In what religious freedom advocates regarded as a breakthrough in Vietnam, authorities granted rare permission to unregistered house church groups to hold a large, public Easter-related service here last night.

More than 15,000 people gathered at Tao Dan Stadium.

Leaders of the celebration and religious freedom advocates in Vietnam said the event was significant in that unregistered house churches were allowed to hold a large public celebration. They added that authorities must have felt enough pressure to consider the event less harmful than possible negative publicity from denying permission.

In a surprise move, a Saudi Christian arrested in January for describing his conversion from Islam and criticizing the kingdom’s judiciary on his blog site was released on March 28 with the stipulation that he not travel outside of Saudi Arabia or appear on media.

The country’s penalty for “apostasy,” or leaving Islam, is death, although in recent years there have been no known cases of kingdom citizens formally convicted and sentenced with capital punishment for the offense.

A Liberian woman accused of smuggling endangered monkey meat from Africa to New York has failed to persuade a judge that she shouldn’t be prosecuted because she needed the butchered carcasses for religious reasons.

The judge also noted that her claim didn’t address the main point of the criminal charge: That she hadn’t applied for the permits needed to import such exotic foodstuffs and had misled border officials about what she was shipping into the country.

Nothing in her religion, Dearie wrote, “required her to abstain from truthful completion of paperwork.”

A foundation that has sued the military alleging widespread violations of religious freedom is asking the Pentagon to block a Christian cable TV broadcast featuring officers in uniform.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has raised objections to 20 minutes of the two-hour broadcast of “Carman’s Red, White and Blue Spectacular,” saying the program may violate a prohibition against uniformed officers endorsing a particular religion.

A foundation that has sued the U.S. military alleging widespread violations of religious freedom said it has evidence showing that soldiers are pressured to adopt fundamentalist Christian beliefs.

The Netherlands is to make a case for the freedom of religion and ideology during the sixth session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva this month. Partly initiated by the Netherlands, the EU will hand in a resolution that emphasises the right to apostasy.

Two victories by minority religious groups last month are small but significant steps toward leveling the religious-liberty playing field as promised in the First Amendment.

Is eating bushmeat protected by religious freedom laws?

In a ruling favorable to an inmate who sued after a Virginia prison denied his request for kosher meals, a federal appeals court on Friday upheld a federal law that protects the religious rights of incarcerated people.

Case centers on church program for parolees

While some restrictions on religious expression remain in Viernam, members of six officially sanctioned faiths enjoy freedom of religion.

ROME, March 29 -- The Afghan convert to Christianity who faced a possible death penalty in his homeland for renouncing Islam has arrived in Italy where he will be granted political asylum, prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said Wednesday.

A California prison rule requiring male inmates to keep their hair short violated the constitutional rights of an American Indian prisoner, a federal appeals court ruled Friday, citing a recent Supreme Court decision on religious freedom in prison.

A Muslim prisoner doesn't have to register as Jewish to eat kosher meals that meet Muslim dietary restrictions, a federal judge has ruled.

2000 law also prohibits communities from zoning out houses of worship

« Newer — Older »