Israeli Girl at Center of Tension Over Religious Extremism

NYTimes.com: An Israeli weekend television program told the story of how Naama had become terrified of walking to her elementary school here after ultra-Orthodox men spit on her, insulted her and called her a prostitute because her modest dress did not adhere exactly to their more rigorous dress code.
The country was outraged. Naama’s picture has appeared on the front pages of all the major Israeli newspapers. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Sunday that “Israel is a democratic, Western, liberal state” and pledged that “the public sphere in Israel will be open and safe for all,” there have been days of confrontation at focal points of friction here.
Ultra-Orthodox men and boys from the most stringent sects have hurled rocks and eggs at the police and journalists, shouting “Nazis” at the security forces and assailing female reporters with epithets like “shikse,” a derogatory Yiddish term for a non-Jewish woman or girl, and “whore.”

Afghan woman being forced to marry her rapist

RAWA News: Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Afghan prosecutors announced Wednesday that a young rape victim, jailed for adultery after reporting the crime and pushed into marrying her attacker, would have her sentence reduced from twelve to three years. The prosecutor said she would, for now, remain in jail -- with her child -- for not reporting her attack fast enough.

Gulnaz is in Kabul's Badam Bagh jail, serving out her sentence with her rapist's child. (Photo: CNN)
In a remarkable case that is all too common in Afghanistan but has drawn international attention, 21-year-old Gulnaz was attacked by a relative two years ago, but sentenced to 12 years in jail for adultery.
She has since given birth to a girl from the attack. Because of the dishonor of sex outside of wedlock, she had been given the choice of marrying her attacker to get out of jail and legitimize her infant daughter in the eyes of Afghanistan's conservative society.
The child is imprisoned with her at Badambagh Prison on the outskirts of Kabul.

barbarism

The Teen Suicide Epidemic in Michele Bachmann's District

110% absolutely guaranteed hetero 

Is Michelle Bachmann fomenting teen suicide ? Via Pharyngula:

Mother Jones: "The first was TJ. Then came Samantha, Aaron, Nick, and Kevin. Over the past two years, a total of nine teenagers have committed suicide in a Minnesota school district represented by Rep. Michele Bachmann—the latest in May—and many more students have attempted to take their lives. State public health officials have labeled the area a 'suicide contagion area' because of the unusually high death rate.

Some of the victims were gay, or perceived to be by their classmates, and many were reportedly bullied. And the anti-gay activists who are some of the congresswoman's closest allies stand accused of blocking an effective response to the crisis and fostering a climate of intolerance that allowed bullying to flourish. Bachmann, meanwhile, has been uncharacteristically silent on the tragic deaths that have roiled her district—including the high school that she attended.

Bachmann, who began her political career as an education activist, has described gay rights as an 'earthquake issue,' and she and her allies have made public schools the front lines of their fight against the 'homosexual agenda.' They have opposed efforts in the state to promote tolerance for gays and lesbians in the classroom, seeing such initiatives as a way of allowing gays to recruit impressionable youths into an unhealthy and un-Christian lifestyle."

Horrible people.

Theravada Buddhist monks walk away from sex-abuse allegations

chicagotribune.com:

"A Tribune review of sexual abuse cases involving several Theravada Buddhist temples found minimal accountability and lax oversight of monks accused of preying on vulnerable targets.

Because they answer to no outside ecclesiastical authority, the temples respond to allegations as they see fit. And because the monks are viewed as free agents, temples claim to have no way of controlling what they do next. Those found guilty of wrongdoing can pack a bag and move to another temple — much to the dismay of victims, law enforcement and other monks.

'You'd think they'd want to make sure these guys are not out there trying to get into other temples,' said Rishi Agrawal, the attorney for a victim of a west suburban monk convicted of battery for sexual contact last fall. 'What is the institutional approach here? It seems to be ignorance and inaction.'"

more abuse by the church

Claims of abuse flood Munich diocese: "The head of a task force set up to deal with sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests in the pope's former archdiocese in Germany has been inundated by a 'tsunami' of claims.

Reports have emerged almost daily of sex abuse cases involving Catholic clergy in several European countries. The controversy threatens to overshadow a letter the Pope is to release on similar scandals in Ireland.

Fresh claims have emerged that Benedict XVI failed to do enough to safeguard children from pedophile priests when, as Joseph Ratzinger, he was archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982. 'It's like a tsunami,' said Elke Huemmeler, the female head of the diocese's newly established Task Force on Sexual Abuse Prevention.

Yesterday, the body began reviewing about 120 cases of alleged sexual abuse. Around 100 involve a boarding school run by Benedictine monks at Ettal, in southern Bavaria.

The most damaging revelation is that the then archbishop allowed a priest accused of molesting an 11 year-old boy elsewhere to move to his diocese in order to undergo 'therapy' in 1980."

The pope's entire career has the stench of evil about it

Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine: "The Roman Catholic Church is headed by a mediocre Bavarian bureaucrat once tasked with the concealment of the foulest iniquity, whose ineptitude in that job now shows him to us as a man personally and professionally responsible for enabling a filthy wave of crime. Ratzinger himself may be banal, but his whole career has the stench of evil—a clinging and systematic evil that is beyond the power of exorcism to dispel."

Bangladeshi Rape Victim Receives 101 Lashes for Becoming Pregnant

via Unreasonable Faith:

"Her rape emerged after her pregnancy test and Muslim elders in the village issued a fatwa insisting that the girl be kept in isolation until her family agreed to corporal punishment.

Her rapist was pardoned by the elders. She told the newspaper the rapist had “spoiled” her life.

“I want justice,” she said."

Good luck with that.

Baptist group trafficking in children?

an organized christian gang was nabbed smuggling children, some who claim to still have parents, to the Dominican Republic, a hotbed of child prostitution.  Appalling.

msnbc.com:

"PORT-AU-PRINCE - Ten American Baptists were being held in the Haitian capital Sunday after trying take 33 children out of Haiti at a time of growing fears over possible child trafficking.

The director of the charity now watching the children told NBC News that one child said she still had parents and was only expecting a brief vacation.

He added that a policeman believed the group was trying to sell the children for $10,000 each, an allegation denied by the church members."

Bishop Lahey child porn plea expected Feb. 3

Happy Sunday

CBC News - Ottawa - :

 "The case of a Roman Catholic bishop facing child pornography charges has been put off again until Feb. 3, when he's expected to enter a plea.

Raymond Lahey was charged in September with possessing and importing child pornography —10 days after he was detained by customs officers at the Ottawa airport upon arriving aboard a flight from Britain."