French mayor retreats after suspending fasting Muslim camp counselors
A French mayor has revoked the suspension of four Muslim camp counselors following an uproar after he said they could not work properly because they might be weakened by their all-day fasting for Ramadan.
Muslim groups threatened to sue the Paris suburb of Gennevilliers for discrimination for recalling the four after an inspector found on July 20 – the first day of the Muslim holy month – that they were not eating or drinking during the day.
Lawyers for the counselors, who had accompanied children from the suburb on a town-sponsored stay at a summer camp in southwestern France, said they might also take the issue to a labor court.
Potential weakness due to Ramadan is also an issue at the London Olympics, where more than 3,000 Muslim athletes are competing. Some have delayed their fast until after the Games while others are fasting as they would any other year.
Muslim leaders presented the case as an issue of religious liberty, while the town’s Communist mayor Jacques Bourgoin insisted his concern was only for the safety of the campers.
“This is a discriminatory act,” said Abdallah Zekri of the French Muslim Council told BFM TV. “France has religious liberty, it is a fundamental freedom and it must be respected.”
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U.S. says religious freedom “tenuous” in Egypt, worse in China, Iran, Pakistan
Religious freedom in Egypt appears to be “quite tenuous” and its government has failed to aggressively prosecute perpetrators of sectarian violence, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.
Clinton made the comment as the State Department released a report that found a marked deterioration in religious freedom in China, where official interference with Tibetan Buddhist monasteries may have contributed to a dozen self-immolations.
In its annual International Religious Freedom Report for 2011, the State Department also said it discerned a rise in global anti-Semitism as well as the increased use of anti-blasphemy laws to restrict the rights of religious minorities.
The report gave particular attention to countries where last year’s “Arab Spring” of popular protests unseated authoritarian rulers such as former Egyptian president and long-time U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak.
“I am concerned that respect for religious freedom is … quite tenuous” in Egypt, Clinton said on Monday in response to a question after she gave a speech at a Washington think tank, saying sectarian violence had increased since Mubarak’s downfall but the authorities had been inconsistent in prosecuting it.
“That then sends a message to the minority community in particular, but to the larger community, that there’s not going to be any consequences,” she said. Read the full story here. . Follow all posts on Twitter @ RTRFaithWorld
Austria OKs circumcisions after multifaith appeal
Doctors in Austria’s westernmost province have been cleared to resume circumcisions after the Justice Ministry reassured them that they can perform the religious practice without risking criminal charges, officials said.
Spooked by a regional court ruling in neighbouring Germany that the practice supported by Muslims and Jews amounted to physical abuse, the governor of Austria’s Vorarlberg province last week advised doctors to suspend it, triggering a heated debate.
Another state governor came out in favour of a national ban.
Austria’s Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim leaders united in defence of circumcision on Friday, condemning calls to limit the practice as an attack on religion and demanding that the government clarify its legality.
A letter from Justice Minister Beatrix Karl giving the legal all clear has now helped assuage concerns, a spokesman for Vorarlberg Governor Markus Wallner said.
“We only wanted to get legal certainty for doctors so they can be clear whether they face legal consequences if they perform circumcisions for religious reasons,” he said.
Doctors still have to decide for themselves whether to perform such voluntary operations, which are not covered by the public health system, he added.
Fight over Islam, money and power brings violence to Russia’s Volga region
Not far from glitzy boulevards where an oil boom has sent up stadiums and high-rises overlooking the Volga River, women in headscarves wander through Islamic bookstores selling pamphlets on the institution of sharia in Russia.
Kazan, capital of Russia’s mainly-Muslim Tatarstan region, has long had an image as a showcase of religious tolerance. But that reputation was shattered by car bomb and shooting attacks carried out only hours before the start of the holy month of Ramadan.
On the wall outside the bookshop, a flyer in the local Tatar language calls Muslims to unite against the region’s top religious leader, Mufti Ildus Faizov, who was wounded in the attacks which also killed his deputy.
“Things will only get worse here and Muslims will be the ones who suffer the most,” said Anisa Karabayeva, 43, her face framed by a white hijab, or traditional headscarf.
“Will there be more bombs? Probably,” she says flatly, standing in front of a display case stocked with Korans and prayer rugs.
The attacks came against a background of anger among many Muslims who complain that the authorities in Tatarstan are restricting Islam in the name of fighting radicalism. It is a dispute that also involves a struggle for money and influence in the increasingly prosperous oil-producing region.
President Vladimir Putin, who started a new six-year term in May, has repeatedly called for national unity and religious concord in a predominantly Orthodox Christian nation with deep-rooted ethnic minorities, many of them Muslim.
Religion has little impact in U.S. presidential race: Pew poll
The religious faiths of President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney will have little weight in November’s presidential election, a poll has shown. Sixty percent of voters are aware that Romney is a Mormon, and 81 percent say it does not matter to them, according to the poll by the Pew Research Center. The awareness level is almost unchanged from four months ago, during the Republican primary elections.
“Unease with Romney’s religion has little impact on voting preferences,” the Pew report said. “Republicans and white evangelicals overwhelmingly back Romney irrespective of their views of his faith, and Democrats and seculars overwhelmingly oppose him regardless of their impression.”
The United States has never had a Mormon president.
Obama is a Christian but the view that he is Muslim persists almost four years into his presidency, with 17 percent of voters saying he is Muslim. Forty-nine percent say he is Christian, down from 55 percent near the end of his 2008 campaign, and 31 percent say they do not know Obama’s religion. Among conservative Republicans, 34 percent say Obama, a Democrat, is Muslim, the poll showed.
Overall, 45 percent of voters are comfortable with Obama’s religion, 5 percent say it does not matter and 19 percent are uncomfortable.
About two-thirds of voters – 67 percent – agree with the statement “It’s important to me that a president have strong religious beliefs.” The level has changed little in the past decade. But 66 percent oppose churches or other houses of worship endorsing political candidates.
The telephone survey was carried out by Pew’s Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press from June 28 to July 9. The poll sampled 2,973 adults, including 2,373 registered voters. The margin of error for adults was 2.1 percentage points and 2.3 percentage points for voters.
Rohingya Muslims persecuted after Myanmar crackdown – Human Rights Watch report
Myanmar security forces killed, raped or carried out mass arrests of Rohingya Muslims after deadly sectarian riots in the northeast in June, a rights group said on Wednesday, adding the authorities had done little to prevent the initial unrest.
Aid workers were blocked and in some cases arrested, and Rohingyas bore the brunt of a government crackdown in Rakhine state after a week of arson and machete attack by both ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingyas, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report.
Based on 57 interviews with Rakhines and Rohingyas, the report seeks to shed light on a conflict that exposed deep-rooted communal animosity and put the spotlight on promises by the civilian government in office since 2011 to protect human rights after decades of brutal army rule.
“Burmese security forces failed to protect the Arakan (Rakhine) and Rohingya from each other and then unleashed a campaign of violence and mass round-ups against the Rohingya,”? said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“The government claims it is committed to ending ethnic strife and abuse, but recent events in Arakan State demonstrate that state-sponsored persecution and discrimination persist.”
Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin said on Monday the authorities had exercised “maximum restraint” in restoring law and order and that the rioting was not fuelled by religious persecution.
He rejected what he said were attempts to “politicise and internationalise the situation as a religious issue”, adding that the government was eager to promote “racial harmony among different nationalities”.
Factbox – Syria’s rival sectarian groups
The Syrian crisis has developed strong sectarian undercurrents during the 16-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, who comes from the minority Alawite sect and has ruled the country with a delicate sectarian mix for 12 years.
Spearheading the uprising, Syria’s majority Sunni Muslims are now fighting the Alawite leadership and its forces on the streets of Syria’s biggest city Aleppo.
If Assad were to be defeated by the rebels, his successors would struggle to impose the same centralised control which his family has asserted over Syria for 42 years. Syrian minorities such as the Alawites, Druze and Kurds might then all push for some degree of autonomy. Here is a look at the various sectarian groups that make up Syria’s population.
- ALAWITES (12 PERCENT)
- The small Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, which reveres Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed. Alawites are centred in Syria though there are also small numbers in other parts of the Middle East.
- The late Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, gave power to his Alawite sect when he seized control of the country in a 1970 coup, after rising within the ostensibly secular Baath Party.
- Hafez al-Assad employed Alawites in the state, security and intelligence apparatuses. Most Alawites were poor farmers, coming from the western mountainous region on the Mediterranean.
- SUNNIS (75 PERCENT)
- Sunni Muslims are the majority throughout the Islamic world, except in a handful of countries. Nearly all Arab states a r e ruled by Sunnis, and their leaders have long been suspicious of Assad’s friendship with non-Arab, Shi’ite Iran.
- Some Sunni extremists, such as the foreign fighters now making their way to Syria, have a hatred for Assad’s Alawites, whom they regard as infidels, as well as for Shi’ite Iran, which is backing Assad.
- The elder Assad had crushed Sunni militants, killing at least 10,000 in the city of Hama in 1982 in the bloodiest single incident in modern Arab history.
- The elder Assad nevertheless fostered ties with the Sunni merchant classes of Damascus and Aleppo, Syria’s commercial hub, and brought Sunnis into government positions. Some Sunnis say the younger Assad alienated the merchants by favouring the business interests of his Alawite kin.
- In March 2011 poor rural Sunnis, inspired by revolts across the Arab world, began demonstrations to demand greater freedoms and end to corruption. After the government cracked down, the revolt became increasingly violent.
- Assad’s government blames Sunni Arab rulers for fostering the revolt, and says enemy fighters include sectarian extremists.
- In June, the son of Syria’s longest-serving defence minister, Republican Guard Brigadier Manaf Tlas, left the country and Assad’s side. Tlas is a Sunni, and his defection has been seen as a sign that Sunnis in the Assad circle have abandoned him.
U.S. Episcopal Church approves blessing of same-sex unions
The U.S. Episcopal Church has approved a liturgy for clergy to use in blessing same-sex unions, including gay marriages in states where they are legal, becoming the largest U.S. religious denomination to approve such a ritual.
Delegates to its triennial convention voted 171-50 on Tuesday to approve the liturgy, titled “the Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant.” Episcopal bishops had voted overwhelmingly on Monday in favor of the text.
The U.S. Episcopal Church, part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, is the 14th largest U.S. religious denomination, with about 2 million members, according to the National Council of Churches.
The proposed blessing will be introduced in early December and will be evaluated over the next three years, according to a church spokeswoman, Nancy Davidge.
The resolution does not mention the word “marriage” and it does not alter the church’s standard liturgy for a marriage between a man and a woman, but offers an alternative liturgy for blessing same-sex couples.
The measure also gives bishops of the church discretion in the use of the liturgy and says no one should be punished for choosing not to use it.
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Yes, he did say to sin no more. He also said that only god can judge what is a sin.
Interfaith report: Poverty and injustice drive Nigeria’s sectarian violence
Poverty, inequality and injustice are threatening to trigger a broad sectarian conflict in Nigeria, an international Christian-Muslim task force said on Wednesday.
Clashes between Nigerian Christians and Muslims have already killed hundreds of people this year alone. But although the violence is the worst between members of the two faiths since the Bosnian war of 1992-1995, the root causes go far beyond religion, the group’s report said.
Corruption, mismanagement, land disputes and the lack of aid for victims or punishment for troublemakers have all fuelled tensions, especially in Nigeria’s “Middle Belt”, where the mostly Muslim north meets the largely Christian south, it said.
Attacks by radical Islamist groups such as Boko Haram that exploit these secular issues and revenge killings by Christian and Muslim gangs have reinforced the religious aspect of the violence.
“There is a possibility that the current tension and conflict might become subsumed by its religious dimension (especially along geographical ‘religious fault-lines’),” the report said, warning that blaming only religion for the strife would make that incomplete view “a self-fulfilling prediction”.
The 12-member joint delegation was led by World Council of Churches (WCC) General Secretary Olav Fyske Tveit of Norway and Jordanian Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, chairman of the board of the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought.
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Europe’s Muslims edge towards synchronizing dates for Ramadan and Eid
When the Muslim holy month of Ramadan arrives next week, fasting will definitely begin on Friday in Germany, probably the same day in neighboring France and maybe on Saturday across the Channel in Britain.
Even in the same country, some Muslims might begin and end the fast before or after others because they follow different rules or disagree on whether they have spotted the new crescent moon, the official start of the month in Islam’s lunar calendar.
This especially causes problems where Muslim minorities live in societies with many holidays based on the Christian calendar that cannot easily accommodate holy days or months whose exact date is determined at short notice.
Frustrated by this confusion, Muslim leaders across Europe are increasingly turning to modern astronomy to help solve the problem. But theological differences, ethnic divisions and the sheer weight of tradition are still holding up progress.
“In the modern world, especially in the West, people can’t decide on the fly to start or end the holy month at 10 p.m. the night before,” said Nidhal Guessoum, an Algerian-born astrophysicist who has long argued for a scientific solution.
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