Category Archives: Religion

Major funds exposed to companies allegedly engaged in Uyghur repression in China

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Report finds stock indexes provided by MSCI include companies using forced labour or constructing surveillance state in Xinjiang

Many of the world’s largest asset managers and state pension funds are passively investing in companies that have allegedly engaged in the repression of Uyghur Muslims in China, according to a new report.

The report, by UK-based group Hong Kong Watch and the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University, found that three major stock indexes provided by MSCI include at least 13 companies that have allegedly used forced labour or been involved in the construction of the surveillance state in China’s Xinjiang region.

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Nun who wowed The Voice of Italy becomes waitress in Spain

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Cristina Scuccia, who stunned judges in 2014 contest, explains decision to leave nunhood on talkshow

A nun who became a singing sensation after winning Italy’s version of The Voice has stunned TV viewers again after announcing that she has kicked the habit and is now a waitress in Spain.

Sister Cristina Scuccia, from Sicily, shocked judges, including the late Raffaella Carrà, during her blind audition for the show in 2014, giving a rapturous performance of the Alicia Keys’ hit song No One. After realising the incredible voice belonged to a nun, Carrà, who died last year, said: “I couldn’t speak for several minutes.”

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Rights group calls for Samuel Alito to be investigated after claims of leaked 2014 ruling

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Anti-abortion activist said supreme court justice revealed the landmark ruling on contraception and religious rights weeks earlier

A civil rights group issued a call Saturday for US supreme court justice Samuel Alito to be investigated over allegations that the judge leaked a 2014 landmark ruling involving contraception and religious rights at a private dinner with wealthy political donors.

The claim was contained in a New York Times article in which minister Rob Schenck, an anti-abortion activist, said he was told of the decision weeks before it was announced and had used the information to prepare a public relations push.

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Female clergy face ‘institutionalised discrimination’, campaigners claim

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Church of England is ‘still discriminating against women’ 30 years after allowing them to become priests

Thirty years after the Church of England took the historic step of allowing women to become priests, equality campaigners say female clergy still face “institutionalised discrimination”.

Fewer than one in three paid clergy are female, according to 2020 data – the most recent published – although the same source showed more women (55%) than men had begun training for the priesthood.

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Indian police investigating film that portrays Kerala as Islamic terrorism hub

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Makers of Bollywood film say it is based on real information and events but have not provided any evidence

Police in Kerala are investigating a controversial Bollywood film that portrays the southern Indian state as a hub of Islamic terrorism and forced conversion.

The Kerala Story, directed by Sudipto Sen, has come under criticism for its fictional depiction of tens of thousands of women from Kerala who it claims were converted to Islam and became terrorists for Islamic State in Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria.

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French cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard admits to abusing 14-year-old girl 35 years ago

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Ricard released a statement confessing to sexually abusing the child during his early days in the Catholic Church

One of France’s highest-ranking prelates of the Catholic Church has admitted abusing a 14-year-old girl 35 years ago and announced his withdrawal from his religious duties.

Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard issued a written statement on Monday after a report issued last year revealed a “massive phenomenon” of sexual abusers of children operating for decades within the French Catholic Church.

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Orthodox church of Ukraine allows worshippers to celebrate Christmas on 25 December

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Move away from traditional date of 7 January directed against pro-Putin head of Russian Orthodox church

For centuries Ukrainians have celebrated Christmas on 7 January, the date on which Jesus was born, according to the Julian calendar.

But following Vladimir Putin’s invasion in February, the Orthodox church of Ukraine is allowing its congregations for the first time to celebrate Christmas on 25 December, in a move away from Russia and towards the west.

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Muslim student allegedly forced to watch offensive cartoon of Muhammad at Melbourne school

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Victorian education department investigating after teacher accused of playing ‘explicit and blasphemous’ video to class

A Melbourne school has been accused of forcing a Muslim student to watch a cartoon depicting Muhammad in class, prompting an investigation by the state government.

A teacher at the college, in Melbourne’s north, allegedly played an “explicit and blasphemous” cartoon to the class that depicted the prophet Muhammad, according to the student’s father. The Victorian education department is investigating the incident.

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New Orleans priest accused of child rape now under scrutiny for financial crimes

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Audit details potential irregularities in which nearly $400,000 of church congregants’ funds were allegedly misused

A Catholic priest who led one of New Orleans’ best-known inner-city churches until being accused of sexually molesting a child has been reported to federal authorities for possible financial crimes after an audit found he spent nearly $400,000 of his congregants’ money in questionable ways.

John Asare-Dankwah ran the St Peter Claver church in New Orleans’ historic Treme neighborhood from 2014 until early 2021, when a lawsuit alleging that he raped a boy on an out-of-state overnight trip years earlier prompted church officials to indefinitely suspend him from his role.

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Bahraini death row prisoner pleads with pope to aid his release

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Exclusive: Mohammed Ramadhan, who alleges he was tortured into confessing to deadly bombing, urges pontiff to act on visit to Gulf state

A former airport security guard who is on death row in Bahrain for a crime he alleges he was tortured into confessing to has urged Pope Francis to call for his release during the pontiff’s visit to the Gulf state.

In a letter shared exclusively with the Guardian through the London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird), Mohammed Ramadhan, who has been in prison for nine years, asked the pontiff to “ask the king of Bahrain to release me and reunite me with my family and children”.

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Iran’s security forces reportedly open fire as thousands mourn Mahsa Amini

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Teargas also used against protesters gathered in home town of 22-year-old Kurdish woman, says rights group

Iranian security forces have clashed with protesters who had gathered in their thousands in Mahsa Amini’s home town to mark 40 days since her death, with reports that shots were fired.

“Security forces have shot teargas and opened fire on people in Zindan Square, Saqqez city,” Hengaw, a Norway-based group that monitors rights violations in Iran’s Kurdish regions, tweeted without specifying whether there were any dead or wounded. It said more than 50 civilians were injured by direct fire in cities across the region.

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‘A moment of pride’: Hindus in India hail Rishi Sunak’s victory

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Indians react to news UK will have its first Hindu PM and consider how it will affect bilateral ties

As Rishi Sunak prepares to become the UK’s next prime minister at the start of the festival of Diwali – when Hindus pray to the goddess Lakshmi for prosperity and success – in India some Hindus celebrated the fact that someone sharing their religion had reached such high office in the UK.

“To have a Hindu inside 10 Downing Street is something astonishing and of great joy, and that too on Diwali,” said Satish Verma, a supermarket owner in Delhi. “Although he is British, it will make us Hindus proud that one of us made it so big.”

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Catholic archbishop backs Victorian Liberals’ proposed religious discrimination changes

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Opposition’s promise to amend act has also been criticised by the state’s peak multicultural organisation

Victoria’s most senior Catholic has backed the Coalition’s proposal to amend the Equal Opportunity Act to allow religious schools to hire staff on the basis of faith, despite opposition from the state’s peak multicultural organisation and a leading Jewish group.

The Catholic archbishop of Melbourne, Peter Comensoli, said he supported the Victorian opposition’s election pledge, arguing “any leader who supports fairness to religious organisations is simply doing the right thing by all Australians”.

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Jewish groups blindsided by Labor’s reversal of recognition of West Jerusalem as Israeli capital

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Prominent Jewish community leaders in Australia say Albanese government’s withdrawal of recognition ‘a gratuitous insult’ – but criticism is not universal

Several Jewish community leaders say they were blindsided by the Albanese government’s decision to reverse recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, describing the handling of the issue as “shoddy” and “a gratuitous insult”.

A Labor parliamentarian has also privately said the government “mishandled” the sensitive issue and should not be “making foreign policy on the fly” after Israel’s foreign ministry summoned the Australian ambassador to demand an explanation.

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Queensland considers stronger regulations after students quizzed over teacher’s living arrangements

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MP Grace Grace says schools should be ‘supportive environments’, after Livingstone Christian College principal’s investigation

Queensland’s education minister, Grace Grace, says she is considering beefing up the powers of the independent schools’ regulator, to ensure students outside the state system are “protected and supported”.

On Monday, Guardian Australia revealed the principal of a Gold Coast school, Livingstone Christian College, interviewed several students amid an investigation into whether a teacher had told them she lived with her boyfriend.

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Queensland Christian school principal asked students if they knew unmarried teacher lived with boyfriend

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Exclusive: Principal of Livingstone Christian college said investigation was sparked by a parent’s concern over ‘biblical moral standards’

The principal of a Queensland religious school interrogated students about whether they knew a teacher was living with her boyfriend, amid concerns the teacher’s “lifestyle” went against its “biblical moral standards”.

Guardian Australia has seen emails and other information confirming that the principal of Livingstone Christian college, Stephen Wilson, launched an investigation into an allegation the teacher had breached her contract by telling a class that she was unmarried and lived with her partner.

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New Orleans lawyer fined for alerting school to priest’s past sexual misconduct

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Richard Trahant was fined $400,000 for violating confidentiality rules around a bankruptcy filing by the local archdiocese

A New Orleans attorney who represents victims of clerical sexual abuse faces a $400,000 fine after alerting a local Catholic high school that a priest who worked there once admitted to fondling and kissing a teen girl he met at another church institution.

The lawyer, Richard Trahant, said he would appeal against the hefty sanction handed to him on Tuesday, which stemmed from a federal judge’s ruling that his alert violated confidentiality rules governing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by the local archdiocese.

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Government ‘burying head in sand’ over health inequality, says bishop of London

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Exclusive: UK’s most senior female bishop calls for long-awaited white paper promising ‘bold action’

The most senior female bishop in the country has launched a scathing attack on the government, accusing it of “burying its head in the sand” over “shocking” and “rampant” health inequalities.

Dame Sarah Mullally, the bishop of London, spoke out after the Guardian reported that Thérèse Coffey was dropping the government’s long-promised white paper on health disparities.

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Welby voices concern over potential move of British embassy to Jerusalem

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Archbishop of Canterbury joins others worried about impact Tel Aviv switch could have on Palestinian peace talks

The archbishop of Canterbury has expressed concern about the potential for the British embassy to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The UK prime minister, Liz Truss, told her Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid at the United Nations summit in New York last month that she was considering the relocation.

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Are hijab protests ‘the beginning of the end’ for Iran’s regime?

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The uprising over the death of Masha Amini is like no other, but whether it leads to revolution remains to be seen

The Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, was holding court to a small group of journalists at the Millennium Hilton in New York on his first visit to the United States since his election in June 2021. At home, protests over the death in police custody of Masha Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, were entering their sixth day.

At the start of the meeting, a 10-minute film was shown, part patriotic travel brochure and part paen to how the Iranian people “live peacefully together in a new model of democracy”. Given the events in Iran, it seemed like the kind of absurd propaganda only a severely self-deluded regime would screen.

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