c. 2000 Religion News Service
Farrakhan Announces Million Family March
(RNS) Five years after the Million Man March brought thousands of African-American men to the nation’s capital in a demonstration of racial unity and pride, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan appeared Friday (July 14) in Washington calling for a multiracial, interfaith Million Family March scheduled for October.
“When there is no strong marriage and no strong family, there is no strong community,” said Farrakhan, according to Cox News Service.
About 10,000 new couples will be married and 1 million couples will renew their vows during the Oct. 16 event, said Farrakhan, adding that the march will stress the Nation of Islam’s beliefs about poverty, education, drugs, crime, and African and Caribbean relations.
Farrakhan said he would continue addressing the needs of the African-American community, but would also turn his attention to the “universal cry of the human family.”
“We are all members of the human family, though we are not quite yet human,” Farrakhan said, according to the Washington Post. “When you look at the wars that are raging in the world, the tribal hatred in Africa, in Asia, the religious hatred, we have not yet become human.”
WCC: International Help Needed to Stop Sectarian Violence in Indonesia
(RNS) Charging the Indonesian military has “miserably failed in discharge of their duties,” the World Council of Churches has appealed to the United Nations human rights officer to ask Indonesia’s government to put a stop to months of violence between Christians and Muslims in the country’s eastern islands.
“The Indonesian government should be asked to take steps to effectively stop the entry of invaders into the Malukus region,” the Rev. Konrad Raiser, WCC general secretary, said in a letter to U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson. “The government should also immediately bring to trial those guilty of committing human rights violations.”
Though Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid imposed civil emergency in the Maluku provinces in June, the sectarian violence that has plagued Christians and Muslims for the past 18 months and claimed more than 2,000 lives “continues unabated, resulting in grave and serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity,” Raiser wrote.
“The recent attacks of the intruders indicate a design to annihilate Christians or force them out of the Malukus,” he said.
On Monday (July 17), Wahid made his own appeal to the international community for help in the Maluku provinces, once known as the Spice Islands.
“I have ordered the governor (of Maluku province) to work as hard as he can to control the situation,” Wahid told regional administrators during a meeting. “If the outcome is still not satisfactory after we have done our best, we may ask for international help in the form of equipment and logistics.”
For months Wahid had rejected Christian demands for international intervention in the Maluku provinces.
His remarks to the regional administrators came a day after videotape from the Associated Press Television News revealed soldiers with the Indonesian military helping Muslims attack a Christian neighborhood in Indonesia.
Christians in the provinces have long maintained that Muslim paramilitary attacks on Christian communities have been aided by some members of the Indonesian military.
“They’re not willing to stop the fighting,” said Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Tethool, who works in the provincial capital of Ambon. “We appeal again for neutral forces from overseas to mediate between the warring groups.”
New Religious Liberty Bill Introduced on Capitol Hill
(RNS) A new religious liberty bill has been introduced in Congress that would offer some of the same protections included in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was struck down by the Supreme Court.
The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 was introduced by Rep. Charles Canady, R-Fla., on July 13. It would prevent zoning laws from discriminating against religious assemblies or religious exercise unless there was a compelling government reason for a restriction. It also would allow individuals in mental hospitals or prisons to exercise their religious faith if doing so did not undermine the security and order of their institutions.
The measure is co-sponsored by Reps. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, and Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. A similar bill was introduced by Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., July 14.
“Since the founding of our Republic, religious liberty has been at the heart of the American experience,” Canady said in a statement. “RLUIPA provides important protection for people of faith from the overreaching power of government.”
Canady’s office said groups supporting the legislation include the Christian Legal Society, the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the National Council of Churches, B’nai B’rith, the National Council on Islamic Affairs and the U.S. Catholic Conference.
The Baptist Joint Committee welcomed the proposed legislation.
“This bipartisan legislation will protect a right that is foundational in our country _ the right to worship free from unnecessary governmental interference,” said Melissa Rogers, general counsel of the Washington-based Baptist Joint Committee.
“RLUIPA recognizes … that a home Bible study or prayer gathering should be treated with at least as much dignity as a Tupperware party or a backyard barbecue.”
The Supreme Court struck down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1997, saying Congress overstepped its authority and infringed on states’ rights when it passed the legislation.
Some groups withdrew their support for a proposed Religious Liberty Protection Act last year, saying it might give religious rights a higher priority than gay rights in certain cases. Nevertheless, the House passed the Religious Liberty Act last year, but no action has been taken on the measure in the Senate.
The latest proposal is viewed as a compromise addressing areas where groups believe there has been substantial religious discrimination.
British Jews Elect First Woman President
(RNS) The Board of Deputies of British Jews elected its first-ever woman president on Sunday (July 16), Jo Wagerman, 63, previously one of the board’s three vice presidents.
The board, which dates from 1760, is made up of representatives of some 400 synagogues and Jewish organizations but does not include representatives of the ultra-Orthodox Haredi community, the fastest growing sector within British Jewry and comprising about 10 percent of British Jews affiliated with a synagogue.
Wagerman, who will serve as president for three years, was headmistress of the Jewish Free School in Kentish Town, north London from 1983 to 1993. She subsequently worked with the boxing champion Lennox Lewis to establish the Lennox Lewis College in Haringey, north London.
Beijing Resumes Attacks on Falun Gong
(RNS) Anticipating widespread protests ahead of the first anniversary of Beijing’s crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement, China attacked the group’s founder as “a running dog” of foreign governments in a commentary published Monday (July 17) in the state’s official newspaper.
“Using extremely poisonous words to attack the Communist Party leadership and our country’s socialist institutions has totally exposed his ugly face as a running dog of Western enemy forces,” said the commentary about Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, published in the Communist Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper.
The commentary charged Li with “inciting `Falun Gong’ practitioners to `come forward’ to continue resistance to the government,” the Associated Press reported. The article also revived Beijing’s accusations against Falun Gong, accusing the group of aspiring for political office, causing some 1,500 deaths and taking money from followers.
The remarks came just days before the anniversary Thursday (July 20) of the government’s crackdown on the group. The movement _ which uses a combination of traditional Chinese exercises and Buddhist and Taoist principles _ was banned in July of last year after Chinese leaders decided the group was a threat to the Communist Party.
Since then, Chinese authorities have arrested thousands of Falun Gong practitioners and sentenced movement leaders to prison terms as long as 18 years.
Update: Two More Doomsday Group Members Sentenced to Death
(RNS) Two former leaders of a Japanese doomsday spiritual group were sentenced to death Monday (July 17) for their participation in a 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo subways during rush hour.
Toru Toyoda, 32, and Kenichi Hirose, 36, were two of five members of the Aum Shinri Kyo (“Supreme Truth”) religious group accused of releasing the poisonous sarin nerve gas in a March 20, 1995, attack on Tokyo subway trains during morning rush hour, the Associated Press reported. The attack left 12 people dead and thousands sickened.
The Tokyo District Court sentenced the group’s driver _ 41-year-old Shigeo Sugimoto _ to life in prison for his participation in the nerve gas attack, according to the Kyodo News Agency.
Though all three confessed to the crimes, they insisted they had been brainwashed by group leader Shoko Asahara, who is accused of orchestrating the Tokyo attack and more than 15 other crimes.
The three were also charged with planning to manufacture about 1,000 automatic rifles. Toyoda was accused of mailing a bomb to a former Tokyo governor in 1995 in an unsuccessful murder attempt, and Sugimoto was accused of plotting with Asahara and other group followers to murder two fellow Aum members about six years ago.
Japanese courts have already sentenced two members of Aum Shinri Kyo (Yasuo Hayashi, 42, and Masato Yokoyama, 35) to death by hanging. Three others have received life sentences.
The group, which is now known as Aleph, has apologized for the subway attacks and has offered compensation to victims. More than 2,000 people are believed to belong to the group, which the Japanese government placed under three-year surveillance in February.
Quote of the day: The Rev. Gideon Byamugisha, Ugandan Anglican priest
(RNS) “AIDS is a complex issue, like the Virgin birth, the Resurrection and the Trinity. If you have taught something for 2,000 years, it takes time to change.”
_ The Rev. Gideon Byamugisha, a HIV-positive Anglican priest in Uganda, referring to Christian teaching on human sexuality and the church’s resistance to dealing with AIDS. He was quoted by Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.
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