Libertad religiosa (Continuación)

ReflexionesSocial,

The last time Jewish parents had reason to fear a knock at the door while celebrating the circumcision (brit milah) of their baby boy, Stalin and his communist goons were running the Soviet Union. Democratic Germany is a far cry from the Stalin era, but a ruling by a judge in Cologne banning circumcision and subsequent criminal charges brought against a German rabbi in Bavaria have unleashed forces in Europe that legislation alone cannot defeat.

In Switzerland — a country whose national character almost never allows it to invoke another nation's practices — a number of hospitals invoked the judge's ruling to stop circumcisions.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalONU

Member states of the United Nations should ponder an alarming statistic: According to a just-released Pew Research Center study, 75 percent of people live in countries where a bedrock human right is endangered. Not all people enjoy the right to think as they please, believe or not believe as their conscience leads and live out their convictions openly and peacefully.

As members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, we can attest that a number of United Nations member countries often perpetrate or tolerate atrocious violations — including torture and murder — against the rights of their people to freedom of religion or belief.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica,

Five nuns from Our Lady of the Good Shepherd’s congregation returned to Cuba on Aug. 28 with a small statue they had taken 50 years ago when they left after Cuba’s communist revolution. As recognition of the Cuban government’s “advances” toward freedom of religion, the Episcopal Conference of Cuba noted that the religious act was “another sign of the improved relations between the church and the government.”

Interestingly, this past summer, during remarks on the State Department’s annual report on International Religious Freedom, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “Freedom of religion is not just about religion.” For Cubans, in particular, this is very true.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

The day begins here with the call to prayer and ends with the roar of gunfire. Syria’s pluralistic society, which once rose above sectarian identity in a region often characterized by a homicidal assertion of religious belief, is now faced with civil disintegration and ethnic cleansing.

In Bab Touma, the Christian quarter of the old city, the magnificently restored Ottoman mansions housing many of the hotels that only two years ago overflowed with Western tourists have become temporary sanctuaries for Syrian minorities fleeing their homes and cities.

A Christian doctor of Palestinian origin huddling with his family of four in a small room in one of the hotels was looking for a way out of the country: “My father came to Syria as a refugee,” he told me.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

More than a year has elapsed since the United States aligned itself with Syria’s Sunni-dominated opposition and the Middle East’s Sunni powers to overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad. While the United States pursues this goal in the name of the Syrian people, it is clear that its ultimate strategic objective is to render Syria, Shiite Iran’s most important regional ally, useless in its struggle for mastery of the Middle East.

To achieve its goal, the United States is employing economic sanctions, political backing for the Syrian opposition and lethal military support to the Free Syrian Army and other Sunni-dominated armed groups, channeled through Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey — all American allies with considerable democratic deficits, especially in the realm of religious and ethnic minority rights.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

It is fashionable these days for Western leaders to praise Indonesia as a model Muslim democracy. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has declared, “If you want to know whether Islam, democracy, modernity and women’s rights can coexist, go to Indonesia.” And last month Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, lauded Indonesia for showing that “religion and democracy need not be in conflict.”

Tell that to Asia Lumbantoruan, a Christian elder whose congregation outside Jakarta has recently had two of its partially built churches burned down by Islamist militants. He was stabbed by these extremists while defending a third site from attack in September 2010.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

Just a few days after Lady Gaga’s concert in Indonesia was canceled after protests by Islamic groups, I flew 1,370 kilometers from Jakarta to Padang, West Sumatra, and drove a further 130 kilometers, a four-hour journey along rough, winding roads, to Sijunjung, to visit an Indonesian atheist jailed for his beliefs.

Alex Aan, a 30-year-old civil servant, is a gentle, soft-spoken, highly intelligent young man who simply gave up his belief in God when he saw poverty, war, famine and disaster around the world.

He faces the possibility of up to six years in prison, charged with blasphemy, disseminating hatred and spreading atheism.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Hamza Kashgari visited me several times before he wrote the ill-fated tweets that led to his arrest in February and then to solitary confinement in a Riyadh prison. We discussed social, political and philosophical issues, including some that are taboo in Saudi Arabia. I warned him that his thoughts, if expressed publicly, would lead religious hard-liners to call for his blood.

I find it outrageous that in the 21st century one person could threaten another with death merely for embracing ideas other than religion, God and the prophet Muhammad. But that is exactly what happened at a weekly salon that focuses on political, religious and human rights issues.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Religious freedom is the common sense of our era. It is easy to be swept up in the hype. We are told that the guarantee of religious freedom is what stands between us and pre-modern political orders based on tyrannical forms of religious authority that leave women and minorities in the dust. If religious freedom is what you need to be for if you are against the oppression of women and minorities, then who could oppose it? Who could even question it? Religious freedom stands in for the good and the right in many complex, difficult and often violent situations.

Or does it?…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa, ,

Después de decenios de desatención y desconfianza oficiales, Turquía ha adoptado varias medidas para garantizar los derechos de las minorías religiosas no musulmanas del país y velar, así, por la aplicación por igual del Estado de derecho a todos los ciudadanos turcos, independientemente de su religión, étnica o lengua.

Entre las minorías religiosas de Turquía, figuran los ortodoxos griegos, los armenios, los asirios, los kaldani y otras denominaciones cristianas, además de los judíos, todos los cuales forman parte integral de la sociedad turca. Como parte de la nueva iniciativa del Gobierno turco para poner fin a todas las clases de discriminación contra dichas comunidades no musulmanas, el Presidente Adbullah Gül ha subrayado ese mensaje al recibir a Bartolomé, el Patriarca ortodoxo griego de Estambul, y visitar una iglesia y una sinagoga en Hatay… la primera vez que lo hacía un presidente turco.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia

Hace unos días, los miembros de una pequeña y desconocida iglesia cristiana de Florida anunciaron que quemarían ejemplares del Corán, pero además que convertirían la fecha del 11-S en el día mundial de la destrucción de cualquier obra islámica. El pastor Terry Jones, impertérrito ante la presión internacional, ha creado un enlace en Facebook que lleva el nombre de International Burn a Quran Day donde invita a colaborar con la hoguera que arderá en Gainesville el día prometido entre las seis y las nueve de la tarde.

Lo triste, lo trágico, es la cantidad de veces que este incidente ha ocurrido con consecuencias amargas.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaIglesia Católica

Quienes vivimos los tiempos de la transición pensábamos que la nueva Constitución garantizaba la posibilidad de una convivencia pacífica y tranquila entre católicos y no católicos en la nueva sociedad española. El artículo 16 de nuestra Constitución estableció las líneas generales de esta cuestión y al amparo de este artículo hemos tratado de vivir y de actuar pacíficamente durante estos años de vida democrática.

En estos últimos años parece que algunas fuerzas políticas consideran que la Constitución de 1978 es excesivamente condescendiente con la religión, en especial con la Iglesia católica. No quieren un Estado aconfesional, que respeta y favorece la libertad religiosa como parte del bien común, sin hacer suya ninguna confesión ni intervenir en la vida religiosa de los ciudadanos.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaTerrorismoInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional,

Pedro González-Trevijano, rector de la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (ABC, 09/05/04)

La declaración del Ministerio del Interior de un posible control de los cultos religiosos, y en particular, de los mensajes vertidos en las mezquitas, queriendo extender el Pacto por las Libertades y contra el Terrorismo al terrorismo islamista, ha abierto una encendida polémica en la opinión pública. Y, en lo que aquí deseamos reseñar, un debate sobre su constitucionalidad.

La materia religiosa está regulada en el artículo 16 de la Constitución de 1978 y en su normativa básica que lo desarrolla, esto es, la Ley Orgánica7/1980, de 5 de julio, de Libertad Religiosa.…  Seguir leyendo »