Red Crescent says at least 42 injured at site revered by Muslims and Jews as police fire rubber bullets at youths throwing rocks
Israeli police have fired rubber bullets and stun grenades towards Palestinian youths throwing rocks in the latest outbreak of violence at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, a site revered by Muslims and Jews.
At least 42 Palestinians were injured in the early morning clashes on Friday at Islam’s third-holiest site, the Palestine Red Crescent said.
Continue reading...Prevent has been criticised for discriminating against people of Muslim faith or backgrounds
David Cameron and a right-leaning thinktank have warned the government to defend its flagship counter-extremism strategy from criticisms or risk enabling terrorism.
In a controversial report from Policy Exchange, the former prime minister has demanded a robust defence of the Prevent strategy.
Continue reading...Prime minister refuses to apologise for reported comments about archbishop and denies criticising BBC’s Ukraine coverage
Asked if the House of Lords Appointments Commission ever approves people for a peerage, only for a peerage not to be awarded, Bew says this has happened, but that it is very rare.
He also says that, under his chairmanship, the commission for the first time rejected a nominee who was subsequently appointed by Downing Street.
Continue reading...Downing Street refuses to deny PM told MPs archbishops were being unfairly critical as church figures defend Justin Welby
Downing Street has gone into open battle with the Church of England over its condemnation of the Rwanda deportation scheme, with No 10 officials doubling down on Boris Johnson’s claim that archbishops were being unfairly critical.
The prime minister reportedly told Conservative MPs on Tuesday evening that senior clergy had criticised plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda more than they had condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This was not denied by No 10.
Continue reading...Election statement also calls for a special intake of Ukrainians and a wider reassessment of refugee policies
Australia’s Catholic bishops have called for a special intake of 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan, saying the country has a “moral duty” to do more.
As part of its election statement, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference said the country had an obligation to take more refugees from Afghanistan because of the support shown to Australian military forces.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Continue reading...FamilyVoice says Labor not to blame for ‘Morrison’s failure’ to pass bill as Albanese pledges to extend school chaplaincy program with secular pastoral care
Christian lobby groups are pressing both major parties to recommit to the unamended religious discrimination bill as Labor guarantees to extend the chaplaincy program with a secular choice for schools.
Guardian Australia understands Labor has told FamilyVoice it has “consistently supported” the $61m-a-year chaplaincy program but will move to give schools the option of a secular pastoral care worker.
Continue reading...Exclusive: whistleblower says code of Schools Ministry Group, Australia’s second biggest provider, could discriminate against workers
Australia’s second biggest schools chaplaincy provider imposes a code that discriminates against staff based on relationship status and sexual conduct, a whistleblower has alleged.
Caragh Larsen, a former Schools Ministry Group chaplain at two Adelaide public primary schools, said the code banning “cohabitation” and “sexually intrusive” behaviour left unmarried and LGBTQ+ staff vulnerable.
Continue reading...Mubarak Bala’s case seen as part of a clampdown on critics of religious orthodoxy in a deeply conservative region
A prominent Nigerian humanist has been sentenced to 24 years in prison after pleading guilty to blasphemy charges, in a landmark case that has put a new focus on the threats to freedom of expression in the west African country.
Mubarak Bala, the president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, was sentenced on Tuesday afternoon, two years after his arrest at his home in the northern Kaduna state on 28 April 2020. He was then taken to neighbouring Kano, where calls for action against him had been made by members of the religious establishment in the majority Muslim and conservative state.
Continue reading...Move would be highest-profile visit of a world figure since Vladimir Putin began invasion of Ukraine
Pope Francis has said he is considering visiting the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in what would be the most high-profile visit of a world figure since Russia invaded the country.
The head of the Catholic church was invited by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, along with Ukrainian religious leaders on 8 March.
Continue reading...Howard Hubbard made admission during a deposition last year as part of a response to dozens of claims filed in New York
The former bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Albany, New York, has acknowledged covering up allegations of sexual abuse against children by priests in part to avoid scandal and protect the reputation of the diocese.
Howard Hubbard made the admission during a deposition taken last year as part of a response to dozens of claims filed under New York state’s Child Victims Act. A judge ordered the deposition released on Friday.
Continue reading...Analysis: the global church, founded almost 40 years ago in north-west Sydney, has little choice but to launch an independent inquiry
Judgment Day has come for Hillsong – but not in the way its pastors promised.
To recap a damning week for the church, its founder and global senior pastor, Brian Houston, has resigned after an internal investigation found he had breached the church’s code of conduct twice over the past decade by behaving inappropriately towards two women.
Continue reading...Resignation comes after internal investigations found Houston engaged in inappropriate conduct ‘of serious concern’
Hillsong’s founding pastor, Brian Houston, has resigned from the megachurch he founded in Sydney two decades ago after internal investigations found he had engaged in inappropriate conduct of “serious concern” with two women.
Houston stood down last Friday, but following another emergency staff meeting on Wednesday the Sydney-based church issued a brief statement announcing his resignation.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Only last month, the school apologised to students over enrolment contracts that described homosexuality as ‘immoral’
Teachers at Brisbane religious school Citipointe Christian College are being asked to sign employment contracts that warn they could be sacked for being openly homosexual.
The school says the wording of staff employment conditions is “under review” but one former teacher, who refused to sign the document last month, says he has now effectively lost his job for taking a stand.
Continue reading...It’s unclear if Saudi authorities placed restriction on his release but human rights campaigners promise to fight them
Saudi blogger Raif Badawi has been released from prison in Saudi Arabia after serving a 10-year sentence for advocating an end to religious influence on public life, his wife said on Friday.
“Raif called me. He is free,” his wife, Ensaf Haidar, who lives in Canada with their three children and had been advocating for his release, told AFP.
Continue reading...Religious orders called on to pay compensation for physical, sexual and psychological abuse carried out for more than 70 years
Victims of sexual, psychological and physical abuse of children in care in Northern Ireland have rejected a formal apology by religious orders and called on them to pay compensation.
Ministers and representatives of six institutions at the centre of the scandal on Friday issued a long-awaited statement saying sorry for what was described as “vile” and “unimaginable” abuse carried out for more than 70 years.
Continue reading...War has sharpened the split between Ukraine and Russia’s Orthodox churches, with some historic sites in Ukraine still loyal to Moscow
As war kicked off in Ukraine, soldiers at a military airstrip in the west of the country went hunting for the origin of a laser pointer they feared was marking out targets on their base.
They found it in a nearby church. Behind the thick walls of the building in Kolomyia, run by monks loyal to Moscow, they also discovered a large stockpile of food and alcohol, and three guns.
Continue reading...The nuns, based in Italy, have heeded the advice of Pope Francis to get out more and avoid becoming ‘old maids’
The women huddled in the centre of the pitch, to briefly strategise, to pray for Ukraine. Then the whistle blew, and to cries of “Forza, sisters!” from their fans, they prepared for kick-off.
The youngest player is 27, the eldest 52, and they are among the 18 brought together from congregations across Italy to form the first national football team for nuns in the world.
Continue reading...Gustavo Zanchetta convicted by court in a major blow to Pope Francis, who had initially defended the bishop
A court in Argentina has sentenced a Roman Catholic bishop to four and a half years in prison for sexual abuse of two former seminarians in a major blow to Pope Francis, who had initially defended the bishop.
Gustavo Zanchetta, 57, was convicted on Friday of “simple, continued and aggravated sexual abuse”, with his offense aggravated by his role as a religious minster.
Continue reading...One day a man in a tan mac and a comb-over appeared at my family’s door. I have no idea how he found me but he had an exciting proposition
I grew up in a modest, family hotel on the Dutch coast. The scenes of my boyhood were of German seaside tourists, drunken men and women at the bar, wedding receptions, and bingo nights in the function room. We slaved all year round – my father at the kitchen stove, my mother serving, cleaning the hotel rooms, and caring for three children. Books passed me by so it was an anomaly that, at the age of 12, I found myself attending a grammar school in Haarlem that churned out politicians, artists and writers.
I was embarrassed about my non-intellectual origins. Each morning, when my classmates’ fathers drove their expensive cars to solicitors’ offices, banks or ministries, my father would don his cook’s uniform. One day, when I was 14, I went to our village library. After I’d filled out the membership card, a woman said: “And now you can choose three books!” I snatched three off the shelf. The thinnest was First Love, by Ivan Turgenev. From the start, the words struck me like a hammer-blow. I was drawn in by the language and the 19th-century Russian world that the writer evoked. I’d become a reader.
Continue reading...The Indian journalist Rana Ayyub speaks about the campaign to silence her that has led to charges of sedition and ‘defaming Hindus’
When I talked to the journalist Rana Ayyub in her Mumbai home last Wednesday she was calmer than she was when I had spoken to her three days earlier. But that is not saying much. Last Sunday her words were jumbled, her voice on edge. She said she had not slept. That she could not eat or keep food down. That she had had thoughts of self-harm.
“I was on a plane yesterday and I said to my brother, ‘Can you feel me sitting next to me?’ And he said, ‘Have you completely lost it?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m just not sure I’m sitting next to you. I feel like I’m in a dream.’ And afterwards, I spoke to my psychiatrist and she said, ‘You’re dissociating. You’ve had a traumatic experience –that’s your brain shutting down.’”
Continue reading...