IRFN (August 9-12): Moroccan Conflict Over Volume of Prayer CallAug 14, 2008
Feature: During President Bush’s stay in China for the Olympics he addressed human rights issues on multiple occasions. On August 10 he gave a public speech from the steps of a Beijing church in which he urged the Communist government to permit more religious freedom in China. The Wall Street Journal has more.
Update: Police in Kashmir killed at least 13 people on August 12 in a violent clash between thousands of Hindu and Muslim protesters. This occurrence is one of many violent protests that have followed the contested Kashmiri land transfer to Hindu pilgrims. Reuters has more.
RABAT – Nouzha Skalli, the Moroccan minister for family and social affairs, has been accused of seeking legislation to lower the volume of the prayer call in tourist zones, the AP reported on August 9. This is the latest case in an ongoing debate over the volume of prayer calls which occur five times a day. The more wealthy Moroccan citizens tend to side with the pro-Western government, where a loud prayer call is viewed as detrimental for the tourism industry which brings in more than seven million visitors a year. Salafism, a rigorous strain of Islam imported from Saudi Arabia, is believed to be the influence behind those citizens in favor of a louder and more prominent prayer call. Mohammed Darif, a Moroccan political scientist and expert on Islamism, says religious hard-liners are increasingly depicting the tourist influx as a threat to Muslim values.
SANAA - Rahma Hugaira, chair of Yemen's Media Women Forum, has said that the formation on July 15 of the unofficial body Protecting Virtue and Fighting Vice by clerics has the potential to undermine the government, BBC reported on August 11. She said that "Civil society groups are working hard to modernize society, to establish a social contract grounded in our constitution and reflected in our laws. A group using religion as a weapon threatens all the progress we have achieved." The Virtue and Vice body has already condemned a proposal allocating 15% of parliamentary seats to women in 2009, and has decreed that a woman's place is in the home.
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian politicians are now caught up in a debate about whether to limit sensitive debates on religious disputes after 300 demonstrators forced a forum on Islamic conversions to close on August 9, the AP reported on August 10. Police told the Bar Council association of lawyers to abort the forum when more than 300 demonstrators threatened to storm the event. Lawyers had set up a public platform to examine the loss of legal rights when one spouse in a marriage converts to Islam and the other does not. The protesters claimed that the forum represented unfair demands by non-Muslim minorities for religious equality.
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's government has accused the Herald, a Christian newspaper, of breaking publication rules by running articles deemed political and insulting to Islam on Monday and has promised state action against the newspaper, the AP reported on August 11. The Home Ministry sent a letter to the Herald's publishers warning that its editions in June had "committed offenses" by highlighting politics and current affairs instead of Christian issues for which it has been given a license. The letter also accused the Herald of carrying an article that "could threaten public peace and national security" because it allegedly "denigrated Islamic teachings." Christians, Buddhists and Hindus have said that their rights are being undermined by government efforts to reinforce Islam, the state religion.
BEIJING – Hua Huiqi, a leader of the unofficial Protestant church in Beijing, has escaped from the police who detained him and his brother on their way to a church service attended by President Bush on August 10, the AP reported on August 12. Hua Huiqi’s brother was taken to a separate location and released within a few hours on August 10. Police have denied any involvement in Hua Huiqi’s disappearance. Huiqi wrote the New York-base Human Rights in China group describing his abduction by seven to eight plainclothes officers. He wrote that the officers “asked me why I was going to Kuanjie Protestant Church to worship and threatened me, saying, ‘You are not allowed to go ... because President Bush is going there today. If you (try to) go again, we will break your legs.’” | 
