Salem-News.com Religion articles Page 2

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Can Now Visit Sri Lanka With Authority!

“The significance of the US draft is the establishment of an international mechanism to monitor an internal process.” -- Tamara Kunanayakam, Sri Lanka’s representative at the UN Geneva, 2011-2012, in an interview on 17 March 2013

(PARIS, France) - The resolution gives monitoring powers to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights - OHCHR.

An external mechanism is mandated to monitor the Government of Sri Lanka!

EXCLUSIVE Interview with `Sandman` - Member of the Free Syrian Army

WARNING: Includes extremely graphic photographs of atrocities in Syria. PHOTOS MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN OR SENSITIVE PEOPLE.

(SACRAMENTO / DAMASCUS) - If there is one thing I learned from this conversation with a jihadist, (Mujahidin) who goes by the name of 'Sandman' - it is that the whole Islamic world may be fragmented beyond repair.

Our perceptions in the west are generally far from reality because Muslim on Muslim conflicts are complicated.

Covenants without Circumcision in the Jewish Reform Movement

Many Reform Jewish Rabbis are Adopting Symbolic Covenant Rituals.

(TEL AVIV) - Many Rabbis are welcoming intact males into the Jewish community, and a growing number of Rabbis feel that surgical circumcision is no longer appropriate in the 21st century.

In Europe, 200 years ago, influential Rabbis in the early Reform movement of Judaism began writing in private correspondences that Jews should abolish circumcision surgery.

How Soon We Forget

Radical, religious extremists are all over the world and are bad for humanity. They use religion to justify bigotry and violence against other people.

(OKINAWA) - When the word radicals and terrorists are mentioned, what is your first thought?

Since the horrific events of 9/11, people of a certain skin tone or religious preference have been stereotyped, profiled, harassed, and pre-judged as being anti-American or terrorist.

Inviting Armageddon

Try as I may to keep my self imposed vow of silence on Syria the time has come for me to speak out. Armageddon awaits.

(LONDON) - My silence was born from the deep belief that if you have nothing constructive to say regarding any on-going conflict then keeping your own counsel is best.

What could you or I, as Arabs and Moslems and children of Greater Syria, say when you see that everything that you have been brought up to believe in has been destroyed?

Sri Lanka Needs to Come Clean on Rights Issues

Tamils’ rights need to be restored and they should be allowed back into the nation’s mainstream.

(COLOMBO, Sri Lanka) - The government of Sri Lanka should sense an opportunity to get into the good books at the UN by using the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government summit.

Sri Lanka should herald confidence-building measures against the country’s minorities, particularly the Tamils.

Bishop Warns of `Buddhist Taliban` in Sri Lanka

Hindu temples and Christian churches have been destroyed and frequently replaced with Buddhist structures.

(GALLEM, Sri Lanka) - Bishop Raymond Wickramasinghe of Gallem, Sri Lanka, is seeking the prayers of the faithful worldwide as the nation’s Christians and Muslims suffer persecution from Bodu Bala Sana (BBS), the “Buddhist Taliban.”

The Fides news agency reported that Buddhist monks were involved in 50 attacks on Christians in 2012.

Pope Against `Slave Labour` on Feast of St. Joseph

I ask my brothers and sisters in faith and all men and women of good will for a decisive choice to combat trafficking in persons, which includes ‘slave labour’

(CHENNAI) - Pope Francis said that the whole world must undertake “decisive action” against human trafficking and “slave labour”, which de-humanises workers and denies them their dignity.

Speaking to tens of thousands of people in St Peter’s Square, the pontiff noted that “there is a light at the end of every tunnel...”

Pakistani Christian Wishes for Renaissance of Jinnah`s Pakistan

Social persecution and legal discrimination against minorities has reached at its climax.

(ISLAMABAD) - It remains a fact that minorities of Pakistan are crippled and damaged under an anarchy system.

In the prevailing social scenario of the country the message of the founder of the nation, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, appears to have been lost somewhere and the continuous hatching of conspiracies by certain elements with vested interests and nefarious designs, seems to have prevailed.

Jewish Men Discuss Circumcision. What do we really think?

Reform Judaism: more and more Jews are questioning traditional circumcision.

(TEL AVIV) - The practice of circumcision is something I've been aware of from a very young age. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and my family is Orthodox...

Whether it's the Victorian-era doctors, bent on perpetuating their own sexual repression, or during the Maccabean Period where the Jewish priestly ruling class instituted the more severe form of brit milah that is practiced today...