Festival de cinema gay atacado em Jacarta

An international film festival celebrating gay cinema was yesterday targeted by masked Islamic hardliners in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

The protesters, members of the Islamic Defenders Front, chanted homophobic slogans and accused organisers of the Q! film festival, now in its ninth year, of blasphemy, threatening to burn down a venue if screenings did not halt. The event, which is being held at foreign cultural centres in Jakarta, opened last week and was scheduled to run until Wednesday night. It aims to raise awareness of gay issues. Festival co-founder and director John Badalu told the Jakarta Post he and his team were committed to running the festival according to schedule. "We're still going to go on," he said. However, organisers admitted last night that they had been forced to cancel some screenings. [...]

Ver notícia no Guardian

Uso da burqa interditado nas escolas católicas irlandesas

Teachers have been told in guidelines that Muslims would not be permitted to wear the niqab, the garment covering the entire body except for slits across the eyes. The guidance, circulated in Ireland by bishops among more than 450 schools this week, said that although staff should respect the religious rights of non-Catholics, it was "unsatisfactory for a teacher not to be able to see and engage properly with a pupil whose face was covered".

"No pupil or staff member should be prevented from wearing a religious symbol or garment in accordance with their tradition, for example, the hijab [headscarf] for Muslim girls and the turban for Sikh boys," said the document called "Guidelines on the Inclusion of Students of Other Faiths in Catholic Secondary Schools". [...]

Ver notícia no Telegraph

A França proibe o uso da burqa no espaço público

France risked the wrath of the Islamic world on Tuesday by banning burqas and other full-body robes worn by some Muslim women, in a long-debated move that shows the depth of concern over the rise of Muslim culture in Europe.

Switzerland, for example, banned the construction of minarets after a referendum last year. Belgium and Spain are discussing measures to outlaw similar full-body cloaks. In Sweden, long known as one of Europe's most tolerant societies, an anti-immigration party that has called for Swedish Muslims to integrate more is expected to win its first Parliamentary seat in this weekend's elections.

In the U.S., tensions are running similarly high over plans to build an Islamic community center near the site of the World Trade Center destroyed by Muslim terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, and over a Florida pastor's threat to burn qurans in commemoration of the date last week. [...].

Ver notícia no Wall Street Journal

Acesso ao Wesite da Playboy banido na Turquia

Turkey has put a ban on the website of the well-known Playboy magazine, Turkish blogs inform. According to Turkish bloggers, Turkey continues to be a country of prohibitions and limitations. This time a ban was put on Playboy. Bloggers say, the website was banned on August 6, with the religious holidays after the fasting month of Ramadan on the doorstep. Access to the site was suspended without a related court decision. However, this is not the first case Turkey has banned a website. [...]

Ver notícia no Panorama

Banqueiro alemão gera polémica com livro anti-emigração

Politicians have rushed to condemn a board member of the German central bank for a new book tackling immigration, but his views have found considerable support among the population at large.

Thilo Sarrazin's book "is not convincing, but it has convinced many people," said the influential Spiegel magazine, which this week has the Bundesbank executive on its cover, calling him a "people's hero."

His publisher is rushing to print more copies of "Germany Does Itself In" to meet demand. Online retailer Amazon.de has a massive 207 reader reviews on its website, with the average score 4.4 stars out of a possible five.

The Social Democrats (SPD), the centre-left political party Sarrazin belongs to, has been inundated with thousands of letters, emails and phone calls attacking the central bank board's desire to expel him.

"Listen to the voice of the people for once," Spiegel quoted one of the almost 4,000 emails as saying.

In the book, Sarrazin says Europe's top economy is being undermined, overwhelmed and made "more stupid" by poorly educated, fast-breeding, badly integrated and unproductive Muslim immigrants and their offspring. [...]

Ver notícia no France 24