- Religion News
- Sacred Shi’ite ritual tests Pakistan’s security resolve: Pakistan is deploying tens of thousands of paramilitary soldiers and police ahead of a religious festival that could be a major security test for authorities struggling to contain militant violence. Many of Pakistan’s minority Shi’ite Muslims, who make up 15 percent of the population, will be vulnerable to suicide bombings when they stage large rallies Friday to mark Ashura, the biggest event in their calendar.
- Court Case Brought by Helen Ukpabio Dismissed: “Lady Apostle” Helen Ukpabio in her attempt to suppress opposition to child-witch stigmatisation in Nigeria:
- Mormon Church pulls missionaries from Ivory Coast: Due to escalating unrest and political instability in the wake of the Ivory Coast’s contested presidential election, the LDS Church is pulling its non-African missionaries out of the small West African nation and relocating them in Benin and Togo, which are all part of the same LDS mission.
- Human Rights
- The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning’s detention: The 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks has been detained for months under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture. (Salon)
- Hellhole: The United States holds tens of thousands of inmates in long-term solitary confinement. Is this torture? (The New Yorker)
- Analysis, Commentary, Opinion
- Conservatives Stand Together for Anti-Gay Bigotry: In response to the Southern Poverty Law Center‘s designation of 13 religious right organizations as “hate groups” because of their anti-gay rhetoric and advocacy, the Family Research Council just launched a campaign to “stand in solidarity” with those groups that received the “hate group” label (and others the SPLC labeled anti-gay) and in defense of what they call “Judeo-Christian values.”
- Is the Evangelical Left Fizzling?: Over the last several years the old religious right reputedly has been melting down, with younger, more liberal evangelicals in the ascendency. But exit polling from the 2010 midterm election indicate no major political shift among evangelical or Protestant voters.
- Also Noted
- Jesus’ Great-Grandmother Identified: Medieval legends suggest that Ismeria, a descendent of the tribe of King David, was the grandmother of the Virgin Mary.
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