ANHRI also alleges that the arrest “occurred with the collaboration of the Church in [his hometown of] Naga Hammadi”.

The controversy began on October 1st 2008, when some young Muslims were browsing Hani’s blog and found a link to another site containing an electronic novel called “Azazil’s Goat in Mecca” which included an attack on Islam. This work was written by an anonymous author under the name of “Father Utah.” The novel came in response to Yusuf Zidane’s famous novel “Azazil,” which was considered by some conservatives as offensive to Christianity.

Some young people in Hani’s village became very angry and thought he was the author of the story. Security Forces took this opportunity to arrest Hani Nazeer in order to get rid of the problems raised by his blog because of his strong opposition to both Muslim and Christian hardliners.
[…]
The crime against Hani was further agravated [sic] by Anba Cyrilus, Bishop of Naga Hammadi, when he asked the family to keep silent in order not to upset the state security.

Since Mr Nazeer’s arrest, “Father Utah” has continued to post at other Christian blogs. Nazeer’s own blog has been emptied of content.

Nazeer is an inmate at Burj Al Arab prison, where at least two other bloggers are currently imprisoned.

h/t: Religious Intelligence

Obama “walks into a room and you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere,” George Clooney gushed to Charlie Rose.

“I’ll collect paper cups off the ground to make [Obama’s] pathway clear,” Halle Berry recently told the Philadelphia Daily News, “I’ll do whatever he says.” (Does Michelle know about this?)
[…]
Last summer, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford wrote that “Many spiritually advanced people I know … identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who … can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet.”

The Politico recently ran a 900-word article entitled “The Power of Obama’s Hand,” reverentially describing how the president “uses touch to control and console simultaneously,” laying hands on supporters and opponents alike.

And in February, author Judith Warner used her New York Times blog to confess that “The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right when I needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs.”

Instead of keeping that information to herself, Warner “launched an email inquiry,” which revealed that “many women—not too surprisingly—were dreaming about sex with the president.”

That’s practically pagan.

h/t: Clayton Cramer

Chinese netizens are reacting angrily to reported attempts by government censors to stamp out a humorous form of protest against a recent Web clean-up campaign.

Apparent government directives widely posted on forums, chatrooms and on instant update services such as Twitter are now ordering Internet service providers to clamp down on spoof items about the “grass-mud horse,” a fictional alpaca-like creature dreamed up by netizens in response to a recent anti-porn campaign.

Campaigns against online pornography are common in China, and frequently target content that the government wants removed for political reasons, as well as that considered inappropriately violent or indecent.

The name of the grass-mud horse, or caonima, is a pun on an often-heard and offensive epithet concerning the recipient’s mother.

A statement purportedly from the Communications Bureau of Deyang said the “provincial propaganda department” has called for words related to caonima to be “removed from the entire internet”.

Unreported World travels to Turkey to investigate honour killings, which have now reached record levels, with more than 200 girls and women killed in the past year alone. And in a chilling new development, the programme highlights how a new law outlawing honour killings, passed as part of the Government’s attempts to join the EU, may have led to a huge increase in girls being forced to commit suicide instead.

The news team travels to villages in eastern and south-eastern Turkey where honour killing is an accepted part of local culture. One might think that such crimes are rare in cosmopolitan Istanbul. One would be wrong.

Ending up in Istanbul, the team finds that even the most modernised city in Turkey hasn’t escaped the tradition. According to a government report, it now has one of the highest levels of honour killings in the country, with one happening every week. The Government has condemned honour killings and launched a commission with the aim of reducing them. Yet, in the three weeks the Unreported World team is in the country, they see twelve cases reported in the press as the murders continue unabated.

h/t: International Campaign Against Honour Killings

Presenter Saira Khan journeys to Pakistan and reports the stories of two British women of Pakistani descent who were coerced into marrying men they hardly knew.

Entrepreneur and TV presenter Saira Khan travels to her parent’s country of origin, Pakistan, to reveal the shocking cases of forced marriages dealt with by the British High Commission’s Assistance Unit.

Forced To Marry, has unique access as it follows the work of this groundbreaking team and unveils the moving and dramatic stories of British citizens who risk rejection, loneliness and sometimes their lives, to break out of unwanted marriages. Often misunderstood as a religious tradition, forced marriage, as opposed to arranged marriage, is carried out against the victims’ will, or under duress.

This film follows consular staff Albert David and Theepan Salvaratnam on a number of dramatic rescues in remote and rural Pakistan. As the practice of forced marriage is still rife in certain regions, the team often walks into highly charged and potentially dangerous situations. Acting on distressed phone calls or text messages, Albert and Theepan enlist the help of local police to track down the victim’s location. They then ask for time alone with the women in order to establish her situation, and to offer her safe passage back to Britain via Islamabad. The film tells the dramatic stories of Tania and Rubina (not their real names) who approached the Assistance Unit for help.
[…]
Tackling hundreds of cases every year, the Assistance Unit is considered one of the world’s experts in fighting forced marriages – some of which lead to “honour killings”.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary revealed last November that British diplomats had helped over 400 people facing possible forced marriage.

The list of websites banned by Anni’s [Nasheed’s] government is growing, all of them on the orders of the Ministry of Islam. According to Haveeru, eight websites have been blocked so far for allegedly publishing anti-Islamic and pro-Christianity content in the Dhivehi, the Maldivian language.

Blogger Jawish Hameed identifies several blocked sites and possible reasons for banning them.

Seedhaahithun.com, sidahitun.com and gospelgo.com were apparently blocked for “promoting Christianity”. The reason for blocking RaajjeIslam a few days ago is unknown and according to the media, the MoIA has not offered an explanation. As has been noted by Minivan News and Haveeru News, the website was blocked after they published an audio clip of Mohamed Shakeeb, an Imam at Shaviyani Atoll Foakaidhoo, claiming that he has been threatened by the State Minister of Islamic Affairs Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed.

Another Maldivian blogger points out that the Ministry of Islamic Affairs is controlled by an opposition political party.

The population of the Maldives is over 99 percent Muslim and the country has in the past been inhospitable to Christians and other religious minorities.  The constitution of the Republic of Maldives, ratified by former President Gayoom in August 2008, states that “a non-Muslim may not become a citizen” and that “no law contrary to any tenet of Islam may be enacted”.

President Nasheed, a one-time political dissident, took office in November 2008 after free multi-party elections. The current internet censorship campaign would appear to be an attempt by hard-line elements in the state bureaucracy to hamper his efforts to enhance democracy and personal freedoms in the Maldives.  Some are wondering if he has the stomach to fight “the threat facing Maldivian democracy”.

h/t: Global Voices

On March 10, ACMA issued Sydney web hosting company Bulletproof Networks with an “interim link-deletion notice” for allowing its customer, the Whirlpool internet community website, to post the link to an anti-abortion web page blacklisted by the regulator.
[...]
The interim notice, obtained by The Australian, stated that on February 19, ACMA received information that a Whirlpool forums page “may contain links to other websites that may contain ‘prohibited content’ or ‘potentially prohibited content’”.

According to the notice, ACMA determined that end-users in Australia could access the content on the blacklisted web page.

ACMA gave Bulletproof around 24 hours to act.

And act Bulletproof did. Whirlpool removed the prohibited link in very short order.

ACMA sent the notice after it received a “complaint” about “offensive content” from an anonymous internet user.

h/t: Australian Politics

He has been ejected from Nakhichevan, the Azeri enclave where the cemetery was located, and instructed never to return.

“Just as soon as I sat at the table, my hands were forced round and tied, they even closed my eyes. They took my phone, my camera and my documents. They took me to a room I didn’t know and started to ask about the reasons for my trip in a rude way, with insults and threats. I tried to explain that I had come to report. They told me that no journalist can come to Nakhichevan without the agreement of the local authorities.”

He said one officer asked him about connections with local journalists, then accused him of being a spy for Armenia. After two hours of interrogation, the MTN [Ministry of National Security] officers told him to get off the territory of Nakhichevan and never come back. He said the stress had made him feel ill, and he had been taken to hospital.

“I was trying to do a report on the progress towards a referendum, the situation with human rights, the standard of living in the autonomous republic. But they [treated me] like a bandit, and then forced me out of Nakhichevan,” said Abbasov, speaking from the cardiology department of the Republican Clinical Hospital in Baku.

Azeri authorities refused to speak to reporters about the incident.

Mr Abbasov’s April 2006 report exposing the shocking demolition of the Djulfa cemetery is posted here.

h/t: Djulfa Blog

Since the launch, his blog has received thousands of comments, many of them critical of the government. So far so good.

But the spirit of openness appears to have ended, as messages from ordinary citizens are being censored.

Readers in the northern city of Stepnogorsk contacted RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service to say that they had left comments on the blog, which appeared but then were seemingly removed. They had been complaining about problems with their drinking water.

A law limiting free expression on the internet is currently being discussed in Kazakhstan’s Parliament.

Reporters Without Borders has received information that his body was beheaded.

Reporters Without Borders expressed outrage at the murder today in the Swat valley of a journalist whose beheaded body was found shortly after he covered a “peace march” related to an agreement biding the authorities to implement Sharia law there.

On the same day a score of armed and masked men blew up the press club in Wana, capital of the South Waziristan tribal area, completely destroying the building. In two other recent incidents, a journalist received death threats and a television reporter was briefly abducted after interviewing a Taliban spokesman.

The body of Musa Khankhel, aged 28, a reporter in the Swat valley for Geo News and the newspaper The News was found beheaded a few hours after he was snatched during a “peace march” near Matta by supporters of the pro-Taliban cleric, Maulan Sufi Muhammad, one of his colleagues confirmed to Reporters Without Borders. There was no claim of responsibility.

Several other journalists working in north-western Pakistan have recently been kidnapped and, in some cases, killed.

Media organizations are creating a forum for online racism by allowing readers and bloggers to comment on stories on news websites, Manitoba First Nations leaders said Wednesday.

So, allowing readers and bloggers to comment is necessarily racist?

They’re now calling on the Manitoba government to investigate the CBC, in particular, for violating Canada’s hate laws.
[…]
There are “persistent bloggers who pounce on almost any story dealing with First Nations or indigenous issues and use it as an excuse to rant against or ridicule indigenous people,” Swan Shannacappo [of the Sandy Bay First Nation] said.
[…]
Aboriginal leaders called on the Manitoba government to investigate the CBC for violations of Canada’s hate laws and pass on the findings to federal regulators.

Two Manitoba cabinet ministers express sympathy for the chiefs’ censorship campaign, but elect to pass the buck claim they can’t provide much help.

Both ministers said that because CBC and the Internet are federally [sic] responsibilities, there is little the province can do except encourage the Southern Chiefs to file a complaint with the CBC’s ombudsman and a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

I would not wish a CHRC complaint on anybody, BUT—if the CBC becomes a target, perhaps our national public broadcaster will, at last, take seriously the threat that Canada’s “human rights” commissions present to freedom and democracy.

h/t: Tongue Tied 3

The research was published in February 1998 in an article in The Lancet medical journal. It claimed that the families of eight out of 12 children attending a routine clinic at the hospital had blamed MMR for their autism, and said that problems came on within days of the jab. The team also claimed to have discovered a new inflammatory bowel disease underlying the children’s conditions.

However, our investigation, confirmed by evidence presented to the General Medical Council (GMC), reveals that: In most of the 12 cases, the children’s ailments as described in The Lancet were different from their hospital and GP records. Although the research paper claimed that problems came on within days of the jab, in only one case did medical records suggest this was true, and in many of the cases medical concerns had been raised before the children were vaccinated. Hospital pathologists, looking for inflammatory bowel disease, reported in the majority of cases that the gut was normal. This was then reviewed and the Lancet paper showed them as abnormal.

The Lancet seems to have a habit of publishing inflammatory but baseless studies.

What is especially incredible to me is that the scare was based on a study of only 12 patients. Even if the data had not been manipulated, a sample that small cannot prove much of anything. At the very least, the study’s results would need to be verified by further research involving larger samples before reaching any definitive conclusions.

The GMC has charged Dr Wakefield and two colleagues with serious professional misconduct related to ethical issues over the treatment of children in the study, not its findings. All three deny everything.

The Sunday Times has several related stories today:

• Hidden records show MMR truth
• How the MMR scare led to the return of measles
• MMR: Key dates in the crisis

h/t: Eye On Britain

The article is due to be posted at its website today but, as of this writing, it is not yet available. [UPDATE: It's been posted.]

The magazine is no stranger to controversy.

TelQuel (which means “as is”) has come under fire numerous times in recent years for its controversial pieces. In 2005, Mohamed Bouhcini was targeted after acting as a guide for journalist Chadwane Bensalmia on a trip to the Rif mountains to research a story on drug trafficking. And publisher of TelQuel and it [sic] sister magazine Nichane (the only magazine published in Moroccan dialect) Ahmed Benchemsi was charged in 2007 for “failing to show due respect to the king” following an article that questioned the electoral process. And Nichane was nearly destroyed by a lawsuit later that year after editor Driss Ksikes and journalist Sana El-Aji produced an article focusing on Moroccan “street jokes,” including some which dealt with Islam and the king.

It remains to be seen whether the content of this latest article is as provocative as the cover.

h/t: Global Voices

Later that same day, a blog called “Battered Moms Lose Children to Abusers” (hereafter BMLCTA) linked to my post, quoted the complete text, and added sentences claiming the judge’s decision was baseless, implying that the mother and children have been victimised.  Anyone reading that post would think I had contradicted myself from one paragraph to the next.

Here are the final four paragraphs of my post and the two extra paragraphs added by BMLCTA:

K.D. ignored several court orders, shut the door in A.L.’s face when he came to collect the children, and refused to answer the phone when he called to say good night. She would send police to his home when he had a child for an overnight visit.  Ultimately, she cut off all contact between A.L. and his children.

Justice McWatt heard that, as long as eight years ago, an expert had predicted that the girls would become alienated from their father unless the mother stopped brainwashing them.

Kudos to the judge for ordering this bold, if belated, change in custody. One hopes that the relationship between the daughters and their father will be restored.

The full text of the court ruling is posted here. The campaign to alienate the children from A.L. began while they were still married. It seems clear to me that K.D.’s child-rearing behaviour was, shall we say, inappropriate from the get-go.

And the decision, written to make the facts fit the theory – nevermind [sic] that the theory is not accepted by any ethical scientific organization, it is not in the DSM and is the sick philosophy of Pro-Pedophilia Dr. Richard Gardner.

Click on the lick below to read this bogus decision that one can only hope will be overturned on appeal for being based on a fictitious syndrome.

The “link below” is the same link to the court decision that I included above.

To compound the prevarication, the full text of BMLCTA’s post was copied in its entirety by two other bloggers who believe mothers can do no wrong:

• RightsforMothers
• Mama Liberty

Those bloggers purport to champion justice and fair play, but they put words in my mouth.

Barbara Kay has written a column on the custody dispute, criticising the authorities for taking far too long to intervene.

No, they just want to shut him up.

Muslims and interfaith leaders in Metro Detroit are asking a local radio station owner to discontinue broadcasts in which, they say, a Coptic priest has repeatedly defamed the Prophet Muhammad over the past year.

In an Arabic-language broadcast Wednesday on WNZK 680/690 AM, the Rev. Zakariah Boutros said the Muslim prophet Muhammad had engaged in necrophilia and gay sex, according to the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Boutros has previously come under fire from area Muslims, who say he disparages Islam. The controversial, American-based priest can be heard on purchased time slots on radio stations internationally. His words have stirred controversy in Egypt and Great Britain, and are embraced by a number of bloggers and Web sites that criticize Islam.

And we can’t allow any criticism of Islam.

Christian convert from Islam Amani Mostafa, who hosts the radio programme on which Botros spoke, supports his interpretation of the relevant Islamic texts. A CAIR spokesman says neither the Quran nor the Hadiths contain the words quoted by Botros.

Speaking of websites that have “embraced” Fr Botros, Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch has a series of posts entitled “Father Zakaria Botros on ‘The perverse sexual habits of the Prophet’”. Here are links to Part I, Part II, and Part III.

Click here for Fr Zakaria’s website.

h/t: EuropeNews

Two journalists from the French-German cultural channel ARTE were asked to leave a meeting room at the UN’s European headquarters during a public session of a human rights body preparing for a racism conference in South Africa later this year.
[…]
According to a diplomatic source, the expulsion announced by the chairman of the session, Russian representative Yuri Boychenko, was requested by the Organisation of Islamic Conference and by the African group of states.

The OIC strikes another blow for free speech.

h/t: Infidels Are Cool

The book was self-published and sold only seven copies when first released. The offending paragraph refers to an unnamed fictional “Crown Prince” who had many wives and concubines, some of whom he treated disgracefully. (The paragraph’s full text can be found about halfway down this page.)

Freedom Against Censorship Thailand thinks the prosecution of Harry Nicolaides is a part of a larger plan to intimidate the Thai people.

So why did Thai government seek to pursue its lèse majesté case against Harry Nicolaides? They did it to appear tough, to declare open war on any commentary surrounding the monarchy and to create a climate of fear in Thailand in which censorship would be accepted as necessary. They picked a weak target to demonstrate even foreigners were not immune.

The conviction and sentence are major news in Australia. Nicolaides’s family is blasting the Australian government for not doing more to keep him out of jail. The foreign minister has asked the Thai government to pardon him.

In Thailand, however, the media are barely reporting the controversy because they don’t want to risk being perceived as criticising the royal family.

Strangely, the book has not been formally banned and is available at Thailand’s National Library.

Based on information obtained by ANHRI, the Saudi authorities jailed the young blogger at the infamous Eleisha political prison in Riyadh; a prison which in 2004 witnessed the arrest of the reformists Matrouk el Falih, Ali el Domini and Eissa al Hamed.

The 28-year-old alumni of the al Yarmouk University in Jordan has been arrested twice before; for nine months in 2004 and last Nov. Saudi Arabia, which decided to sponsor an interfaith dialog conference in New York last Nov. and because his arrest may tarnish its image and expose the Saudi government’s false allegations, has to set him free. That conference was attended by representatives of 80 countries.

But the blogger re-arrest, after the conference wrapped up, raised fears upon his life because the entire world is busy following up the aggression on Gaza and the Saudi authorities may seize the chance to make him an example with nobody watching.

ANHRI condemns the arrest and calls on the Saudi government to act in accordance with the Saudi king’s  proclaimed tolerance for freedoms of speech and religion.

Mr Saleh’s blog is Saudi Masihi (Arabic).

h/t: Global Voices Advocacy

Now that he knows the name of a young enslaved prostitute in Indonesia — it’s Eka, pronounced “Ecka” — Mike Mercer is all in. The human-trafficking resister from Oregon is committed not just to the reclamation of Eka’s freedom and her pre-slavery lot in life, but also to her enjoying life prospects far brighter than if she had never been trafficked and had never crossed his path.
[…]
Mercer and the younger generation of fervent Jesus followers pose a fascinating challenge to older-generation evangelical Christianity, too. This younger wave will not stick to the narrow old script — abortion, gays, the erosion of Christian prerogatives in the public square — that has governed publicly applied evangelicalism since the ’70s.

These modern-day abolitionists, along with growing ranks of faith-fueled activists in the fight against global poverty, disease and other forms of human degradation, might not see themselves as political. Even so, intentionally or not, they could end up changing the meaning of a political movement and idea — “pro life” — that has been at the center of one of the most rancorous political arguments of our time.

Could Christian opposition to human trafficking and sex slavery change the meaning of “pro-life”?  I think not. The impulse that drives concern for the enslaved is the same as what impels anti-abortion activism. In obedience to our Lord’s teaching and example, Christians care about the vulnerable and the disadvantaged, and give their God-given talents and resources to help the oppressed.

To point out the obvious, Christian anti-slavery activism goes back centuries. The fight to abolish slavery in the British Empire was led by evangelical MP William Wilberforce, who has been an enduring inspiration for Christian political activism.

Just because mainstream media are raising the visibility of Christian opposition to human trafficking doesn’t mean that the struggle against abortion is moving onto the back burner. Both are—and will remain—pro-life causes.

h/t: TitusOneNine

Rev Masih maintains that he and his guest were merely defending biblical teaching.  He plans to take legal action, accusing the radio station of religious discrimination against both himself and Asian Christian listeners.

After a lively religious debate, the radio station management took exception to the content of the discussion. The Rev Masih was accused of not being balanced enough on air. However, Awaz FM refuses to detail anything specific he said that might have offended its listeners.

The Rev Masih and his co-presenter Afzal Umeed were discussing the views of a prominent Muslim speaker, Zakir Naik, who the Rev Masih accuses of belittling the Christian faith on Peace TV, a digital channel.

The Rev Masih says that Mr Umeed asked Asif Mall, a Christian on-air guest, about Mr Naik’s remarks. Mr Mall said Mr Naik’s comments showed a lack of knowledge of the Bible and of the Koran.

In particular, Mr Mall disputed a claim by Mr Naik that Jesus Christ was not the only prophet to be “the way, the truth and the life”.

The radio station denies Rev Masih’s claims but refused to answer specific questions.

h/t: The Christian Institute