Pakistan: Court denies bail to Ahmadi newspaper distributors

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Police officials had registered an FIR on the complaint of Muhammad Hassan Muavia under Pakistan Penal Code and Anti Terrorist Act. It was alleged that the newspaper had blasphemous content.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: The Express Tribune
By Our Correspondent | June 19, 2013

LAHORE: A division bench of the Lahore High Court dismissed bail applications on Wednesday of two Ahmadi men with blasphemy cases registered against them at Islampur police station.

Presided by Justice Tariq Masood, the bench dismissed bail applications of Khalid Asfhaq and Tahir Mahmood after listening to cases presented by both the prosecution and the defendant.

Police officials had registered an FIR on the complaint of Muhammad Hassan Muavia under Pakistan Penal Code and Anti Terrorist Act.

The complainant had accused them of printing and distributing Jamaat-i-Ahmadia’s community newspaper, Al Fazal.

USA: Abercrombie Struggling To Prove Fired Woman's Hijab Hurt Sales: Report

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This isn't the first time Abercrombie has been in trouble over this issue. In 2009 the clothing store was found guilty of discrimination and ordered to pay $20,000 to a 19-year-old Muslim college student who was refused a job because her hijab violated the store's "Look Policy."

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch |
Source/Credit: The Huffington Post
By Hunter Stuart | June 19, 2013

Abercrombie & Fitch is having a hard time proving in court that the Muslim headscarf worn by an employee who was fired in 2010 hurt the clothing company's sales, Law360 reports.

On Tuesday, when a federal judge in California pressed attorney Mark Knueve, who is representing Abercrombie, if he or any of his witnesses had financial records to show the woman's hijab hurt sales, Knueve said he didn't.

"A defendant says we're harmed but provides no real evidence?" Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers retorted, according to the report. "And you want me to grant summary judgment [in your favor]?"

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) originally sued Abercrombie in 2011 on behalf of Hani Khan, the Muslim woman who says she was fired from a Hollister store in a California mall in 2010 because she wore a hijab to work. (Abercrombie owns Hollister.)

Faith and Science: Religious fundamentalism could soon be treated as mental illness

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The power to control the mind will tend too readily to be used as weapon against our jihadist enemies while justifying the equally irrational and murderously harmful actions we term innocously "foreign policy."

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: Digital Journal
By John Thomas Didymus | Jun 2, 2013

Kathleen Taylor, a neurologist at Oxford University, said that recent developments suggest that we will soon be able to treat religious fundamentalism and other forms of ideological beliefs potentially harmful to society as a form of mental illness.

She made the assertion during a talk at the Hay Literary Festival in Wales on Wednesday. She said that radicalizing ideologies may soon be viewed not as being of personal choice or free will but as a category of mental disorder. She said new developments in neuroscience could make it possible to consider extremists as people with mental illness rather than criminals.

She told The Times of London: "One of the surprises may be to see people with certain beliefs as people who can be treated. Someone who has for example become radicalized to a cult ideology -- we might stop seeing that as a personal choice that they have chosen as a result of pure free will and may start treating it as some kind of mental disturbance."

US: Conservatives more racist than liberals, says government-funded study

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“Conservatives… may maintain traditional boundaries associated with the hierarchical social order — and, as a result, they categorize multi-racial individuals according to the most socially subordinate group membership.”

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: The Daily Caller News
By Robby Soave | June 18, 2013

Mixed-race people are more likely to be considered black by conservatives, who are subconsciously attempting to “justify racial divisions,” said the authors of a new government-funded study.

The report, originally released earlier this month, has begun attracting criticism from those who see political bias in the results.

The study was conducted by graduate students and faculty in the psychology department of New York University. Researchers asked participants to look at pictures of mixed-race people and say whether they were black or white. The study found that conservatives were more likely to think of a mixed-race person as black than were liberal participants.

Rampant violence in Pakistani society

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One of the causes of the beginning of social frenzy is prevalent illiteracy in society while another is that the institution of the family is becoming dysfunctional and consequently, rendering the character and personality building system of individuals faulty.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch |
Source/Credit: Daily Times | Pakistan
By Dr Qaisar Rashid | June 19, 2013

Excerpt:

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Currently, Pakistani society is beset with intolerance. Certain incidents are taking place that are indicative of the fact that the intensity of violence is increasing while there is a proportional decrease in the intensity of tolerance. The range and types of violence indicate that intolerance is endemic. One of the indicators of this is that the members of society do not oppose violent incidents. Instead, they remain hushed up. Perhaps the majority considers violence the right way to mete out justice called vigilantism. Except human rights groups, not many people discourage violence in society. Thus not only an individual but the whole society is responsible for the escalation of violent trends. Violence can be tracked to the religious, political and social domains.

Indonesia fails to protect religious minorities, says US report

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The report also said that the police tended to be lenient on hard-liners that tried to implement laws that limited religious freedom.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: The Jakarta Post
By The Jakarta Post | June 18, 2013

The US Department of State’s 2012 Report on International Religious Freedom has revealed that the Indonesian government has failed to properly address the banning and assault of religious minority groups.

The annual report was released by the US Embassy in Jakarta on Tuesday.

“The Indonesian government honors the freedom to choose religion but fails to prevent violent acts toward religious minority groups,” a statement in that report said as quoted by Antara news agency.

The report said the Indonesian government respected six official religions but that some religious sects were deemed as deviant by clerics.