=== Aum Shinrikyo
1. Memorial held for sarin victims; bitterness lingers
2. Sarin gas victims press for state help
3. Group urges state to aid survivors of sarin gassing

=== Falun Gong
4. Sect ban pressure is denied by Tung

=== Falun Gong - China's Government-Controlled Media
5. Reports from China's government-controlled media
6. Religion, cult different terms

=== Scientology
7. Cruise Dogged by Scientology Split Rumors
8. Columbine Counselor's Teen Sex Abuse Prompts CCHR's New Website Tracking System of Mental Health Criminals

=== Islam
9. Call to spread Islam's message on tolerance
10. Taliban Bans New Year's Celebration

=== Catholicism
11. Report: Priests, Missionaries Sexually Abuse Nuns
12. Reports of abuse

=== Mormonism
13. Mormons' Long, Strange Trip to the Mainstream

=== Hate Groups
14. Judge Sentences Supremacist Pastor in Abduction of Grandchildren.
15. Racist church heads to court
16. Calif. Supremacist Pleads Guilty
17. Brown Students Steal Univ. Paper
18. Brown Protest Targets Ad
19. State House passes hate-crimes measure
20. Germany Won't Stop Yahoo! Auction

=== House of Prayer, Atlanta
21. Pastor, 5 followers arrested in child beatings
22. Defendants have criminal records
23. Church faces abuse probe over whipping of children

=== John and Carrie Davis
24. Jailed father found dead
25. Torture suspect 'upbeat' before his death

=== Recovered Memory Therapy
26. New trial ordered in recovered-memory case
27. Brain: Some choose to lose memory

=== Other News
28. End Near For Ex-Devil Church
29. Some in Egypt shun religious freedom panel
30. Three held for distributing Christian literature

=== Science
31. Skull may alter theory of human evolution

=== Death Penalty & Other Human Rights Violations
32. Convicted Killer is Freed After His Sister Finds DNA Evidence
33. Judge bans use of electric chair

=== Noted
34. Worshippers in Paris flock to Afro-Christian cults
35. Exorcism thriving in Australia
36. A Herd of Psychics on Larry King
37. When a body can be worth $220,000

=== Books
38. Sects, death and the spirit of the age
39. Mainstream Publishers Get Religion for Christian Audience
40. Take a Web site test on religion

=== Islam

9. Call to spread Islam's message on tolerance
Dawn (Pakistan), Mar. 21, 2001
http://www.dawn.com/2001/03/21/nat5.htm
ISLAMABAD, March 20: The special representative of the director- general, Unesco, Pierre Lafrance, called upon Muslim scholars and religious leaders the world over to explain the peaceful message of Islam to the masses and the world community at large, a message which forbids the destruction of cultural and religious heritage.

Speaking at a panel discussion, organized by Sustainable Development Policy Institute on "The controversy of Buddhist monuments in Afghanistan", on Monday, the Unesco's special representative said that Islam calls on its followers to respect religious sentiments of different communities.
(...)

Quoting a verse from the Holu Quran, which asks Muslims not to insult the gods of other religions lest they insult their God out of ignorance, he said it was the responsibility of religious scholars to reconcile the conflicting arguments about destruction of statues.
[...more...]


10. Taliban Bans New Year's Celebration
AP, Mar. 20, 2001
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/010320/15/int-afghanistan-new-year
(...) Wednesday's New Year celebration has gone the way of the country's ancient Buddha statues - vanquished by the ruling Taliban, who say it is contrary to Islam.

A largely Shiite Muslim festival that came to Afghanistan from neighboring Iran, New Year was decreed a pagan celebration by the Taliban, who said it was taken from Zoroastrianism, which flourished in pre-Islamic Iran.

"We are an Islamic country and do not celebrate New Year's," the Taliban's Radio Shariat said in announcing the ban.
(...)

A poor country, ravaged by drought and relentless war, most of Afghanistan is ruled by the Taliban, whose hard-line interpretation of the Muslim holy book, the Quran, includes a ban on women working. Men are required to wear beards and pray in the mosque, and photography, music, television and most forms of light entertainment are outlawed.
[...more...]


» Back to menu