotiations are underway to build the first Catholic church in Saudi Arabia with King Abdullah lending his support for its construction.
Vatican Radio reports the Vatican and the Saudi government are currently in talks to allow the church despite the kingdoms ban on allowing the construction of any non-Muslim place of worship.
The white Islamic convert rolled out his prayer mat in the aisle and knelt on the floor facing Mecca. Passengers watched in amazement as he held out his palms towards the sky, bowed his head and began to chant.
One, who filmed the man on his mobile phone, said: “He was clearly praying and chanting in Arabic.
GENEVA -- The top U.N. rights body on Thursday passed a resolution proposed by Islamic countries saying it is deeply concerned about the defamation of religions and urging governments to prohibit it.
Ex-Muslims in Egypt Blocked from Declaring Conversion
Court to review constitutionality of law allowing citizens to change religion.
By Peter Lamprecht
ISTANBUL, March 26 (Compass Direct News) – Christian-born converts to Islam in Egypt wishing to return to their former faith have found their way blocked by an appeal before the country’s Supreme Constitutional Court.
Judge Muhammad Husseini asked Egypt’s top judicial body on March 4 to review the constitutionality of a law granting citizens the right to change religions.
ISLAMIC cleric Abu Bakar Bashir has returned to his hardline rhetoric with a call for followers to beat up Western tourists and for young Muslims to die as martyrs.
In the sermon, organised by an Islamic youth organisation and delivered a few kilometres from the home village of convicted Bali bombers Amrozi and Mukhlas, Bashir likened tourists in Bali to "worms, snakes, maggots", and specifically referred to the immorality of Australian infidels.
The Pope has risked a renewed rift with the Islamic world by baptising a Muslim journalist who describes Islam as intrinsically violent and characterised by “hate and intolerance”.
Pope baptizes famous Muslim convert, Egyptian Journalist Magdy Allam
By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict led the world's Catholics into Easter on Saturday at a Vatican service where he baptized a Muslim-born convert who is one of Italy's most famous and controversial journalists.
It is just a few days until Easter, the most important date in the Christian calendar. But for 700 Muslims who have gathered in a rural caravan park, this week has a different religious significance.
Three senior appeal judges have refused to recognise a Muslim marriage that took place "over the telephone", even though the union is valid according to sharia law.
They said the union, between a 26-year-old autistic British man, identified only as IC, and a woman in Bangladesh was "potentially highly injurious".
Tehran, 19 March (AKI) - In its first session since last week's general elections, the new Iranian parliament is expected to discuss a law that will condemn to death anyone who decides to leave the Muslim faith and convert to other religions.
CAIRO, Egypt: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned Tuesday that continued insults to the Prophet Mohammed will just make the situation worse for everyone, while at the same time criticizing the extremists using these insults to justify their actions.
CAIRO, March 10 (Reuters) - An Egyptian court sentenced a journalist to one year in jail on Monday for libelling imprisoned opposition leader Ayman Nour and his wife.
But Nour, who is serving a five-year sentence on what he says are baseless fraud charges, asked the court to drop the custodial sentence because he does not approve of jailing journalists for publishing offences.
In Oxford, Muslim call to prayer sounds strained note
2 days ago
OXFORD, England (AFP) — Famous for its university and quintessentially English "dreaming spires," the city of Oxford has been plunged into controversy over the sound of Muslim call to prayer from a local mosque.
Those church spires have been joined by a minaret, with a loudspeaker on top which has triggered protests from locals concerned about the influx of a foreign culture.
London (PTI): Young Muslims in Britain are increasingly getting inclined towards radical Islam as it presents a more "comprehensive and coherent" ideology than the one advocated by local mosques, a report has suggested.
Egyptian authorities have rounded up hundreds of members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood in a crackdown apparently designed to stop the Islamist movement from taking part in local elections next month.
Speaker of Egyptian Parliament blasts Ayman Nour at international law forum
March 6, 2008
Washington, D.C. – The Leadership Council for Human Rights (LCHR) calls on the U.S. government and the international human rights community to address distortions made by the Speaker of Egyptian Parliament, Dr. Ahmed Fathi Sorour, about the case of imprisoned parliamentarian Ayman Nour. Dr. Sorour, who addressed the American Society of International Law (ASIL) Wednesday evening, focused his remarks on the need to balance terrorism prevention with respect for human rights. However, when asked to address the rights of Nour, who has been recognized by world leaders, including President Bush, as a political prisoner, Dr. Sorour claimed that the world had been duped.
Reuters - Saudi Arabia's most revered cleric said in a rare fatwa this week that two writers should be tried for apostasy for their "heretical articles" and put to death if they do not repent.
Sheikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak was responding to recent articles in al-Riyadh newspaper that questioned the Sunni Muslim view in Saudi Arabia that adherents of other faiths should be considered unbelievers.
NEW YORK (AP) -- A former Pace University student who twice threw copies of the Koran into a toilet at the school after disputes with Muslims pleaded guilty Monday to disorderly conduct in connection with the incidents.
Stanislav Shmulevich, 24, pleaded guilty as part of a deal in which he must do 300 hours of community service. He has completed about 80 hours of the service at a hospital, his lawyer said.
Shmulevich, of Brooklyn, admitted he tossed the Muslim holy books into toilets at Pace on Oct. 13, 2006, and Nov. 21, 2006. A criminal complaint says the Koran that was recovered in the October incident "was covered in feces."
In both cases, a teacher found the books in a men's room on the second floor of the school's main building in lower Manhattan.
Muslims consider the Koran a sacred writing that contains the direct word of God, and desecrating it is seen as an offense against God.
Detective Faisal Khan, who prepared the complaint, said Shmulevich told him "he committed the acts out of anger toward a group of Muslim students with whom he had a recent disagreement."
Shmulevich, a business major and immigrant from the former Soviet Union, initially was charged with two counts of criminal mischief as a hate crime. The charge is a felony punishable by up to four years in prison.
His lawyer, Glenn Morak, said he believed the disorderly conduct plea was an appropriate disposition.
"There was no hate crime here," Morak said. "He accepts responsibility, and he is repentant."
Shmulevich, the lawyer said, is no longer at Pace, which has about 14,000 students on its campuses in New York City and Westchester County.
A retired Kuwaiti superstar singer has recently left the Gulf emirate for Afghanistan to join ranks with al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in fighting foreign troops there, according to a press report published Saturday.
CAIRO, Feb. 29 (UPI) -- Danish and Dutch filmmakers are barred from an international children's film festival in Egypt because artists in those countries insulted Islam, a report said.
CAIRO EGYPT (BosNewsLife)-- A Christian bookshop employee in Egypt faced possible police interrogation Monday, March 17, after being detained over the weekend by security forces who also confiscated books, compact discs, and issues of a Christian newspaper, a religious rights group said.
Shenouda Armia Bakhait was arrested Saturday, March 15, after undercover police "stormed" the Nile Christian Book Shop in Cairo, reported Advocates For The Persecuted, a US-based nonprofit organization that advocates for religious minorities in the Middle East.
Muslim medics refuse to roll up their sleeves in hygiene crackdown - because it's against their religion
Health officials are having crisis talks with Muslim medical staff who have objected to hospital hygiene rules because of religious beliefs.
Medics in hospitals in at least three major English cities have refused to follow the regulations aimed at helping tackle superbugs because of their faith, it has been revealed.
Armed police raced to a major security alert at the UK's biggest airport when a man sprinted on to a runway at Heathrow.
The intruder, who was subsequently arrested, was clutching a bag and is thought to have scaled a perimeter fence by the west London airport's northern runway.
Egypt's star goalie Essam al-Hadary is drawing flack for leaving his home team Ahli without giving notice to pursue an international career with Swiss club Sion after his huge success in last month's African Cup of Nations tournament.
Hadary – named the best goal keeper in Africa following Egypt's capture of the African Cup – is said to have signed with Sion despite having two years left on his contract with Al Ahli.
10 years imprisonment for a Christian who married Ex-Muslim
From United Copts GB sources
Approximately 3 years ago, Bolis Rezek-Allah, a pharmacist met the Muslim convert Enas Yehya Abdel Aziz, loving relationship was established and the couple wanted to get married. The obstacle was the Egyptian law does not allow a Christian man to marry a Muslim woman but the opposite is permitted.
Lord Patten asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they will make representations to the Government of Egypt concerning the right to freedoms of expression, thought, conscience and religion for Mr Mohammed Hegazy, who was told on 29 January by a court that it was only lawful to convert to Islam, and not to another religion, in his case Christianity. [HL2135]
Ben Elton: 'the BBC will let vicar gags pass but they would not let imam gags pass'
Negotiations are underway to build the first Catholic church in Saudi Arabia with King Abdullah lending his support for its construction.
Telegraph
