Two senior staff of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) have expressed concern that in the Geneva meeting of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that began on 10 June and runs through until 27 June are a number of member states that continue to perpetrate or tolerate serious violations of human rights, including religious…
On 16 June at least three Muslims were killed and around 80 seriously injured in clashes following a rally by the BBS, the Buddhist Brigade, in Aluthgama on Sunday. Supporters of the BBS were reported to have marched into Muslim areas chanting anti-Muslim slogans. Witnesses say Muslim homes and a mosque were stoned. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has announced an investigation…
Blasphemy charges brought against Kerolos Shouky Attallah, 29, for ‘liking’ a Facebook page has prompted human rights activists to question the government’s commitment to a new constitution guaranteeing freedom of belief and thought. The Facebook page is in Arabic, run by anonymous converts from Islam. Faced with threats, Attallah ‘unliked’ the page, but the next day villagers…
Amnesty international has urged North Korea to release all those detained solely for their religious beliefs. An American tourist was arrested after he left a Bible at a hotel. The state news agency KCNA said the man had entered North Korea on 29 April and was detained when he tried to leave the country. This comes days after KCNA…
May 2014 marked six years since seven adults were taken from their homes and thrown into the notorious Evin prison in Iran, “For the Bahá’ís imprisoned in Iran, freedom and human rights seem remote,” noted Nazil Ghanea in the New Statesman on 6 June. Mr. Kenneth E. Bowers, Secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United…
MPs have welcomed the new Parliamentary session with a number of Early Day Motions focusing on issues of Freedom of Religion or Belief. APPG vice chair Naomi Long has tabled two: one calls for the the preservation of the right to religious freedom or belief for Christians in the Arab world; the other focuses on the…
The Sikh Siyasat Network has issued a report highlighting a rising number of incidents of hate, violence and bias against Sikhs worldwide, including the August 2012 massacre of Sikhs by a white supremacist at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin; the hate-motivated attack on an 80-year-old Sikh outside a Sikh temple in California; and the shooting…
The Huffington Post reports that the Burmese Government is seeking public approval for a religious conversion bill that has been put forward by Buddhist monks which would require anyone wishing to change their faith to gain approval from local authorities beforehand. The article states that the Bill was published in state-run newspapers and aims to…
Syria’s Melkite Greek Patriarch of Antioch, Gregory III, has said that over a thousand Christians have been killed in the Syrian conflict since it erupted three years ago, and 24 villages cleared of all their Christian inhabitants. He insisted that the church has a key role to play in reconciliation, but also suggested that the…