=== 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

=== Hate Groups

14. Judge Sentences Supremacist Pastor in Abduction of Grandchildren.
AP, Mar. 20, 2001
http://www.apbnews.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
GAINESVILLE, Missouri (AP) _ A white supremacist pastor was sentenced to 30 years in prison for abducting six of his grandchildren and keeping them at his farm to indoctrinate them.

Circuit Judge William Mauer followed a jury's recommendation Monday in sentencing the Rev. Gordon Winrod to the maximum punishment.

Winrod, 74, was convicted on six counts of child abduction. The children remained at his secluded farm in rural southern Missouri for several years until police found them last year. They have since undergone mental health treatment in North Dakota.

The pastor of Our Savior's Church has been linked to the Christian Identity movement, which considers white Christians superior to nonwhites and Jews.

Before sentencing, Winrod insisted he was protecting the children from being abused. He repeatedly has referred to the court and the proceedings as ``the Jewdiciary'' but denies he hates Jews.

``I'm anti the same thing Jesus was,'' he said. ``There is no Jewish race, there is only a Jewish religion. I'm not an anti-Semite. That's a lie.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


15. Racist church heads to court
AP, Mar. 21, 2001
http://www.msnbc.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
SPRINGFIELD, Ill., March 21 - No one questions that the World Church of the Creator is a racist group that sells books like ''The White Man's Bible.'' No one questions that a former member went on a shooting spree and killed two people, both minorities.

But is it a charity? That's what the state Supreme Court must decide.

Attorney General Jim Ryan argues it is. He wants to punish the organization for failing to register as a charity and for not filing financial disclosure forms.
Ryan hopes to fine the church and bar it from doing further fund raising in Illinois.

But the organization and its leader, Matt Hale, insist the World Church is not a charity and never had any obligation to register. Hale argues the state law governing charities is so vague that it must be ruled unconstitutional.

A county judge backed Hale and declared the law unconstitutional in February 2000. The Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments on the case on Wednesday.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


16. Calif. Supremacist Pleads Guilty
The Associated Press, Mar. 16, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010316/aponline230656_000.htm
[Story no longer online? Read this]
SAN DIEGO -- A man who published a white supremacist Internet newsletter pleaded guilty Friday to civil rights violations for threatening a Jewish congressman and other officials and vandalizing two synagogues.

Under the plea agreement, Alex James Curtis, 25, will serve no more than three years in prison.

Curtis also agreed to apologize to his victims and to not engage in white supremacist advocacy during three additional years of probation.

Curtis published the monthly National Observer newsletter from his parents' home in a San Diego suburb until his arrest in November.
(...)

A trial is pending for a co-defendant, Michael B. DaSilva. Two other men are awaiting sentencing for their roles in what authorities called a white supremacist cell led by Curtis.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


17. Brown Students Steal Univ. Paper
The Associated Press, Mar. 17, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
BOSTON -- Brown University students stole the entire press run of an issue of the Brown Daily Herald in an apparent protest of an ad denouncing reparations for slavery that appeared in an earlier edition.
(...)

The advertisement had a headline that said, ''Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea and Racist Too'' and a layout that was similar to the Bill of Rights. It stated that black Americans owed the United States more than it owed them.

The Herald became the first Ivy League newspaper to print the ad from conservative theorist David Horowitz. It had been rejected by at least 18 college newspapers, including the Columbia Daily Spectator, the Harvard Crimson, and UMass-Amherst's Massachusetts Daily Collegian. Of those that ran it, at least four quickly apologized.
(...)

The ad has sparked similar protests at other universities, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where 100 protesters stormed the student newspaper's office last week and demanded the top editor's resignation after the newspaper ran the ad. The Badger Herald refused to apologize, saying to do so would hamper free speech.

The Daily Californian, the newspaper at the University of California at Berkley, issued a a front-page apology for running the ad, saying the newspaper was an ''inadvertent vehicle for bigotry.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


18. Brown Protest Targets Ad
Associated Press Writer, Mar. 17, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Friday's edition of Brown University's student newspaper made it to newsstands Saturday, a day late and protected by campus police because of bitter protests over an advertisement.
(...)

''It's not our place to decide which political views can be published in the paper,'' editor-in-chief Patrick Moos said. ''We want to publish everyone's views.''

In a statement Saturday, Brown Interim President Sheila Blumstein backed the paper's decision to run the ad and said the theft would be investigated. She urged students to avoid a greater confrontation.

''The most effective response to ideas - even to ideas that may be deeply offensive - is not to silence them or intimidate those who espouse or publish them, but rather to develop effective opposing arguments through wider civil discourse,'' she said.
(...)

At a meeting Thursday with the student coalition, the paper's management said it would not give the groups a free page of advertising as demanded, and also refused a request to donate the $725 paid by Horowitz to a campus minority fund.
(...)

The student coalition said Saturday it would continue its protests until the Daily Herald met its demands or ''renounces its nominal affiliation with the University.''

The newspaper receives no funding from the university.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


19. State House passes hate-crimes measure
Chicago Sun-Times, Mar. 21, 2001
http://www.suntimes.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Illinois House Tuesday backed tougher penalties for hate crimes despite concerns that legitimate religious figures might be held criminally responsible for the actions of their flocks.

Legislation sponsored by Rep. Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston) and backed by Cook County State's Attorney Dick Devine would allow prosecutors to charge hate-group leaders if their followers attack someone because of race, religion or sexual orientation.

The Senate-bound proposal also would increase penalties for hate crimes committed at or near schools, churches, synagogues or parks.

''This would give us greater opportunity to shut down those white supremacist or hate groups that have ruined lives in Illinois,'' Schoenberg said of his bill, which passed 96-10.

Rep. Terry Parke (R-Hoffman Estates), who was among seven lawmakers to vote present on the bill, said he has ''serious concerns'' that ''people of faith'' might face the threat of prosecution under the proposal.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


20. Germany Won't Stop Yahoo! Auction
AP, Mar. 22, 2001
http://news.excite.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
MUNICH, Germany (AP) - German prosecutors have decided they won't take legal action against U.S.-based Yahoo! over online auctions of Adolf Hitler's ''Mein Kampf,'' a spokesman said Thursday.

Distribution of the Nazi leader's demagogic manifesto is banned in Germany.

Manfred Wick of the state prosecutor's office in Munich said Yahoo! could not be charged with incitement to racial hatred, because the Internet giant is the provider rather than the person directly offering the service.

Yahoo! could have been charged only if it had been fully aware of the content of the online offer and been able to prevent it, Wick said. He said that was not the case.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


» Back to menu