Religion

2020-01-27

Opinion: Do Jews have a future in Europe?

CA Member International, Race & Culture, Religion 0

Article Link: https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-do-jews-have-a-future-in-europe/a-52154607

Discussion posted by: Arye ben-Shaoul

The European Union, according to former European Commission President Roman Prodi, was an assembly of minorities, which helped Europe’s Jews to take part in this process, not as outsiders, but as fully fledged citizens of Europe. However, today, the reality is that the European project has not delivered on all its goals. We are as aware of anti-Semitism today as we have ever been. Fifteen years ago, terrorism hit Europe and specifically European Jews; attacks in many European countries went almost unnoticed. Since that time, anti-Semitism has been progressively more present on three fronts: the far right, the far left and through religious fundamentalism. Sadly, the Jews of Europe have had to ask themselves yet again if there is a future on the continent.

2020-01-27

Calls for ‘virginity repair’ surgery to be banned

CA Member Health & Living, International, Race & Culture, Religion 0

Article Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51189319

Discussion posted by: Arye ben-Shaoul

Campaigners are urging the government to outlaw “virginity repair” surgery. Many Muslim women risk being outcast, or in extreme cases killed, if their spouses or families discover they have had sex before marriage. And some are opting for a medical procedure in which doctors restore a layer of membrane at the entrance to the vagina. But there are concerns a ban would increase the dangers to Muslim women by driving the procedure underground. Guidelines from the General Medical Council (GMC) state a patient’s consent to undergo a procedure should come into question if it is suspected of being “given under pressure or duress exerted by another person”.

2020-01-24

Kimia Alizadeh and Co.: Why Iranian athletes are turning their backs on Tehran

CA Member International, Politics, Religion, Sports, War & Terrorism 0

Article Link: https://www.dw.com/en/kimia-alizadeh-and-co-why-iranian-athletes-are-turning-their-backs-on-tehran/a-52125589

Discussion posted by: Arye ben-Shaoul

It’s not the kind of thing you would do if you were looking to make new friends in high places in Tehran. On January 11, Kimia Alizadeh used an Instagram post to address the “oppressed Iranian people” and explain why she had left her country to seek refuge in Europe. The post has drawn more than 600,000 likes. In the post, the 21-year-old described herself as “one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran.” “None of us matter for them [the Iranian regime], we are just tools,” she said, adding that she didn’t “want to climb the steps of corruption and lies” and that she had “no other desire than taekwondo, security and a happy and healthy life.”

2020-01-22

A ‘second class’ spy: Muslim CSIS agent alleges discrimination, abuse

CA Member Canada, Politics, Religion 0

Article Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/csis-muslim-discrimination-lawsuit-1.5433654

Discussion posted by: Arye ben-Shaoul

Canada’s spy agency is being sued for racial and religious discrimination by a longtime employee who alleges that his Muslim faith marked him as a target for harassment, emotional abuse and even physical assaults. The suit, filed in Federal Court in Ottawa last week by an intelligence analyst using the pseudonym Sameer Ebadi, claims a pattern of bullying and prejudice stretching back almost two decades that saw the man treated as a “second class citizen” within the ranks of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

2020-01-13

Iran’s theocracy will collapse because of people like Kimia Alizadeh

ReBeater International, Politics, Religion, Sports 0

Article Link: https://reason.com/2020/01/13/irans-theocracy-will-collapse-because-of-people-like-kimia-alizadeh/

Discussion posted by: Rebeater

“Let me start with a greeting, a farewell or condolences,” the 21-year-old wrote in an Instagram post explaining why she was defecting. “I am one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran who they have been playing with for years.”… “They took me wherever they wanted. I wore whatever they said. Every sentence they ordered me to say, I repeated. Whenever they saw fit, they exploited me,” she wrote, adding that credit for her success always went to those in charge. “I wasn’t important to them. None of us mattered to them, we were tools,” Alizadeh added, explaining that while the regime celebrated her medals, it criticized the sport she had chosen: “The virtue of a woman is not to stretch her legs!”

2020-01-13

Retired Pope Benedict warns Francis against relaxing priestly celibacy rules

CA Member International, Religion 0

Article Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51086626

Discussion posted by: Johnf44

Retired Pope Benedict XVI has issued a defence of priestly celibacy in the Catholic Church as his successor considers easing a ban on married men serving as priests. Pope Benedict made the appeal in a book co-authored with Cardinal Robert Sarah. It comes in response to a proposal to allow married men to be ordained as priests in the Amazon region. Pope Benedict, who retired in 2013, said he could not remain silent on the issue. In the book, Pope Benedict says celibacy, a centuries-old tradition within the Church, has “great significance” because it allows priests to focus on their duties. The 92-year-old says “it doesn’t seem possible to realise both vocations [priesthood and marriage] simultaneously.” Vatican commentators have reacted with surprise to Benedict’s intervention, suggesting it breaks with convention.

2020-01-11

Years before Brian Boucher became a priest, families warned of his troubling behaviour with boys

David McNamara Canada, Law & Crime, Religion 0

Article Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/brian-boucher-1980s-warnings-dorval-1.5419627

Discussion posted by: David McNamara

Long before Brian Boucher became a priest, when he was still in his early 20s, several families in Montreal’s West Island were so alarmed by the man’s troubling interest in young boys that they complained to their parish priest. An investigation by CBC Montreal published last month revealed parishioners repeatedly warned the Montreal archdiocese about Boucher’s worrisome behaviour with boys as far back as the mid-1990s and throughout his career as a priest. Now new information obtained by CBC shows the church actually received complaints about Boucher a full decade earlier, even before he was accepted as a candidate for the priesthood.

2020-01-07

SHAH: Criticism of Islam is not hate speech

IRWeasel International, Law & Crime, Religion 0

Article Link: https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/shah-criticism-of-islam-is-not-hate-speech

Discussion posted by: IRWeasel

Junaid Hafeez, a 33-year-old Pakistani English teacher who earned his master’s degree in American literature at Jackson State University, was sentenced to death for blasphemy. Hafeez was known for his candid advocacy for liberal ideas including feminism and social equality. Being a secular Canadian of Pakistani origin, his ordeal is personal to me.

2020-01-06

An emotional Khamenei shows Iran general’s death is personal

CA Member International, Politics, Religion, War & Terrorism 0

Article Link: https://apnews.com/14792cc1d7f73ffec8f8c425b73b44fb

Discussion posted by: Johnf44

In a rare display of emotion from the typically reserved and measured supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cried openly Monday at the funeral of slain Gen. Qassem Soleimani, his most important military commander with whom he shared a deep bond. “Oh Allah, they are in need of your mercy, and you are exalted above punishing your servants,” Khamenei said during a mass prayer as he stood over a flag-draped casket with the remains of Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq on Friday. Khamenei’s voice cracked under the weight of the moment during a funeral procession unlike any in Iran’s recent history. Police said attendees numbered into the millions. It could also impact how Khamenei responds to the United States.

2020-01-03

Mounties worried about anti-immigrant backlash after terrorism arrests: documents

CA Member Canada, Politics, Religion 0

Article Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/kingston-terrorism-anti-immigration-atip-1.5392098

Discussion posted by: Arye ben-Shaoul

The RCMP was worried about anti-immigrant backlash in the wake of an alleged Kingston terrorist plot and raised concerns about a rise in protests due to “the government’s position on immigration,” new internal documents show. Last January, the national police force charged a minor following a series of raids at two homes in Kingston after getting a tip from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation — an operation dubbed “Project Salento.” Police also arrested an adult male in connection with an alleged plan to detonate explosives at an undisclosed location, but later released him. He was from Syria originally and came to Canada with his family in 2017 through a private refugee sponsorship program after living in Kuwait for 10 years.

1 2 3 4 5