c. 2006 Religion News Service
Canadian Newspaper Retracts Story on Iran’s Color-Coded Badges
(RNS) Muslims welcomed an apology from Canada’s National Post newspaper for a story alleging that Iran planned to make the country’s non-Muslim religious minorities wear special badges.
Muslim groups, however, said the apology did not resolve bigger questions about what many Muslims see as the conservative newspaper’s habitual Islam-bashing.
“It’s good they retracted the story. But still unresolved is the continued anti-Muslim slant of the Post in every story that runs about the Middle East or the Muslim community,” said Tarek Fatah, communications director of the Muslim Canadian Congress, a moderate advocacy group in Toronto.
On May 19, the National Post ran a front-page story alleging that Iran’s parliament had passed an Islamic dress code law that included provisions that Jews wear yellow strips of cloth, Christians red and Zoroastrians blue. The story evoked images of Nazi Germany when Jews were forced to wear yellow Stars of David in public.
The story was based on a column that ran in the Post the same day by Iranian-born journalist Amir Taheri, who has so far stuck to his story.
“It is now clear the story is not true,” National Post editor Douglas Kelly wrote in Wednesday’s (May 24) paper. He said Taheri’s allegation “did not seem out of the question” given a recent string of anti-Semitic remarks made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
However, Kelly said the paper did not do enough reporting or exercise enough skepticism on the story. “We apologize for the mistake and the consternation it has caused.”
Activists said the Iran story disturbed North American Muslims because what happens in the Islamic world reflects on Muslims here.
“It does affect us. They’ve planted the seed in people’s head of, `Look at those Muslims again,”’ said Alia Hogben, executive director of the Canadian Council on Muslim Women in Ontario. “It’s not just Ahmadinejad that people see when they read these stories, they see all Muslims.”
Hogben, whose own group helped block an effort to introduce Islamic law into Ontario’s family law system, added that such stories make it harder for moderate Muslims like her to fight extremism.
“You’re constantly fighting a rear-guard battle. We have to go around explaining ourselves and correcting this kind of stuff instead of doing our job of fighting for human rights,” she said.
_ Omar Sacirbey
Nepal Declares Itself Secular, Ends Official Hindu Rule
(RNS) Nepal, which until recently proclaimed itself the world’s only official Hindu kingdom, has proclaimed itself a “secular state” with equal rights for all its citizens.
The decision was announced May 18 by the country’s reconvened parliament following prolonged pro-democracy protest rallies and has been welcomed by several religious leaders.
Since February 2005, when King Gyanendra engineered a military-backed coup, the Royal Nepal Army had been the de facto administrator of the country, with control over the police force and central bureaucracy.
Last month, pro-democracy movements led by seven major political parties finally forced the king to reconvene the parliament he had earlier dissolved, and appoint a senior politician as prime minister and head of a new government.
The reconvened parliament issued a proclamation ending the absolute power of the monarchy and also declaring Nepal a secular state. Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala said the move would protect the rights of the nation’s indigenous peoples and minorities.
Roman Catholics throughout Nepal offered prayers of thanksgiving at weekend Masses and Buddhist, Christian and tribal groups also welcomed the country’s new secular status.
Robert Gurung, a member of the Good Hope Pentecostal Church, said the decision was “revolutionary and democratic. It will ensure justice among the different religious, cultural and linguistic minorities in the country.”
Pasang Sherpa, secretary-general of the Confederation of Indigenous and Ethnic Groups of Nepal, said: “With this declaration, the nation has moved towards ensuring social justice and harmony. In a democracy, minorities cannot be marginalized. Nepal is starting a new chapter now.”
Kesab Adhikari, a senior teacher in a school within Nepal’s holiest Hindu temple complex of Pasupathinath, expressed anguish over the declaration. “If we ran a referendum, 80 percent would still be for calling Nepal a Hindu state,” he said.
_ Achal Narayanan
Clergy Group Warns of Porn Sites Linked to Civil Rights Names
(RNS) Two Boston-based religious groups are cautioning churches and parents about Web sites _ including two featuring the names of civil rights leaders _ that may lead unsuspecting children to pornography.
TechMission, a nationwide ministry that assists churches in boosting computer literacy, started drawing attention to the sites MartinLutherKing.com and JesseJackson.com after learning about them in April.
“I think it’s disgusting to use the names of civil rights leaders to attract kids in urban communities to porn sites,” said Andrew Sears, executive director of TechMission. “It’s against everything that they stood for.”
His organization has worked with the Black Ministerial Alliance of Greater Boston by holding workshops and distributing information that will help parents get free filtering software to prevent their children from being exposed to porn sites.
“I think it’s terrible. I think it’s predatory,” said Harold Sparrow, executive director of the interdenominational alliance of dozens of Boston-area churches and ministries.
Noting that children doing searches on civil rights leaders could be lured to porn sites, he said, “I think it’s taking advantage of young people.”
When computer users type the names of the two sites, they get an on-screen message that reads in red letters: “Warning! No children allowed! You must be at least 18 years old to enter!” Another click leads to http://www.clubpink.com, which features partially nude women clad in lingerie.
In a related case involving clubpink.com, actor Robert Downey Jr. filed a complaint against Mercedita Kyamko of the Philippines, who was cited as the person registering a domain name featuring his name that “automatically resolved” to the clubpink.com site, according to documents of the World Intellectual Property Organization. In 2004, an administrative panel of the organization’s Arbitration and Mediation Center transferred the domain name to Downey.
_ Adelle M. Banks
Report Says Population Shifts, Rising Costs Hurting Catholic Schools
WASHINGTON (RNS) As Catholic families move from cities to the suburbs and tuition increases, the number of Catholic elementary schools is dropping, according to a new study by Georgetown University.
The study by Georgetown’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate showed 6,574 Catholic elementary schools in the United States _ 339 fewer than in the 2000-2001 school year, a decrease of about 5 percent.
Eight out of 10 Catholic school closings occurred in the Mid-Atlantic region of Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the District of Columbia, and in the Great Lakes states of Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Indiana.
The study, which included a national poll of Catholic parents, lists several theories for the decline, including fewer Catholics regularly attending Mass and families moving from Rust Belt to Sun Belt states.
“The Catholic Church built a school system for the early 20th century for the Catholic population in that particular time,” said researcher Mark M. Gray, adding that “the schools remained in place, but people moved.”
In addition, tuition is rising to meet mounting costs of operating parochial schools. The report said the cost of sending a first child to Catholic school has increased 17.8 percent in the past five years.
The report also stressed that only 15 percent of Catholic schools are in areas eligible for publicly funded vouchers, tax credit or scholarship programs, and that hurts parents who otherwise might want to enroll their children.
While the report’s authors called the survey results “painful,” they said there is reason to be “cautiously positive.” Demand for Catholic schools is strong in Southern and Western states, as well as in New England, and some community schools have waiting lists.
(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLLOWS)
The poll showed 76 percent of parents believe Catholic schools are better than public schools at teaching good morals and values, and most respondents said they provided higher academic standards and better discipline.
Still, 66 percent felt that Catholic schools are primarily for middle- and upper-class children, and 57 percent believed that public schools are a better financial value.
“Overall, Catholic elementary schools are healthy,” the report said. “However, few if any of these campuses operate without needs, and some are dangerously close to closing their doors.”
The study surveyed 269 pastors, 510 principals, 143 diocesan superintendents of education, and a national random sample of 1,419 Catholic parents.
_ Piet Levy
Quote of the Day: Washington Post Editorial Writer Ruth Marcus
(RNS) “Occasional drop-bys and clunky dropping of biblical references aren’t going to do the trick. These voters weren’t born again yesterday.”
_ Washington Post editorial writer Ruth Marcus, discussing Democrats’ attempts to persuade evangelical Christian voters to consider their political party.
KRE/PH END RNS
