Category Archives: Religion

UK must label Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as terror group, says thinktank

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Report from rightwing thinktank calls for tougher sanctions on Iran as October expiry of UN sanctions looms

The October expiry of UN sanctions limiting Iran’s missile programme must become a hard deadline for the UK to adopt a tougher policy that includes proscription of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a rightwing thinktank has warned.

The report from the Henry Jackson Society (HJS) is the second from a right-of-centre thinktank in two days demanding tougher action on Iran, and suggests that the UK ministers’ preferred strategy of introducing an Iran-specific sanctions regime that could lead to sanctions for activities outside Iran has fallen flat with Tory hawks.

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Iran’s ‘morality police’ resume patrols 10 months after nationwide protests

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Authorities announce new campaign to force women to wear the Islamic headscarf, after period of scaled-back policing

Almost 10 months after Mahsa Amini died in police custody, triggering weeks of protest across Iran, police vans are again patrolling the country’s streets looking for women who are not wearing the hijab “correctly”. Now, however, the vans and officers will not bear the name “morality police”, and patrolmen will be wearing body cameras.

The announcement on Sunday followed widespread reports that unmarked vans had been spotted on the streets of cities such as Tehran and Shiraz, stopping people not wearing the hijab. The move has already prompted demonstrations: on Sunday, protesters took to the streets in Rasht after three women were reportedly arrested.

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Indigenous voice no campaign targets religious voters who opposed marriage equality

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The no campaign plans to tap into the ‘unheard majority’ in Sydney, believing there is a bloc of socially conservative religious voters ripe for its messages

The no campaign in the referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament is targeting migrant communities and parts of Sydney that voted strongly against marriage equality in the 2017 postal vote, Warren Mundine has said.

The campaign believes there is a cohort of religious and socially conservative voters who are open to its messaging on implications of the voice.

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Justin Welby says it was ‘a privilege to be her son’, after mother dies at 93

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Archbishop of Canterbury says he had a messy childhood due to alcoholism in the family but he loved Jane Williams deeply

The archbishop of Canterbury has paid tribute to his mother, Jane Williams, who has died at 93, saying she had “lived a full human life, with all its ups and downs”.

Justin Welby said it had been “a privilege to be her son. I am the person I am in part because of her love, example and encouragement.”

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Labor’s refusal to extend school chaplaincy tax deduction will cause cuts, Christian group says

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Parents’ secular education group wants chaplains scrapped and student wellbeing officers employed instead

Australia’s largest supplier of school chaplains has labelled the Albanese government’s decision not to extend its eligibility to receive tax deductible gifts “disappointing and unexpected”.

Scripture Union Australia has warned the decision would probably result in cuts to chaplaincy services after Labor allowed its deductible gift recipient (DGR) status, previously granted by the Morrison government, to lapse.

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Queensland Uniting church minister opposed to same-sex marriage loses unfair dismissal claim

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Fair Work Commission rules Hedley Wycliff Atunaisa Fihaki was not employed by the church but sacking would remain valid even if he had been

A Uniting church minister who was sacked for public statements opposing the church’s position on same-sex marriage has lost his unfair dismissal claim.

Hedley Wycliff Atunaisa Fihaki was inducted as a minister of the Mooloolaba Uniting church in 2013, but was dismissed after anti-same-sex marriage statements in social and mainstream media between January 2019 and August 2021.

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Safeguarding in ‘crisis’ in Church of England, says archbishop of York

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Stephen Cottrell tells General Synod ‘mistakes have been made’, while sacked safeguarding board member says ‘we did our job too well’

The archbishop of York has said there is a “crisis of safeguarding” within the Church of England after its executive disbanded an independent body on abuse.

Stephen Cottrell told the C of E’s ruling body, the General Synod, on Sunday that “mistakes have been made” and that Jesus would be weeping at the events of recent weeks. “We recognise things have gone wrong,” he said. “This is a watershed moment for us. We can’t get this wrong again.”

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‘Like a poll tax’: Church of England should stop charging couples for weddings, say vicars

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Call for high fees to be scrapped as church marriages fall by half in England and Wales between 1999 and 2019

High fees are putting church weddings beyond the reach of many couples and should be scrapped or set at a nominal amount, according to clergy in one of the most deprived areas of England.

Marriage fees, which can be as high as £641, are a contributory factor to the decline in church weddings, they claim. A proposal to be debated this week at the Church of England’s ruling body, the General Synod, calls for fees to be abolished or reduced to a minimal amount “in order to demonstrate the church’s commitment to marriage and pastoral care”.

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Thousands suffer heat stress on hajj pilgrimage as temperatures reach 48C

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People struggling in the swelter was a common sight, especially after day-long outdoor prayers at Mount Arafat

More than 2,000 people suffered heat stress during the hajj pilgrimage, Saudi officials said on Thursday, after temperatures soared to 48C (118F).

Over 1.8 million Muslim worshippers performed the days-long hajj, mostly held outdoors at the height of the Saudi desert summer. Many elderly were among the pilgrims after a Covid-era maximum age limit was scrapped.

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Iraq protesters breach Sweden’s embassy over Qur’an burning

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Followers of Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr enter mission’s compound to denounce incident outside Stockholm mosque

Iraqi protesters have breached Sweden’s embassy in Baghdad, angered by a Qur’an burning outside a Stockholm mosque that sparked condemnation across the Muslim world.

A crowd of supporters of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr stayed inside the compound for about 15 minutes, then left as security forces deployed, an AFP photographer said.

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C of E divests of fossil fuels as oil and gas firms ditch climate pledges

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Church pension and endowment funds shed holdings after U-turns by BP and Shell

The Church of England is divesting from fossil fuels in its multibillion pound endowment and pension funds over climate concerns and recent U-turns by oil and gas companies.

The church said it was abandoning oil and gas companies and all firms primarily engaged in the exploration, production and refining of oil or gas by the end of 2023, unless they were in genuine alignment with a 1.5C reduction pathway.

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Temple visits rise in China as jobless young people seek spiritual assistance

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Number of visitors up 367% at start of year with about half born after 1990, according to travel websites

In the search for a job in a gloomy economy, many young people in China are hoping for divine intervention.

According to data released by the Chinese travel platform Qunar, the number of visitors to temple scenic spots increased by 367% in the first quarter of this year, compared with the same period in 2022.

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Advocate for separate Sikh state in India shot dead in Canada

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Hardeep Singh Nijjar, president of temple in British Columbia, found fatally injured in car park

A campaigner for a Sikh nation to be carved out of India’s Punjab state who was wanted by Indian authorities has been shot dead in Canada, police have said.

Federal police said a man was found in his pickup truck in the car park of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple in Surrey, British Columbia, at about 8.30pm on Sunday, with apparent gunshot wounds.

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Sudan paramilitary group boasts of detaining Islamists

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Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, leader of the Rapid Support Forces, wants to frame Islamist opponents as a threat

Hundreds of Islamist leaders and activists in Sudan have been detained by the Rapid Support Forces in a wave of repression targeting the paramilitary group’s political opponents.

The arrests began before the outbreak of fighting in April between the RSF and forces loyal to Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto military leader, but have intensified since.

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Kenya cult death toll passes 300, with more exhumations planned

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More than 600 people still missing, authorities say, amid reports pastor ordered followers to starve themselves


The death toll linked to a Kenyan pastor accused of ordering his followers to starve themselves to death to meet Jesus has passed 300, with the figure expected to increase as more exhumations are planned.

Authorities say the dead were members of the Good News international church, led by Paul Mackenzie, who is accused of ordering his followers to starve themselves and their children to death so they could go to heaven before the end of the world.

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Pope advised not to give Sunday blessing from hospital balcony

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Prayer will instead be said in his suite after chief surgeon says Francis should avoid strain on abdomen

Pope Francis’s recovery from surgery is going well but doctors have advised him not to deliver his Sunday blessing from a hospital balcony to avoid strain on his abdomen, his surgeon said.

Briefing reporters at the Gemelli hospital on Saturday, chief surgeon Sergio Alfieri also said the 86-year-old had agreed with doctors to stay there for at least all of next week.

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Justin Welby criticises Ugandan church’s backing for anti-gay law

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Archbishop of Canterbury expresses dismay over church’s support for Ugandan law enacted last month

The archbishop of Canterbury has urged the Anglican church in Uganda to reconsider its vociferous support for the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ+ law, which imposes the death penalty for certain homosexual acts.

Justin Welby said there was no justification for supporting the legislation, in a move that highlights deep divisions within the global Anglican church on LGBTQ+ issues.

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Virgin Mary apparitions ‘not always real’, says Pope Francis

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Pontiff appears to reference a woman who drew pilgrims to a statue near Rome she claimed shed tears of blood

Apparitions of the Virgin Mary are “not always real”, Pope Francis has said, in what appears to be an indirect reference to a woman who drew thousands of pilgrims to a town near Rome to pray before a statue that she claimed shed tears of blood.

“Don’t look there,” the pontiff said during an interview with Rai 1 on Sunday when asked about apparitions of the Virgin Mary.

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Utah school district that banned Bible considers removing Book of Mormon

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Davis school district says it will assess text after complaint for ‘pornographic or indecent materials’ under law passed last year

A school district in Utah that last week banned the Bible from school libraries is now being asked to consider a further title for removal: the Book of Mormon.

The Davis school district, which serves Davis county, north of Salt Lake City, said it was considering a new complaint demanding the removal of the foundational text of the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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Home Office could forcibly separate non-cohabiting couple before their wedding

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Youssef Mikhaiel is at risk of forced removal to Egypt before he marries Sarah Bradley

A couple planning to marry soon could be forcibly separated by the Home Office because they are not cohabiting before their wedding.

Sarah Bradley, 29, a British digital marketing teacher, and Youssef Mikhaiel, 28, an Egyptian man who graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in aeronautical engineering, met in February 2022 through a Christian dating app.

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