The claim that Hinduism is a uniquely pacific and tolerant religion is dangerous bunk, says (UK) Guardian columnist Rahila Gupta.
There is a profoundly disquieting myth about Hinduism which has been put about by its adherents so often and so successfully that it is in danger of crystallising into a truth – that of its essentially [...]

A Singapore court has convicted a Christian couple for handing out a particular brand of religious tracts to Muslims.  The pair could be fined or even imprisoned.
A Singapore court Thursday has found a Christian couple guilty for distributing seditious and objectionable publications to Muslims, media reports said. Between March and December 2007, Ong Kian Cheong, [...]

Sikhism officially rejects India’s caste system, but the murder of a Sikh religious leader at a Vienna temple is believed to have been motivated by caste-based prejudice. The mayhem in Vienna sparked rioting in Punjab state, northwest India.
Dalits in Vancouver have denounced the killing, calling it an act of terrorism.
Outraged by the killing of [...]

The Malaysian government has forbidden Christians from referring to God as “Allah”, even though the word “Allah” means exactly that in the national language. The Roman Catholic church has gone to court to decide the issue.
Muslim leaders insist that “Allah” must be restricted for usage in Islam, else “young or unsuspecting Muslims” might get [...]

Children with dual Egyptian-Israeli citizenship threaten national security, don’t cha know.

Twitter channel @DelaraDarabi is reporting that Delara Darabi was hanged early this morning at Iran’s Rasht prison. Delara was condemned to death for an alleged crime committed when she was 17 and spent over five years on death row.
Despite the fact that Iran has signed two international agreements forbidding capital punishment for crimes committed [...]

So much for that “Islamic solidarity” stuff.
Tehran has canceled the Islamic Solidarity Games after Saudi Arabia asked Iran to remove the term Persian Gulf from game medals and brochures.
The Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation (ISSF) Secretary General Saleh Gazdar and Technical Committee Chairman Mohammad Bashir Al-Trabosli said in a Tehran meeting that Arab states would only [...]

Brian McConaghy is head of the Ratanak Foundation, a Christian Canadian organisation fighting sex trafficking of little girls in Cambodia. He recently spoke at an anti-human trafficking conference in Toronto. I was very moved by his speech, which is posted at Aim4Asia. Here is a snippet.
In the late 18th early 19th century [...]

Two years ago, Susanne Geske appeared on Turkish television shortly after her husband, Tilmann Geske, was brutally murdered with his friends Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel, in Malatya, Turkey. They were killed by Muslim fanatics motivated by anti-Christian animus. She forgave her husband’s killers.
She recently spoke about the power of forgiveness at a [...]

In an interview published in Macleans, Hossain Ali Ramoz, executive director of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission, insists that most Afghan Shia Muslims do not support the controversial law obligating a wife to “fulfill the sexual desires of her husband”.
Afghanistan’s Shias, most of whom belong to the Hazara ethnic group, are typically among the most [...]

A Canadian tourist in New Zealand says she’s offended by Eskimo marshmallow candies. How crass is it to visit a foreign country and criticise the food?
A young Canadian tourist travelling in New Zealand, Seeka Parsons, says she was appalled by the sale of Eskimo sweets, an iconic marshmallow treat sold widely in corner stores [...]

The Chinese internet has sparked a huge controversy with the online publication of a book with a very boring title: The Practice of City Administrator Law Enforcement. It’s a textbook intended to provide training and practical advice to chengguan, a type of local law enforcement personnel.
The principal task of chengguan members seems innocuous enough: [...]

Four Christian leaders in Camden, Australia, have spoken against the construction of a Muslim school. Their attack goes beyond the logistics of this particular project to condemn Islam itself.
Most astonishing (to me, anyway) is that one of the Christians leaders is Anglican.
Calling the religion an ideology driven by world domination, a submission to the [...]

Human Rights Watch accuses Hamas of maiming and murdering political adversaries in Gaza.
Hamas directed gunmen to eliminate political opponents and suspected collaborators under the cover of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, killing 32 people and wounding dozens in such attacks since December, an international human rights group said Monday.
[…]
Human Rights Watch portrayed the attacks as [...]

Strange goings-on in a remote and mountainous area of Central Asia. Afghan robbers are reportedly crossing the Tajikistan frontier to rustle trees.
Tajiks living near the Afghan border are concerned about a recent increase in robberies, and claim that trespassing Afghans are to blame, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reports.
In the latest incident, in the village of [...]