FEBRUARY 2008 NEWS REPORTS:
February 28, 2008: (Arabic Network for Human Rights Info) Bloggers, media people and human rights activists from 12 Arab countries held a workshop titled "Internet & Human Rights – Mechanisms of Mutual Support." Discussions including developing a way of making an electronic map depicting the number of Arab prisons where prisoners of conscience are jailed, and issuing simplified booklets that illustrate how activists, journalists and media workers can avoid fabricated charges because of their writings and activities. Click here to read more.
February 28, 2008:(Compass Direct News) – Lawyers representing the families of three Christians tortured and slaughtered with knives in eastern Turkey last April demanded this week that the three-member bench of judges hearing the case be replaced. Addressing the Malatya Third Criminal Court on Monday (February 25), plaintiff lawyer Özkan Yücel Soylu declared that the “impartiality and independence” of the court was in jeopardy. Soylu told presiding justice Eray Gurtekin and his two associate judges that their repeated refusals to grant the plaintiff legal team’s procedural requests were obstructing justice in the high-profile murder case. Click here to read more.
February 26,2008: (Compass Direct News) – Jordan has continued deporting foreign evangelical pastors, as the government last week admitted to expelling foreigners for “illegal” missionary activities. Acting Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh told the Jordanian parliament on Wednesday (February 20) that authorities had expelled missionaries operating “under the cover of doing charitable work,” suggesting that evangelistic activity is illegal in Jordan. Click here to read more.
February 26, 2008: (Human Rights Watch) Arab governments should publicly reject those elements of a proposed regional policy on satellite television broadcasting that would seriously restrict freedom of expression and information, Human Rights Watch said today. During their meeting in Cairo on February 12, Arab ministers of information adopted Principles for Organizing Satellite Broadcast and Television Transmission and Reception in the Arab Region. The document, introduced by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, calls on the regulatory bodies in Arab League member states to ensure that satellite channels broadcasting from their jurisdictions do not negatively affect social peace, national unity, public order, and public morals or defame leaders, or national and religious symbols [of other Arab states]. Click here to read more.
February 26, 2008: (BBC) Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion. Click here to read more.
February 23, 2006: (Arabic Network for Human Rights) "Kareem Amer starts today his second year in Burg Al-Arab prison on the four-year imprisonment sentence issued against him by Moharram Beik Court of Misdemeanor, (Alexandria) on February 22, 2007, directly after being arrested on November 6, 2006 on charges of despising religions and insulting the President," the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information and Hisham Mubarak Law Center said today. Click here to read more.
February 22, 2008: (IFEX) The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) welcomes statements made by leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) that freedom of the media would be supported by the proposed new coalition government in Pakistan. Click here to read more.
February 22, 2008: (MEC) Middle East Concern reports a violent attack on a Christian institution in Gaza. In the early morning of February 15th, 14 armed men overpowered two guards at the YMCA facility. The attackers planted explosives in the main office and the library. The former failed to explode. However, the bombs in the library caused extensive damage to the building and books. There were no injuries.
February 20, 2008: (IFEX) Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies strongly condemns the document entitled "Principles regulating Radio and Satellite TV Transmission and Receiving in the Arab Region," adopted by the Council of Arab Information Ministers. CIHRS confirms that the document, disguised by media professional ethics rhetoric, is primarily aimed at providing a fake national and ethical cover to limit the freedom margin exercised by the media outlets in some of the Arab countries. This margin of freedom existed either because of the influence of the global communications and information revolution or internal and external pressures for democracy. Click here to read more.
February 19, 2008:(Compass Direct News) – A Christian doctor described receiving various death threats while kidnapped recently by Islamic extremists in an area of Pakistan reeling from extremist violence. The extremists released Dr. Zahiruddin on January 2, after kidnapping the Christian 25 days prior and demanding he renounce his faith at gunpoint. Five armed men cut off Dr. Zahiruddin and his driver as they were traveling south from the city of Bannu on December 8, the doctor said in a written account of his kidnapping. Click here to read more.
February 15, 2007: (Arabic Network for Human Rights) The first annual report prepared by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information on the status of freedom of opinion and expression in Egypt during 2007 has been released. The report says spread an atmosphere of fanaticism is to blame for the launching of hundreds of harrassing defamation cases against Egyptian writers and journalists through launching hundreds of these cases. Click here to read the report.
February 15, 2008:(Compass Direct News) – Palestinian Christian widow Pauline Ayyad gave birth in Gaza last week to a healthy little girl, four months after the tiny infant’s father was kidnapped and shot to death by Islamist radicals still at large. Click here to read more.
February 15, 2008: (ASSIST News Service) –At the end of February, 2006, a new law was adopted in Algeria incriminating numerous acts linked to the exercise of non-Muslim religious worship (i.e. Christian) with punishment including up to 5 years imprisonment and heavy fines. An American living and working in France, who asked not to be named, says the Algerian government is now starting to use this law against the Algerian Evangelical Christians. Click here to read more.
February 13, 2008: (IFEX) – Amin Ghazaei, leader of the group Students for Freedom and Equality (Daneshjouyan-e Azadi Khah va Beraber Talab), was arrested in Tehran on 14 January by Intelligence Ministry officers along with 14 other students at a meeting, in what appears to be a worrying pattern of recent arrests of student activists. He is reported to be held without charge in solitary confinement in Section 209 of Evin Prison, and to have been tortured. There is concern for his health as he reportedly suffers from a peptic ulcer, heart problems, and asthma. Click here to read more.
February 12, 2008 - The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder of an Iraqi reporter whose body was discovered today in Baghdad after he disappeared on Sunday. Police discovered the body of Hisham Mijawet Hamdan, 27, a board member of the Young Journalists Association, today and took him to Al-Tib al-Adli morgue in Baghdad, Haidar Hasoun, founder and head of the association, told CPJ. He said that the journalist, who exhibited signs of torture, was shot in the head and chest. Click here to read more.
February 12, 2008: (Institute on Religion and Democracy) – Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams clarified his highly controversial remarks made on shari’a law in an address made to the Church of England’s General Synod on Monday, February 11. Williams apologized for previously making any unclear statements and set his remarks in a larger context. He argued that the British government must address how people of faith in an age of religious pluralism can stay true to their religious beliefs while remaining good citizens of the United Kingdom. He found troubling the possibility that an increasingly secular society might require people of faith to go against their religiously-informed consciences. Click here to read more.
February 11, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – Egypt’s top administrative court has ruled in favor of 12 converts to Islam seeking to return to Christianity but has left the group vulnerable to discrimination by mandating their former religion be noted on official documents. In his ruling Saturday (February 9), Judge El-Sayeed Noufal ordered Egypt’s Interior Ministry to issue the converts “Christian documents” noting their “ex-Muslim” status. Human rights activists heralded the decision as a breakthrough for religious freedom in Egypt, where conversion away from Islam, though not illegal, has been forbidden in practice. But human rights advocates remained wary, saying that listing the converts’ former religion on their documents would make them vulnerable to discrimination. “It’s obviously a stigmatization to have [“ex-Muslim”] on your ID card,” a representative for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights told Compass Click here to read more.
February 8, 2008: (Middle East Concern) – There is a sustained and intense media campaign against the [Algerian] church. On most days in January major Algerian newspapers carried articles expressing concern about the growth of the church. The amount of detail in some articles suggests that informants have been attending some fellowships. Second, seven fellowships are known to have been closed by the authorities. Several church leaders were told to bring an official license issued by a government committee that was established by legal decree in 2007 but has not yet been formed or held its first meeting.The affected fellowships are in Ait Amar, Ait Djemaa, Bachloul, Boughni, Ouargla, Tiaret and Tizi Ouzou. Third, several believers have been formally charged. Click here to read more.
February 8, 2008: (Compass Direct News) – The Iranian parliament may mandate the death penalty for citizens who leave Islam, a human rights group announced this week. For the first time in Iranian history, a proposed penal code demands the death penalty for “apostates,” according to a February 5 statement by the Institute on Religion and Public Policy (IRPP). “Apostasy was always illegal, but the court could hand down a jail term, hard labor or the death penalty,” said IRPP President Joseph Grieboski. “Now apostasy [would only] get the death penalty.” Click here to read more.
February 7, 2008: (Institute on Religion and Democracy) –Archbishop of Canterbury endorsed the concept of permitting Islamic (Sharia) law in civil disputes in the United Kingdom. Rowan Williams' comments to the BCC have drawn fire from many sources, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who pointed out that British law should be based on British values. The Institute on Religion & Democracy expressed dismay over Williams' comments and criticized the idea of elevating a legal system that does not share British values. Click here to read more.
February 5, 2008: The Iranian Parliament is reviewing a draft penal code that for the first time in Iranian history legislates the death penalty for apostasy. "The draft penal code is a gross violation of fundamental and human rights by a regime that has repeatedly abused religious and other minorities," stated Institute on Religion and Public Policy President Joseph K. Grieboski. "This is simply another legislative attempt on the part of the Iranian regime to persecute religious minorities in the country and around the globe, especially Bahá'ís."
Two types of apostasy are set down in the legislation: parental and innate.
Innate apostates are those whose parents were Muslim, declared themselves as Muslim as an adult and then leave the faith.
Parental apostates are those whose parents were non-Muslims, who had become Muslims as adults, and then left the faith.
Article 225-7 of the code states, "Punishment for an Innate Apostate is death," while Article 225-8 says, "Punishment for a Parental Apostate is death, but after the final sentencing for three days he/she would be guided to the right path and encouraged to recant his/her belief and if he/she refused, the death penalty would be carried out."
Women apostates would be imprisoned. (Sources: AINA.org, CWNews.com, Religious Intelligence)
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