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CNN, 2002-11-22
Muslim fanatics riot in Nigeria
KADUNA, Nigeria (CNN) -- Organizers of the Miss World pageant announced Friday they will move the pageant from the
Nigerian capital, Abuja, to London in the wake of violent pageant-related protests in the northern part of the country
that left more than 100 people dead.
...
Dozens were killed in northern Nigeria in rioting that erupted after a newspaper suggested the Prophet Mohammed
would have approved of the Miss World beauty contest.
The death toll in the town of Kaduna was an estimated 105 with a further 521 injured taken to hospital, aid workers said Friday.
Angry mobs in the mainly Muslim city 600 kilometres (375 miles) northwest of Lagos burnt Christian churches and rampaged
through the streets stabbing, bludgeoning and burning bystanders to death.
...
Schools and shops hurriedly closed as hordes of young men, shouting "Allahu Akhbar," or "God is great,"
ignited makeshift street barricades made of tires and garbage, sending plumes of black smoke rising above the city. Others were
heard chanting, "Down with beauty" and "Miss World is sin."
...
The riots began after an article in the Lagos-based daily newspaper ThisDay on Wednesday questioned Muslim groups that have
condemned the Miss World pageant. The front-page article said: "What would (the prophet) Mohammed think? In all honesty,
he would probably have chosen a wife from among them (the contestants)."
The paper, whose Kaduna offices were burnt, has been forced to print three apologies and faces punishment by authorities.
It said the story went out in error, Reuters reported. The newspaper's "apology to all Muslims" was posted on
its Web site Friday.
Webmaster's comment:
Much blood-letting for no reason.
It is only out of fear of religious terror that the newspaper has apologized.
What they published was completely innocuous.
CBC News — Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 2002-11-20
OTTAWA - The Anglican Church of Canada will pay up to $25 million to victims of sexual and physical abuse at its Indian
residential schools. Ralph Goodale, the minister responsible for resolving the residential schools issue, announced on
Wednesday that Ottawa and the church had reached an agreement in principle to share the compensation of abuse victims.
The church has agreed to pay 30 per cent of valid claims, with Ottawa picking up as much as 70 per cent. That 30 per cent,
with a cap of $25 million, "far exceeds the assets of the general synod of the Anglican Church," said Archbishop
Michael Peers, speaking at a news conference with Goodale. All the dioceses in the church will be asked to contribute to the
settlement Peers said.
Thousands of aboriginal Canadians are suing the church and the federal government alleging physical and sexual abuse
when they were students at the schools, which were run by churches but funded by Ottawa. The Anglican Church is involved
in about 20 per cent of the 11,000 unsettled claims of abuse in residential schools. The United, Presbyterian and Catholic
churches were also involved. The claims have been in court for years, much of the litigation having been focused on
arguments between the government and the churches about who would pay.
On Wednesday, Goodale hailed the "moral leadership" of the Anglican Church of Canada. "I want to commend
the remarkable moral leadership shown by the Anglican Church in stepping forward with its commitment to remove the barriers
to healing and reconciliation for students that it was responsible for," said Goodale. Peers said the church wanted
to reach an agreement so the litigation, which was draining the church's coffers, would end.
See also:
Webmaster's comment:
"Moral leadership"? The Anglican Church has agreed to pay a maximum of $25 million for their
involvement in 20% of cases for which the federal government has (so far) earmarked $1.7 billion. Do the math.
Telegraph — United Kingdom, 2002-11-20
A religious crusade by a Bible Belt judge has stalled after he was ordered to remove a huge stone monument to the
Ten Commandments from a state courthouse.
The 5,280lb plaque in Alabama's Supreme Court was "an obtrusive year-round religious display intended
to proselytise on behalf of a particular religion", a federal judge ruled. It "crossed the line between the
permissible and impermissible", as set out by the constitution's ban on laws on religion, Judge Myron Thompson ruled.
...
Known as "the Ten Commandments Judge", Mr Moore, a former ranch hand and kickboxer, said the principles dictated to
Moses by God on Mount Sinai were the "moral foundation of American law".
...
Mr Thompson wrote in his judgment that Mr Moore's theories were "incorrect and religiously offensive".
The Moscow Times — Russia, 2002-11-18
With the apparent blessing of the Kremlin, the Education Ministry has defied resistance even from within its own ranks
and taken a major step toward introducing an Orthodox Christian component into the public school system.
Education Minister Vladimir Filippov last week released a 30-page description of an optional course called "Orthodox
Culture," which can be taught in public schools as a part of the basic curriculum if regional education officials or
a school's principal decides to do so.
...
Human rights activists are among the fiercest opponents of the program. The For Human Rights group led by Lev Ponomaryov
complained to the Prosecutor General's Office earlier this year about a textbook titled "The Basics of Orthodox Culture"
by Alla Borodina, but the complaint was thrown out.
"The textbook's authors help the growth of xenophobia and nationalism in our society," Interfax quoted Ponomaryov
as saying. "This textbook, which is already used in state schools, imposes the views of one confession on schoolchildren
and thus violates the principle of a secular state."
See also:
Webmaster's comment:
A disturbing threat to church/state separation. To be watched.
BBC News, 2002-11-15
The United States Army has forced six linguists trained to speak Arabic to quit after they admitted that they were gay.
The decision comes when American military and intelligence services are suffering from an acute lack of translators and interpreters needed for their war on terror.
See also:
Webmaster's comment:
The American military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy is ultimately
founded on Christian homophobia. In a holy war, the warriors must be perceived to be pure.
Washington Post, 2002-11-03
Waving U.S. flags and calling themselves one of the last groups in America facing unrestrained bigotry, about 2,000 atheists and
other nonbelievers marched on the Mall yesterday to protest what they say is increasing infringement of religion in governmental
affairs.
Staging their first Godless Americans March on Washington, the demonstrators said they wanted to show that Americans who do not
believe in God or who doubt the existence of a supreme deity comprise a significant part of the population that needs to be taken
more seriously.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I see a sleeping giant that is waking up and is ready to assert its political and cultural
influence," Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, told the protesters as she announced the creation of a
"godless" political action committee.
Her audience of atheists, agnostics and secular humanists, dressed warmly against a brisk breeze, cheered and waved signs that
expressed disapproval of religion: "God Is a Fairy Tale,""Keep Your Gods Out of Our Schools" and
"Al Qaeda is a Faith-Based Initiative."
As the nonbelievers marched from the Washington Monument to Fourth Street NW, where they had their rally, they were followed
and sometimes heckled by about 60 Christians who carried signs offering competing messages: "Trust Jesus" and
"Turn to Jesus or Burn in Hell."
Throughout the hours-long demonstration, people from both groups engaged in sometimes heated debate, but there were no serious
incidents, march organizers said.
Johnson, whose organization sponsored the event, said she was happy to see the Christian counter-demonstrators because "it
means you're doing something right.... If they ignored us, that would tell me we are completely uninfluential."
She and other speakers cited the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey done by the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York showing that 14 percent of the population identifies with no religion.
This is a larger group, Johnson noted, than many faith denominations, including Jews and Episcopalians. But because "so
many of us are in the closet," she added, views of the nonreligious are not respected.
...
The program included...a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance without the words "under God," led by atheist
activist Michael Newdow. In June, a U.S. appellate court panel in California ruled on a suit brought by Newdow that the inclusion
of the phrase "under God" in the pledge violated the Constitution's ban of government sponsorship of religion.
The ruling is on hold pending an appeal.
See also:
Webmaster's comment:
"Al Qaeda is a Faith-Based Initiative" indeed!
Given the fanatically religious nature of the current American political climate, an atheist movement
has become a major necessity. Bravo! May there be more and larger such events in future.
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