=== Aum Shinrikyo
1. AUM guru may undergo mental tests

=== Falun Gong
2. falungong leader savages ''wicked'' Chinese leadership
3. China's crackdown on falungong sect rooted in fear and ignorance: members
4. China Jails 13 More Falun Gong Activists

=== Unification Church
5. Ministers upset by Moon visit
6. Rev. Moon's event raises local hackles
7. In Oakland, Moon Stresses Family
8. Rev. Moon delivers message in Oakland
9. The Reverend Moon's Comeback

=== Islam
10. 2 Bamyan Buddhas completely destroyed, reports AIP
11. Taliban vows to keep thumbing nose at the world
12. Taliban close BBC Kabul office
13. The anti-Buddhist fury in Afghanistan

=== Catholicism
14. Ranking Congressmen Support Suspect Religious Group

=== Mormonism
15. Skinhead Church
16. 'It Isn't A Sunday Religion. It's A Lifetime Change.'

=== Hate Groups
17. FindLaw Forum: Court should have heard KKK case
18. Haider the Rightist Is Firing Up Vienna's Election With Slurs

=== Other News
19. Novato 'Diploma Mill' Shut Down by State
20. Leader Of Religious Group, Son Charged With Molestation
21. Man charged with DUI and fired after drinking kava sues employer
22. Elementary may be closed due to polygamists withdrawal
23. 'Fairy' pictures fetch £6,000

=== Faith-Based Initiatives

24. Christian leaders pan Bush's faith plan
25. Cult fear hits Bush plan to fund by faith
26. Poll: Americans approve of Bush
27. Delay on Faith-Aid Plan Puts Time on Bush's Side
28. Senate To Introduce Religion Plan

=== Human Rights Violations

29. Amnesty International Condemns Sentencing of 14-year-old Boy to Life Imprisonment Without Possibility of Parole

=== Noted
30. Hearing From Dearly Departed Proves a Hit on Sci-Fi Channel

=== Trends
31. Claim of 'Post-Denominational Era' Defied
32. It's chic to be a Protestant in France


=== Islam

10. 2 Bamyan Buddhas completely destroyed, reports AIP
Kyodo (Japan), Mar. 14, 2001
http://home.kyodo.co.jp/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
ISLAMABAD March 14 Kyodo - Destruction of the two towering images of Buddha carved into a cliff in Afghanistan's Bamyan Province has been completed, ''with no trace of the statues left,'' the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) quoted a Taliban minister as saying Wednesday.
(...)

The two Buddhas, measuring 53 meters and 38 meters and carved into a cliff in Bamyan about 100 kilometers northwest of Kabul, were created before the region fell under the influence of Islam. One was the world's tallest standing Buddha.

''The Taliban have committed a crime against culture,'' UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura said Monday after confirming from his special envoy that the Bamyan figures were wrecked.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


11. Taliban vows to keep thumbing nose at the world
Mainichi Daily News (Japan), Mar. 14, 2001
http://www.mainichi.co.jp/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Mainichi Correspondent Exclusive ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Afghanistan's fundamentalist rulers are ''quite prepared'' to continue to thumb their noses at the rest of the world, Afghani Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil told the Mainichi in an exclusive interview here.
(...)

''We are prepared to face that matter directly,'' Muttawakil said when the Mainichi asked whether the Taliban feared global ostracism.

The Taliban has controlled most of Afghanistan for the past five years, though few countries recognize it as the country's rightful government. The Taliban has imposed a strict Islamic code on the areas it rules. The same code was used to justify obliterating the 1,500-year-old Bamiyan Buddhas.

Muttawakil was quick to deny any motive deeper than doctrine for the annihilation of the statues, saying the cultural and historical vandalism was motivated entirely by religion.

''Under the Shariah [the highest form of Islamic law], preservation of Buddhist images is prohibited,'' Muttawakil told the Mainichi during the interview at the Afghani Embassy in Islamabad. He added that Buddhist images had been destroyed after their removal from Afghani galleries and museums, which will now be used only to hold works of fine art.
(...)

Muttawakil also confirmed that the decision to ransack Buddhist images across the country was not one made solely by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
''The edict [ordering the destruction of Buddhist images] was not his decision. It was a fatwa [Islamic religious order] issued upon agreement by religious scholars throughout all of Afghanistan and carried out by the government,'' Muttawakil said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


12. Taliban close BBC Kabul office
Kyodo (Japan), Mar, 14, 2001
http://home.kyodo.co.jp/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
ISLAMABAD March 14 Kyodo - The ruling Afghan Taliban closed Wednesday the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) office in Kabul and ordered its correspondent, Kate Clark, to leave within 24 hours, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported.

The AIP report said that a statement issued by the Information Ministry in Kabul has accused the BBC of intensifying propaganda against the Taliban by using derogatory words such as ''illiterate'' and calling the decision to destroy pre-Islamic Buddha statues as ''primitive.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

The Taliban are, of course, best described as ''barbaric'':
1 a : of, relating to, or characteristic of barbarians b : possessing or characteristic of a cultural level more complex than primitive savagery but less sophisticated than advanced civilization
2 a : marked by a lack of restraint : WILD b : having a bizarre, primitive, or unsophisticated quality

(Note: RNR has no offices in Afghanistan)

13 The anti-Buddhist fury in Afghanistan
Japan Times (Japan), Mar. 14, 2001
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- Indignation at the ongoing destructive fury of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia has been unanimous, with protests coming from the Muslim as well as the non-Muslim world. In fact, the recent destruction of the unique Buddhist monuments in Bamiyan prompts reflection on the huge gap between blind religious fanaticism and tolerance and moderation.

First, it has to be stressed that the present fury flies in the face of the Koran: The fountainhead of the Muslim faith ''does not condemn other religious traditions as false or incomplete, but shows each new prophet as confirming and continuing the insights of his predecessors,'' writes Karen Armstrong in her ''History of God.'' Ismail al Faruqi, an authority on Islam and comparative religion, attributes the diversity of religions to history and reminds everyone of the principle of ''al din al hanif,'' the primordial religion of God, the converging point of mankind before acculturation.
(...)

This is one dimension of contrast to the Taliban's action. The second is the diametrically opposed spirit of tolerance permeating all Buddhist teaching.

This great religious system expanded to every part of Asia -- latterly even to the West -- and was always characterized by a spirit of assimilation. Some friction did occur, but in general the faith absorbed pre-existing beliefs to a point where clear distinction is now often difficult.
(...).

Even within Buddhism itself, it is natural that differences of opinion have surfaced over time. One hears of various ''schools'' and equates this, with a Western logic, to noisy antagonisms, if not imputations of heresy. But the truth is quite different: The famous Chinese pilgrims to India from the fourth to the ninth centuries A.D. testify that despite the early Buddhist split into 18 schools, ''bhikkhus belonging to different schools could be found living together in the same monastery, practicing and conducting communal business in peace and harmony.''

The imposing Buddhas of Bamiyan and many other priceless Afghan Buddhist artifacts are now dust, to the loss not only of the cultural heritage of that torn country, but of all humanity.

Still, it is the religious fanatics' very ruthlessness that will prove their undoing in the long run. Not only that, but their brutality will provide a stark contrast, forcefully reminding the world of the Buddha's supreme message of harmony and moderation, of an inspiring ''middle way'' in all human situations in an impermanent world.

_George Sioris, a former ambassador of Greece to Japan, is president emeritus of the Asiatic Society of Japan and president of the Center for Japanese and Asian Studies in Athens. He is a contributing adviser to The Japan Times._
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


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