Véu islâmico retirou sonho olímpico às mulheres iranianas

Imediatamente antes do início do jogo de qualificação diante da Jordânia, chegava a notícia: a selecção feminina do Irão tinha sido banida pela FIFA por causa do véu islâmico.

O sonho de o Irão ter uma equipa a competir no torneio de futebol feminino nos Jogos Olímpicos de 2012, em Londres, foi destroçado por uma decisão inesperada: o véu islâmico que as jogadoras usam durante as partidas infringe as regras da FIFA. A notícia foi conhecida instantes antes do início do jogo de qualificação diante da Jordânia, e a partida já não se realizou. No relvado, as jogadores já tinham alinhado para o começo da partida, e algumas receberam com lágrimas e consternação o facto de serem impedidas de jogar.

As futebolistas iranianas jogam com um fato de corpo inteiro e um lenço na cabeça. A responsável pelo futebol feminino da Federação iraniana, Farideh Shojaei, disse à agência Reuters que já tinham sido feitas alterações ao equipamento das mulheres no ano passado, após uma decisão da FIFA. “Fizemos as correcções solicitadas e já jogámos um encontro depois”, disse a responsável, sublinhando que se acreditava que tivesse sido aprovado pelo organismo dirigido por Joseph Blatter. [...]

Ver notícia no Público

O regresso da poligamia? Mais de 187.000 mulheres turcas dividem o marido com outra pessoa

«Una mujer saludable que analiza por lo que tiene que pasar en caso de divorcio debería, en mi opinión, considerar la poligamia como forma de salvación». Estas palabras serían polémicas en cualquier contexto. Lo son mucho más porque quien las ha pronunciado, Sibel Üresin, es una conocida consultora familiar que asesora al ayuntamiento de Estambul.

Joven –apenas 35 años–, siempre ataviada con un inmaculado velo, Üresin es una figura recurrente en los debates televisivos que tratan cuestiones sobre familia e Islam.

Como especialista, imparte seminarios sobre comunicación dentro de la familia para las municipalidades más conservadoras de Estambul, como Eyüp o Fatih. De ahí lo chocante de sus declaraciones: «Si yo fuese hombre, habría sido polígamo», dijo ayer [...].

Ver notícia no ABC 

Igreja cristã ortodoxa demolida no Norte de Chipre

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) expressed its concern over the demolition of the 200-year-old Greek Orthodox Chapel of Saint Thekla in the village of Vokolida, in the area of the Republic of Cyprus under the control of the Turkish troops and administered by Turkish Cypriot authorities.  The church was demolished on May 2, 2011. USCIRF calls on local Turkish Cypriot authorities to commit to rebuild the church.

“Local Turkish Cypriot authorities have generally failed to take adequate measures to protect religious places of worship from vandals and looters.” said USCIRF Chair, Leonard Leo. “Allowing the demolition of the Saint Thekla chapel exemplifies the ongoing disrespect and violations by Turkish troops and local Turkish Cypriot authorities for the religious freedom and heritage of Greek Orthodox and other religious minority communities in the northern part of Cyprus,” continued Mr. Leo.

A USCIRF delegation travelled to northern Cyprus in February 2011 and saw firsthand the decrepit state of numerous Christian Orthodox churches caused by a prohibition on religious minority groups against repairing their places of worship.  [...]

Ver notícia da US Commission on International Religious Freedom

Confrontos entre cristãos e muçulmanos no Cairo fazem dez mortos e uma centena de feridos

A violência entre os dois grupos religiosos lançou o caos durante a noite no densamente populado bairro de Imbaba, na capital, após o ataque de muçulmanos a uma igreja, depois de se ter sabido que uma mulher cristã que queria converter-se ao islão teria sido ali encerrada.
O primeiro-ministro Essam Charaf adiou a visita que tinha marcada para os Emirados Árabes Unidos e Bahrain, segundo está a avançar a televisão estatal egípcia. Os confrontos levaram a que o exército e a polícia anti-motim tivesse de actuar, tendo sido confirmado já que 190 pessoas vão ser julgadas em tribunal militar devido a estes confrontos.
"O Conselho Supremo Militar [que exerce provisoriamente o poder no país, desde a deposição de Hosni Mubarak, a 11 de Fevereiro] decidiu enviar para julgamento no Tribunal Supremo Militar todos aqueles que foram detidos durante os incidentes de ontem, ou seja, 190 pessoas", foi anunciado pelo organismo na sua página na rede social Facebook.
Também no mesmo bairro de Imbaba uma outra igreja foi incendiada  [...].


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A emigração muçulmana transforma a Finlândia

As in other European countries (here and here), the politically correct guardians of Finnish multiculturalism have tried to silence public discussion about the escalating problem of Muslim immigration.
In March 2009, for example, Jussi Kristian Halla-aho, a politician and well-known political commentator, was taken to court on charges of "incitement against an ethnic group" and "breach of the sanctity of religion" for writing that Islam is a religion of paedophilia. He was referring to the Islamic prophet Mohammed, who is believed to have married a six year old girl and consummated the marriage when she was nine.
A Helsinki court later dropped the charges of blasphemy but ordered Halla-aho to pay a fine of €330 ($450) for disturbing religious worship. The Finnish public prosecutor, incensed at the lower court's dismissal of the blasphemy charges, appealed the case to the Finnish Supreme Court, where it is now being reviewed.
Halla-Aho, the best-known political blogger in Finland, maintains a blog entitled Scripta, that deals with issues such as "immigration, multiculturalism, tolerance, racism, freedom of speech and political correctness." His blog has between 3,000 and 6,000 readers a day. According to Halla-aho, immigration is a taboo topic in Finland. He has received death threats because of his web columns, which criticize the number of immigrants coming to Finland and argue that Muslims cannot be integrated. [...]

Ver artigo no Hudson New York 

Tribunal da Jordânia quer julgar cartoonista dinamarquês que caricaturou Maomé

A Jordanian court will begin this month the trial of Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard over a controversial caricature of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed, but it was unclear if he will attend.
Zakarya Sheikh, spokesman for a group of local media outlets that sued Westergaard in 2008 for depicting Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, said on Thursday the artist and others have been summoned by a magistrates' court in Amman to stand trial on April 25."
A copy of the subpoena obtained by AFP says Westergaard "is accused of the crime of blasphemy." [...]

Ver notícia no France 24 

Congolês apresenta queixa contra "Tintin no Congo"

"Tintin no Congo", segunda aventura de Tintin, "velha" de 77 anos, volta a ser alvo de acusações de racismo, desta vez por parte de um congolês, residente na Bélgica, que avançou com um processo no Tribunal de Primeira Instância de Bruxelas contra a sociedade Moulinsart, que gere os direitos da obra de Hergé, exigindo a sua imediata retirada de circulação.
O autor da queixa, Mbutu Mondondo Bienvenu, considera o álbum "racista e xenófobo", acrescentando que "foram estas teses racistas que serviram de suporte às descriminações sociais, às segregações étnicas e a actos de violência como os genocídios". E acrescenta que Hergé reconheceu que o álbum podia ter essa leitura quando disse "que, na sua época, não podia deixar de considerar os negros como crianças grandes", afirmando "não ser mais racista que os seus contemporâneos", reclamando, por isso, indemnização de um euro.
Esqueceu-se, no entanto, de que Hergé também afirmou "não gostar dos colonialistas", fez diversas alterações quando remodelou o álbum para a versão colorida, em 1946, e que condenou claramente o tráfico de escravos negros em "Carvão no Porão". [...]

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‘Os britânicos precisam de ser ver como uma única nação‘ diz Ministra da Segurança britânica

It is not enough for Muslims to “rub along” without breaking the law, they must be persuaded that their long-term future lies in Britain, the Security Minister has said.
Baroness Neville-Jones told the Daily Telegraph that that at the same time the government need to persuade the majority of the population that the UK is a single nation.
The minister said there needed to be a new approach in which people did not simply “rub along together and as long as people obey the law that’s quite sufficient.”
“I think it’s a common experience now that we know less about each other than we used to and I think there’s a very strong feeling that we need to understand each other and we need to be working together as a nation,” Lady Neville-Jones added.
“[We are] trying to convince minorities in this country that they actually do have a long term future here and that it’s their country as much as anybody else’s,” she said in an interview.
It is also important to “convince the majority population we are a single nation,” she added

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Jovens bilingues com desempenho pior na escola

Researcher Reza Kormi-Nouri's study shows that bilingual children have a linguistic head start when they first go to school, but fall behind as they get older. His study, published in the 'Bilingualism: Language and Cognition' journal, runs counter to previous previous findings in the field.
"It's surprising because until now we believed it was the other way around: that bilingual children do worse in the first years of school but then catch up," said Kormi-Nouri in a release.
Kormi-Nouri carried out two types of tests in Iran on bilingual and monolingual children aged between 7 and 12-years-old. All of the children were tested in Persian, the language used in school. At home, the bilingual children spoke either Turkish or Kurdish.
The children were first given three minutes to come up with as many words as possible starting with a certain letter or relating to a particular category.
The younger bilingual children matched the single-language children in the letter test and scored higher in the category test. As they grew older, however, the bilingual children were overtaken, and Kormi-Nouri noted that the discrepancy widened with age.  [...]

Ver notícia no The Local

Cristãos coptas do Egipto sofrem mais ataques

Copts in Egypt are begging for Egyptian Armed Forces protection today after a Muslim mob of several thousand attacked their church in the village of Soul, about 30 kilometers from Cairo, last night. The Church of St. Mina and St. George was torched, and its clergy are unaccounted for. The fire department and security forces failed to respond to Coptic pleas for help during the arson attack.

According to a report from the Washington-based Coptic American Friendship Association, the mob, chanting “Allahu Akbar,” pulled down the church’s cross and detonated a handful of gas cylinders inside the structure. The ensuing fire destroyed the church and all its contents, including the sacred relics of centuries-old saints. It is reported that a romantic relationship between a Christian man and a Muslim woman, which sharia forbids, and the refusal of the woman’s father to kill her to restore the community’s “honor,” aroused the Muslim ire. An account of this incident is here. (I also received a message from a Coptic friend that this week members of the Muslim Brotherhood, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” stormed a Christian school on Thabit Street in downtown Asyut and attempted to take it over. Egyptian security forces, including an army unit, intervened and routed out the Brotherhood members. The school had been built by Presbyterian missionaries in the early 1900s, and is now directed by Presbyterian Pastor Naji. Christian leaders from this southern area expressed a deepening sense of insecurity as the Muslim Brotherhood emerges from the underground.) [...]

Ver notícia no National Review Online

Ministro (cristão) paquistanês das minorias assassinado

Shahbaz Bhatti was Pakistan’s Minister for Minorities and today he paid the price for belonging to the most despised Pakistani minority of all: Christians. He was shot dead in his car for the crime of campaigning to reform the country’s medieval blasphemy laws. Those laws are used to make life hell for Christians – but that doesn’t seem to bother Britain and the EU, which pour millions of pounds into Pakistan and don’t make a big deal out of anti-Christian persecution.
I don’t recall an enormous fuss being made, either, when Egypt last week acquitted the suspected murderers of six Coptic Christians mown down as they left Mass in Nag Hammadi in January. That was the “justice” handed out to Christians in Mubarak’s Egypt. If the Muslim Brotherhood seize power, this sort of case won’t even come to court.
Thank God, then, for our allies in Afghanistan. Following intense and secretive diplomatic pressure, they have magnanimously decided not to execute a man who converted to Christianity. So, you see, we did bring freedom to the Afghan people after all!

Ver notícia no Telegraph

O multiculturalismo em retirada

At long last a European politician, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, lifted the curtain on the pernicious dimensions of multiculturalism. After several decades of home grown terrorism and an acceptance of separation by Muslim groups in the United Kingdom, the prime minister said, “enough.”

A new course will be charted that moves from accommodation to integration. There may be a risk of xenophobia with the Cameron approach, but it is a worthwhile trade-off if terrorist impulses are thwarted.

Mr. Cameron called his strategy “muscular liberalism,” to wit: confronting extremist Islamic thought and challenging those efforts that attempt to undermine Western values. For example, the prime minister made special mention of zero tolerance for the subjugation of women, a practice permitted because of Islamic separation and application of sharia.

The notion that different groups within a society should be encouraged to pursue their own cultural paths is a formulation based on religious tolerance. But as George Santayana, among others, noted the first duty of the tolerant man is to exercise intolerance for intolerance. In other words, a proverbial line in the sand must be drawn when religious groups use societal tolerance to promote intolerance. 

Ver artigo em Family Security Matters

Líder democrata-cristão holandês sublinha falhanço do multiculturalismo

Christian Democrat leader Maxime Verhagen on Monday said the multicultural society has failed. He was speaking during the recording of tv show Nova College Tour, reports the Algemeen Dagblad.
Verhagen told the programme the Dutch no longer feel at home in their own country and immigrants are not entirely happy here either.
The minister wants the Dutch to be prouder of their country like people in the US where they first say they are American and then where they originally come from, says the paper.
He follows his European colleagues in declaring multiculturalism a failure. German chancellor Angela Merkel, British prime minister David Cameron and French president Nicolas Sarkozy have all said the same, the paper states.

 Ver notícia no DutchNews.nl

O multiculturalismo falhou, diz o Presidende francês

French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared Thursday that multiculturalism had failed, joining a growing number of world leaders or ex-leaders who have condemned it.
"My answer is clearly yes, it is a failure," he said in a television interview when asked about the policy which advocates that host societies welcome and foster distinct cultural and religious immigrant groups.
"Of course we must all respect differences, but we do not want... a society where communities coexist side by side.
"If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France," the right-wing president said. [...]

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Ministros da UE discordam sobre texto com referências a perseguições a cristãos

A row over specific references to Christianity has prevented EU foreign ministers from agreeing a joint declaration condemning religious persecution, despite a recent spate of attacks on minorities in Iraq and Egypt.

Instead, a draft text which called on EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to come up with "concrete proposals" to boost freedom of religion was sent back to the drawing board on Monday evening (31 January).

Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini led opposition to the text which "firmly" condemned the "acts of terrorism targeting places of worship", claiming the document showed an "excess of secularism".

"The final text didn't include any mention of Christians, as if we were talking of something else, so I asked the text to be withdrawn," he told reporters in Brussels. [...]

Ver notícia no EUObserver

Número de muçulmanos no Reino Unido vai duplicar para 5, 5 milhões em 20 anos

The Muslim population in the UK will almost double to 5.5million within 20 years, it has been claimed. Immigration and high birth rates will mean nearly one in ten Britons will be Muslim by 2030, according to a worldwide study about the spread of Islam. And the forecasts mean Britain will have more Muslims than Kuwait.
From 1990 to 2010 the number of followers of the Islamic faith around the world increased at an average rate of 2.2 per cent annually. Last year there were 1.57billion around the world. 
The British increase in the Muslim population from the current 2.8million will be mainly driven by immigration, according to figures prepared by a Washington think tank. Projections by the respected Pew Research Centre said the 40 years between 1990 and 2030 will see a fivefold rise in Britain.
In 1990 there were 1.1million Muslims in Britain, representing two per cent of the population.
By last year that figure had risen to 2.8million, or four per cent. By 2030 the number will hit 5.5million - eight per cent of an estimated 68million population, Pew researchers said. [...]

Ver notícia no Daily Mail

Maiores cidades da Finlândia criam ‘ghettos multiculturais‘ pelos fluxos migratórios

In recent years, Finland’s largest cities have developed areas where more than a fifth of the population is of foreign origin. In these city parts, the changeability of people is great, and the original Finnish population continues to decrease.

In Helsinki’s Itäkeskus and other eastern residential areas, for example, more than one fifth of the population have foreign backgrounds, and their number is increasing by about one percent every year.
For her soon-to-be checked doctoral thesis for the University of Helsinki’s Geography Department, researcher Katja Vilkama studied cities’ immigrant concentrations.
According to Vilkama, areas like Itäkeskus are entryways into Finnish society. However, once immigrants start to earn more and become familiar with Finnish society, they often leave these city areas behind.
Vilkama found the population in such areas to be very mobile, as people were continuously moving in and out. In the Helsinki region, about one in five immigrant families moves areas every year. Estonian immigrants are especially prone to move, says Vilkama.
In fact, there are more people with foreign backgrounds leaving immigrant-heavy areas compared with the number of Finns moving out. However, as both sections of the population are replaced mostly by new immigrants, the number of Finns continues to diminish in these areas.

Ver notícia no YLE. fi

Cidade de Helsínquia acaba com horários específicos para muçulmanas em piscinas públicas

City of Helsinki will stop providing special hours for Muslim women to use the public swimming pool in Jakomaki. Later, the slot time for the Muslim women will be open to all women.  Other swimmers have criticized the practice, according to Teemu Raatikainen, manager of the swimming pool.  Previously, a swimming pool on Saturday morning Jakomaki provide specifically for Muslim women. Women were following the swim session class for young Muslim girls. The pool reopened on Wednesday (5 / 1) after closed due to renovations. From now on, the pool will be open to all women – and closed to the men – every Tuesday night.  The decision to give a specific time for Muslim women is a controversial decision in Jakomaki. [...]

Ver notícia no Homedailynews

A difícil relação da Turquia com o Pai Natal

Casi con toda certeza, Santa Claus es de origen turco. Pero eso parecían ignorarlo la veintena de jóvenes que la pasada Nochevieja se reunieron frente a la Universidad de Estambul para apuñalar un Papá Noel hinchable de tamaño natural, a modo de protesta contra las «celebraciones del imperialismo cultural occidental» de Año Nuevo.

Los estudiantes eran miembros de la Asociación Juventud Anatolia, un grupo ultranacionalista de sesgo islamista que considera que el islam suní es la única religión verdaderamente «turca». «Hay un hadice (un relato oral de las enseñanzas de Mahoma durante su vida, según la tradición musulmana) que dice: "No seáis como judíos o cristianos". Esto nos enseña qué enormes problemas pueden ocurrir en caso de comportarnos como ellos», declaró el portavoz del grupo, Güven Günduz.

«Ningún musulmán debería respetar las absurdas celebraciones que se realizan bajo el nombre de «Navidad» y que no tienen equivalente en nuestras creencias y cultura», afirmó.

 

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Atentado numa igreja cristã copta de Alexandria matou 21 pessoas

 Uma explosão, esta madrugada, numa igreja copta de Alexandria, no Egipto, matou 21 pessoas e feriu perto de meia centena. As autoridades acreditam que se tratou de um atentado suicida e, pouco depois do incidente, registaram-se confrontos entre cristãos e muçulmanos naquela cidade.
As primeiras informações indicavam que a explosão teria sido causada por um carro armadilhado, mas já esta manhã o Ministério do Interior egípcio corrigiu a informação. Segundo um porta-voz, não há sinais de que a detonação tenha tido origem em nenhum dos carros que foi destruído e “é provável que o engenho que causou a explosão tenha sido transportado por um bombista que morreu no meio da multidão. [...]

Ver notícia no Público

Feliz Ano Novo de 2011!

Professor do secundário denunciado por aluno muçulmano por falar de presunto nas aulas

Un profesor de secundaria del Instituto Menénez Tolosa, en La Línea de la Concepción (Cádiz), ha sido denunciado por la familia de un alumno musulmán por hablar de jamón en clase. En concreto, el docente impartía clase de Geografía cuando, al hacer referencia a los distintos climas de España, comentó que el frío propio de Trévelez, en Granada, favorecía la curación del jamón.
Fuen ese momento cuando un alumno de origen musulmán consideró que el ejemplo era una ofensa para su credo. Tras la denuncia interpuesta por la familia del menor, la Policía se personó en el Instituto para interrogar al profesor, tal y como informa hoy el Diario de Cádiz. El docente, según informa hoy este diario, asegura que nunca ha hecho en sus clases "apología del jamón o del cerdo". [...].

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Detenção de grupos islâmicos salafistas na Alemanha ao abrigo de legislação anti-nazi

German  authorities hardened a crackdown on Islamic groups yesterday, raiding homes and schools that reportedly belong to adherents of fundamentalist Salafi Islam.
German officials said the preemptive raids, conducted under German anti-Nazi laws of association, were aimed at uncovering unconstitutional or separatist acts and not part of an international terror hunt.
The raids targeted the Islamic Cultural Center of Bremen, on the North Sea, along with a group calling itself Invitation to Paradise in two small northwest German cities. Invitation to Paradise's leader has called for sharia, or Islamic law, to prevail one day but has specifically opposed using violence to impose it.
While some experts say police overreacted in conducting the raids, German officials have come under great pressure from local media and citizen groups to respond to some Muslim organizations that appear to resist joining mainstream German society.
“These groups are a problem for integration, even maybe for radicalization, though not necessarily for violent jihad. They are very orthodox and like to be separate but are not preaching but usually condemning violence,” says Alexander Ritzmann, a former Berlin member of parliament now with the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels. “The problem is that some jihadis in Germany from before identified themselves as Salafi.”


Ver notícia no Christian Science Monitor [...]

O Egipto silencia a minoria cristã

Los cristianos juran que la policía de Mubarak irrumpió en la iglesia a medio construir de Omraneya al grito de «Allah uk akbar» (Alá es el más grande), ese que solo usan «cuando van a por los terroristas y en la guerra». Les atacaron, cuentan, «de una forma inhumana», disparando a bocajarro pelotas de goma, gases lacrimógenos, piedras y las balas que mataron a en el acto a Makarios Gad, de 19 años. Hubo 13 agentes y 80 ciudadanos heridos, dos de ellos también han muerto. Luego «se llevaron a todo el mundo, a 156 hombres, mujeres y niños que estaban dentro del edificio», y desde entonces, dicen, «la caza no ha terminado».
La Unión Egipcia para los Derechos Humanos asegura que hay 400 detenciones más, que las fuerzas de seguridad les sacan por las noches de sus casas y que esta semana pararon un autobús en la calle «y agarraron, —explica Ezzar Ibrahim—, a los que tenían escrito en el carné la religión equivocada: cristianos». En el gobierno local de Giza, dirigido por el oficialista Sayyed Abdel Aziz, niegan toda esta versión «cínica y maliciosamente distorsionada» y advierten que los agredidos fueron los policías, cuando trataban de disolver a 3.000 cristianos «vándalos» que protestaban porque el Estado les ha suspendido las obras de esa «iglesia ilegal» en la que se atrincheraban. Y ya saben que no tienen ningún derecho a manifestarse.[...].

Ver notícia no ABC