Here are the latest updates for blogworldreligion@gmail.com
- Iranian women demand release of Christian converts
- New French law blocks Scientology dissolution
- Jihad: The Somalia connection
- Garrison Keillor leaves hospital after a 'minor stroke'
- German state to begin training imams next year
- UK: Rapist praised by judge for converting to Islam
- Search Religion News Blog
Women dressed in white have gathered outside the Iranian embassy in London as part of a prayer vigil to highlight the plight of two female Christian converts from Islam who have been held at Evin Prison in Tehran "without charge" for the last six months, organizers said.
In Iran, Muslims who convert to another religion, often face arbitrary arrest, indefinite detention and other human rights abuses, rights groups say.
A new French law means the Church of Scientology cannot be dissolved in France even if it is convicted of fraud, it has emerged during a trial of the organisation.
A prosecutor has recommended that a Paris court dissolve the church's French branch, which has been charged with fraud after complaints by former members who say they gave huge sums to the church for spiritual classes and "purification packs."
British intelligence chiefs have targeted war-torn Somalia as the next major challenge to their efforts to repel Islamic terrorism, after scores of youths left the UK for "jihad training" in the failed African state.
A number of the "liquid bomb" plot terrorists convicted last week had Pakistani connections and the bomb makers are believed to have received training at an al-Qa'ida camp in Pakistan.
Garrison Keillor, the 67-year-old humorist and star of the long-running "A Prairie Home Companion" radio show to which some 4 million people listen each week on nearly 600 public radio stations in the U.S, was released from a Rochester, Minnesota, hospital on Friday night.
He left the Mayo Clinic's Saint Marys Hospital after suffering a minor stroke earlier in the week. Keillor spokesman David O'Neill said that Keillor was going back to his St. Paul home "and is in great spirits."
The German state of Lower Saxony will begin training its own Muslim clergy next year an official said Monday.
The course will be the first ever for German-language imams and will be similar to theology-degree courses for Catholic priests, Lutheran ministers and Jewish rabbis at public universities.
The state is funding the courses because local training for imams is vital to the integration of Muslimimmigrants into German life, DPA reports.
A UK judge lambasted a rapist for claiming his victim was a liar - then commended him for becoming a muslim.
Judge Anthony Goldstaub QC sentenced Stuart Wood for seven years for the attack, then told him: 'You have turned to Islam and this promises well for your future, particularly as you are now an adherent of a religion which respects women and self-discipline.'
0 comments