“Reports from exiles along the frontier confirmed that hundreds of monks had simply “disappeared” as 20,000 troops swarmed around Rangoon yesterday to prevent further demonstrations by religious groups and civilians.

Word reaching dissidents hiding out on the border suggested that as well as executions, some 2,000 monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison or in university rooms which have been turned into cells.

There were reports that many were savagely beaten at a sports ground on the outskirts of Rangoon, where they were heard crying for help.

Others who had failed to escape disguised as civilians were locked in their bloodstained temples.

There, troops abandoned religious beliefs, propped their rifles against statues of Buddha and began cooking meals on stoves set up in shrines.”

Read more at Daily News > 

“Christiane Amanpour is on vacation in France. Sort of. The CNN star also is putting the finishing touches on a six-hour documentary airing next week about the often volatile mix of politics and religion.

She has spent the past eight months on the project, traveling around the world – to the West Bank to spend time with Jewish settlers, to Iran to film Shiite Muslims, to the United States to sit down with Christian conservative Jerry Falwell just before his death, and to Jerusalem, ground zero for all three religions.

The result is “God’s Warriors,” a provocative look at the fundamentalist foot soldiers who fight in the name of their faith.”

Via SignOnSanDiego.com > 

“WASHINGTON — A hate-crimes bill passed Thursday by the House, extending coverage to people victimized because of sexual orientation, gender identity or disability, is attracting opposition from an unusual coalition of Christian leaders.”

“But some Christians are depicting it as a “thought-crimes” bill attacking 1st Amendment freedoms of speech and religion. A coalition of evangelical, fundamentalist and black religious leaders is mounting a furious assault on the bill, airing television ads and mobilizing members to stop its progress. And President Bush has said he may veto the measure.

If the bill, approved 237-180, were to become law, opponents say, a pastor could be held liable for giving a sermon against homosexuality if a listener later attacked a gay individual.

“This legislation strikes at the heart of free speech and freedom of religious expression,” said Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition. “Statements critical of sexual orientation or gender identity can be prosecuted if those statements were part of the motivation of a person committing a crime against a homosexual or cross-dresser. … Pastors’ sermons can be considered hate speech under this bill.”

The bill’s supporters say this is nonsense, and that a sermon could never be considered an inducement to violence unless it explicitly advocated it.

“The only people who ought to fear this bill are people who would say to another human being, `You ought to do violence against someone else,’.” said Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), who earlier added an amendment to the bill reaffirming the principles of the 1st Amendment. “I don’t know of any man of God who would take to any pulpit and advocate that.”"

From the Chicago Tribune >

The idea that opponents to this bill put forward as their reason for not wanting it to pass is ludicrous. The rights of a group of people to be protected from violence and hate speech should never kowtow to religious doctrine. To say that this bill might somehow lead to injustice is just about as backward as it gets.

“Jakarta, 4 May (AKI) - A top official from Indonesia’s highest Muslim authority, the Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI), says he hopes that some 60 Christians being sought in connection with the production of a video allegedly containing anti-Islamic sentiments should be brought to justice. “We don’t want revenge but only justice,” [said] Muhammad Nidzom Hidayatullah[.]”

“41 people have already been arrested over the video which was reportedly shot last December at a religious gathering held by members of a Christian students organisation, the Lembaga Pelayanan Mahasiswa Indonesia (LPMI).

Those arrested face blasphemy charges and if convicted they could be imprisoned for up to five years. ”

More info here http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Religion&loid=8.0.411019766&par=0 >

If these Christians were caught and jailed for producing an anti-Islam video (or vice versa)… would it really be appropriate to call it “justice?”

“TEHRAN, April 18 — The Iranian Supreme Court has overturned the murder convictions of six members of a prestigious state militia who killed five people they considered “morally corrupt.”

The reversal, in an infamous five-year-old case from Kerman, in central Iran, has produced anger and controversy, with lawyers calling it corrupt and newspapers giving it prominence.”

Reposted from the NYTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/world/middleeast/19iran.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

When a government is intertwined with religion - officially or unofficially - this type of injustice is likely, nay, bound to happen.

In North Korea alone, 300 people are killed each year for their faith. Here are some examples of the religious persecution that takes place:

* In one prison, a warden hung a Christian man upside down and ordered him to deny his beliefs. Eventually the warden stabbed at him and pushed him to the ground, ordering 6,000 prisoners to trample him to death.
* Eight prisoners stayed silent when told to deny the existence of heaven, so an infuriated prison official ordered other inmates to pour molten iron over them.
* Some reports say Christian prisoners are deliberately crippled so they cannot walk; others are left naked and so starved they eat the rats scampering in their prison cells raw.

More on this can be found here.

This is an example of a government trying to force its religious beliefs onto it’s people. Oddly, the major religions in North Korea are Buddhism and Confucianism - two typically nonviolent faiths. This is also an example of how religious faith can be used to justify/cause/allow suffering… in this case, even when one’s religion of choice has passive attitudes and “benign” beliefs.

From Reuters.com: “More than 70 percent of Egyptians, Pakistanis, Indonesians and Moroccans believe the United States is trying to weaken and divide the Islamic world, a poll released on Tuesday showed.

The survey by WorldPublicOpinion.org also showed more than 40 percent thought that was the primary goal of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, while only 12 percent believed Washington’s aim was to protect the United States from attack.”

Full article here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN2332112320070424?feedType=RSS