THE INSTITUTE News Update

 May 24-28, 2010

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Africa

Quietly, the Christian-Muslim killing continues in Nigeria

Access to power and lucrative oil contacts are driving a rise in Christian-Muslim clashes and killings. Nigeria's heavy military presence is not enough to quell violence that plagues the No. 3 supplier of oil to the US.

Patience Dassah, a smartly dressed young Nigerian, has recently had trouble getting a taxi. But her trouble with okadas, the motorcycles that zip through the streets here in Africa's most populous country, does not lie with the typical traffic jams or fuel shortages.

"I live in a mostly Christian area, and now my Muslim okada driver will not take me there," she says, explaining that he is too afraid of being attacked or even killed. "He won't even pick up my calls."

Kenya court rules Islamic courts are illegal

South African Muslim bid to ban cartoon fails

Americas

NY community board approves plan for Ground Zero mosque

A New York City community board has given approval to a plan that would build a mosque and cultural center near Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center twin towers destroyed on September 11, 2001.

After hours of contentious public comment, a New York City community board voted late Tuesday to support a plan to build a mosque and cultural center near ground zero.

"It's a seed of peace," board member Rob Townley said. "We believe that this is significant step in the Muslim community to counteract the hate and fanaticism in the minority of the community."

East Asia and Oceania

Direct, uncensored dialogue between the Dalai Lama and Chinese netizens

The dialogue on dissident writer Wang Lixiong's Twitter page was a great success. For an hour, the Dalai Lama answered questions sent by Chinese netizens, his first direct contact with the Chinese people after decades of censorship. Netizens were eager to share.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Thousands of Chinese netizens put questions online to exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in an unprecedented dialogue on Twitter last Friday. US-based Chinese dissident writer Wang Lixiong moderated the dialogue from New York.

In mainland China, Twitter is blocked but every day tens of thousands of Chinese netizens skirt the government's firewall and link up to the micro-blogging service.

At Sheshan and throughout China we pray for unity and priestly vocations Catholics protest in Cau Ram over historic church turned into flats

West Java: Islamic authorities shut down church, Christians celebrate in the street

Europe

Catholic Church reburies 'heretic' Nicolaus Copernicus with honour

Nicolaus Copernicus, the "heretical" 16th-century astronomer who was buried in an unmarked grave nearly 500 years ago, was rehabilitated by the Roman Catholic Church this weekend as his remains were reburied in the Polish cathedral where he had once been a canon.

The ceremonial reburial of Copernicus in a tomb in the medieval cathedral at Frombork on Poland's Baltic coast is seen as a final sign of the Church's repentance for its treatment of the scientist over his theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun, declared heretical by the Vatican in 1616.

BBC TV 'sees religion as tiresome obligation'

"Definitely a God" poster tops ad complaints

Middle East

Bartholomew I demands redress for wrongs suffered in Istanbul, Imvros and Tenedos

Istanbul (AsiaNews) - At a recent meeting with the authorities in Ankara, Patriarch Bartholomew I reiterated the need to "right the wrongs suffered by the Christian minority in Istanbul, Imvros and Tenedos, over the years."

It is the first time that a such a large committee - 20 members - has visited the Phanar to review the progress of the Turkish administration on respect for minority rights.

The Ankara delegation to the May 20th meeting was headed by Ambassador Volkan Bozkir (from Kemalist circles), Secretary General of the President's Council for European Affairs.

Russia and Central Asia

RUSSIA: Dagestan's controls on Islamic literature

While Dagestan's government does not formally ban particular items of Islamic literature, it grants the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Dagestan exclusive vetting powers over what is circulated, Forum 18 News Service has found. "It's clearer to them if someone calls for violence or not," Rasul Gadzhiyev, departmental head of Dagestan's Ministry for Nationality Policy, Information and External Affairs, explained in the capital Makhachkala on 22 April.

Dagestan's 1998 Religion Law requires that all Islamic literature be endorsed by the Directorate (Article 21). A separate law adopted in 1999 specifically targets Wahhabism - defined only as an "extremist trend". In Dagestan Forum 18 found that Salafis - advocates of what they regard as a pure form of Islam as practised by the earliest Muslims - are informally referred to as Wahhabis regardless of whether they reject violence.

In Moscow, Orthodox Christian churches draw closer

South Asia

Enough with fatwas that betray the spirit of Islam, Islamic expert says

Mumbai (AsiaNews) - Being tied to a medieval conception of religion will not help the Islamic world or the world in general. Rather than looking at Islam through the lenses of Sharia and hudud rules, we should undertake a cultural and religious revolution. This way, we can avoid useless fatwas and dangerous misunderstandings, said Ashgar Ali Engineer, of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, as spoke to AsiaNews about a recent fatwa (non-binding religious ruling) issued by a religious scholar in Uttar Pradesh.

In one of his latest edicts, Sharif Mohd Ayyub Alem Rizvi, mufti of Darul Iftah, said that women could work in institutions under "certain conditions", one of which is wearing the veil. Furthermore, "Muslims," the Islamic legal expert said, "cannot work in banks because interests (a bank's profit) are contrary to Qur'anic law."

Hindu fundamentalists plan to restore a theocratic monarchy

Indian nuns help young prostitutes