#religious persecution

[odinsblog]

Russia first occupied the southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol in early March 2022. And Russian Secret Services, after persecuting pro-Ukrainian activists, former government officials and human rights defenders, have since targeted the churches and their pastors and congregants.

All across Russian-occupied Ukraine, soldiers are shutting down places of worship that don't fit the world Vladimir Putin wants to build.

(continue reading)

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Two groups in the Canadian Sikh diaspora are calling for Canada's political parties to "present a united front" on India after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a "potential link" between the shooting death of a local leader and the Indian government.

In a joint statement, the Ontario Gurdwaras Committee and the British Columbia Gurdwaras Council say that "Canadian parties of all stripes must be unequivocally clear" about their opposition to possible foreign interference relating to the death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"Religious persecution is when you are prevented from exercising your beliefs, NOT when you are prevented from imposing your beliefs."

Your religion holds no special or protected status. Expecting to impose your beliefs onto others is an invitation for others to impose their beliefs onto you.

[lucifinaspissed]

[atheostic]

"Stalin was an atheist, so atheism is bad!"

Okay, let's assume for the sake of argument that you're right.

Now let's see a small sample of atrocities by religious people, shall we?

Atrocity - Number of people killed

Warsaw pogrom - 2

Boston Massacre - 5

Częstochowa pogrom - 14

Porvenir Massacre - 15

Brussels Pogrom - 20 (rest of community exiled)

Assassinations over abortion rights - 23 (not a complete number - just what I could find with a quick search)

Salem Witch Trials - 25

Pinsk massacre - 36

Vilna offensive - 65

Basel massacre (pogrom) - 600 (plus 100 kids forced to convert to Christianity)

Worms massacre - 800

Black War - 878

Lisbon Pogrom - 1,000+

Conquest of the Desert - 1,300

Proskurov pogrom - 1,700

Aragon and Flanders massacres - 2,000

9/11 - 2,996

Erfurt Pogrom - 3,000

Massacre of the French in Sicily - 3,000

Trail of Tears - 3,464

Massacre of Verden - 4,500

Genocide of Native Tasmanians - 6,708

1391 Pogroms - 10,000

Massacre of the Rhineland Jews - 12,000

Iași pogrom - 13,266

Massacre at Béziers - 15,000+

1098 Ma'rra massacre - 20,000

Rintfleisch massacres - 20,000

Australian Frontier Wars - 22,249

Parsley Massacre - 24,393

Reign of Terror - 26,272

Kyrgiz Massacre - 28,460

Witch trials of the early modern period - 44,721

Herero & Namaqua Genocide - 61,156

Decossackization - 70,711

Spanish Repressions of Dutch Protestants (80 Years War) - 100,000

Antisemitic pogroms in the Russian Empire - 115,039

Iceni Revolt - 150,000

Albigensian Crusade - 200,000

Inquisition - 300,000

Cromwelian Conquest of Ireland - 400,000

Kitos War - 440,000

Circassian Genocide - 447,214

Bar Kokhba Revolt - 580,000

Partition of India - 632,456

French Conquest of Algeria - 707,107

Italian Conquest of the Horn of Africa - 1,000,000

Gallic Wars - 1,000,000

Rwandan Genocide - 1,234,190

Punic Wars - 1,850,000

Jewish–Roman Wars - 2,000,000

French Wars of Religion - 2,828,427

30 Years' War - 5,873,670

Holocaust - 17,000,000

Crusades - 20,000,000

Colonization of the Americas - 34,047,026

If I did my calculations right, that's 91,298,812 people in just a small sample.

You still wanna go there?

[jynjackets]

Trying to get exempt from my exam today because it’s a holiday (rogue one anniversary)

[swiftsnowmane]

A former leader of the Iranian Baha’i community says the Islamic Republic gives them no chance of “leading a normal life” on account of their faith.

“For forty-five years, we Baha’is have been constantly disqualified from leading a normal life in our ancestral homeland,” Mahvash Sabet, a former member of the Baha’i community’s leadership group wrote in a letter from Tehran’s Evin Prison.

She reflected on the impact of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, stating, "Our ancestral homeland was abruptly taken from us, and we became 'the others'." Sabet recounted the misfortunes suffered by the Baha’i community, including the execution of nearly 250 of its members and the confiscation of assets belonging to many others.

The Shia clergy consider the Baha’i faith as a heretical sect. With approximately 300,000 adherents in Iran, Baha’is face systematic persecution, discrimination, and harassment. They are barred from public sector employment and, in certain instances, have been terminated from private sector jobs due to pressure from authorities.

In her letter, a copy of which was received by Iran International, Sabet has used the term “disqualified” (radd-e salahiyat) to describe Iranian Baha’is deprivation of civil and human rights including freedom of religion, the right to higher education, and most jobs.

In the context of ideological screening primarily carried out by security and intelligence bodies, Radd-e salahiyat means “found disqualified” for a position or status. Screening is conducted in a wide range of situations including higher education, civil service, participation in national sports teams, and elections.

Belief in the absolute guardianship and rule of a jurisprudent cleric (velayat-e motlaqqeh-ye faqih) and the Constitution of the Islamic Republic as a governing system are two of the fundamental requirements for being “qualified” in these situations.

Sabet, now seventy-one, was dismissed from her job as a school principal after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. She has been consistently denied the opportunity to publish her poetry in Iran, where books undergo scrutiny and rejection not solely based on their content, but often due to the authors' ideology, religion, or private lives.

In her letter, Sabet, who has spent nearly twelve years in prison for her faith, reveals that authorities appropriated a sand processing factory her husband had been constructing just a week before its launch. “He was disqualified, too!” she wrote in her letter.

In 2009, seven leaders of the Baha’i community, collectively known as Yaran (friends or helpers), including Sabet, were arrested. They were sentenced by a revolutionary court to 20 years in prison on fabricated charges, including "insulting" Islamic sanctities, propaganda against the regime, and alleged spying for Israel, for which the prosecutor had sought death sentences.

Some of the charges, including espionage, were dropped by an appeal court in 2010, resulting in a reduction of their sentences to 10 years. However, authorities reinstated the original 20-year sentences in 2011.

All members of the Yaran group were released from prison between September 2017 and December 2018. However, Sabet and Fariba Kamalabadi, another female member of the group, were arrested again on August 1, 2022.

Both women endured months of solitary confinement while awaiting their trial. In December, they were handed another decade-long prison term for "forming a group to act against national security," a sentence they are currently serving.

[randyite]

News from the front of the War On Christmas

[eretzyisrael]

[thepastisalreadywritten]

This is one of the most haunting sculptures ever produced. 🩶

It's a depiction of Saint Bartholomew, one of Christ's twelve apostles, who brought Christianity to India and Armenia in the 1st century.

Like many Christian martyrs, he suffered an excruciating demise — a common account tells that he was skinned alive and then beheaded, in punishment for converting the king of Armenia to the faith.

This terrifying piece is by Renaissance artist Marco d’Agrate (c. 1504 – c. 1574).

It's a rare example of an écorché (a figure showing the muscles of the body without skin) in sculpture, produced in exquisite detail from a block of marble in 1562.

The "cloak" you see draped over the apostle's shoulder is not clothing but his own skin.

Bartholomew wears it proudly, clutching the knife that flayed him. Despite his torment, he stands defiant and stern in expression — quite literally wearing his own suffering.

According to legend, Bartholomew continued preaching to a rapt audience after his executors had flayed him.

The contrapposto stance and determined glare make an interesting parallel to Michelangelo's "David."

But d’Agrate went one further — the subject here is (literally) stripped bare with remarkable anatomical precision, the result of d’Agrate's careful study of the human body.

Every vein, muscle and tendon are represented in minute detail.

The unique sculpture has lived at Milan Cathedral for nearly five centuries, reminding visitors of the power of enduring faith in the face of religious persecution.

—

Milan Cathedral is the cathedral church of Milan, Lombardy, Italy.

Dedicated to the Nativity of St. Mary (Santa Maria Nascente), it is the seat of the Archbishop of Milan, currently Archbishop Mario Delpini.

The cathedral took nearly six centuries to complete: construction began in 1386, and the final details were completed in 1965.

It is the largest church in the Italian Republic — the larger St. Peter's Basilica is in the State of Vatican City, a sovereign state and the third largest in the world.

[ancestorsalive]

[cavalierzee]

On Suspicion Of Being Muslim

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

“When you are stopped from imposing your religious beliefs on the rest of society, it’s not ‘persecution,’ it’s called enlightenment.”

-- Faisal Saeed Al-Mutar

[divinum-pacis]

April 9, 2023: Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, leads the Easter Sunday Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead, in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Since the rise of Israel's most right-wing government in history, church leaders say the 2,000 year old Christian community in Jerusalem has come under increasing attack, with an uptick in harassment of clergy and vandalism of religious properties. Several church leaders, including the head of the Roman Catholic Church in the region, told the Associated Press they fear that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ultranationalist coalition has empowered extremists. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

[atheostic]

[ramayantika]

In Bhopal a body of a twenty year old student was found on a railway track. Later his family received a chilling message 'gustakh e nabi ki ek hi saza sar tan se juda'

Will this ever stop?