Author: Priya Saha

The Council of Christian Colleges and Universities filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit that seeks to overturn a religious exemption to Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education.The lawsuit, filed in March by a group of LGBTQ+ current and former students at a variety of Christian institutions, argues that an exemption for religious colleges included in the Title IX statute is unconstitutional. It contends that the Department of Education is duty-bound to protect LGBTQ+ students at all federally funded colleges, including religious colleges, from discrimination.“The religious exemption to Title IX, however, seemingly permits the Department to breach…

The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) jumped into the legal fray over LGBT rights and religious liberties on Wednesday when it filed a motion to join a lawsuit against the US Department of Education (DOE) as a codefendant. Thirty-three current and former students from 20-plus religiously affiliated colleges filed the suit against the DOE in March to prevent the agency from granting religious exemptions from federal antidiscrimination laws. Eighteen of the schools are CCCU members, including Dordt Univeristy, Lipscomb Univeristy, Messiah Univeristy, Nyack College, and Toccoa Falls College. The schools all have policies prohibiting student sexual activity and…

A United States body on religious freedom in its latest report has been scathing in its criticism of Pakistan and China over the appalling condition of the minority communities in the two Asian nations, pointing out widespread instances of forced conversions, sexual assault, slavery and torture.Stating that underage girls from the Hindu, Sikh and Christian communities continue to be kidnapped for conversion to Islam, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in its annual report released on Thursday said that around 1,000 such incidents occur in the country every year.“In Hindu, Christian, and Sikh communities, young women, often…

Pope Francis has named Auxiliary Bishop Shorot Francis Gomes of Dhaka Archdiocese as the new bishop of predominantly indigenous Sylhet Diocese in northeast Bangladesh.Archbishop George Kocherry, apostolic nuncio to Bangladesh, announced the appointment at 4pm local time on May 12, according to a press release from the Catholic bishops’ Social Communication Commission.Bishop Gomes, 56, is the second bishop of Sylhet Diocese since it was carved out from Dhaka Archdiocese and made a diocese in 2011. He succeeds Oblate Bishop Bejoy N. D’Cruze, the first bishop, who was appointed archbishop of Dhaka and transferred to the nation’s capital last year. Subscribe to your…

A federal appeals court heard oral arguments on Tuesday in a case that tests the boundaries of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that established a legal exemption for religious institutions to discriminate in certain circumstances and for faith-based reasons.The formal questions in Gregory Tucker’s case against Faith Christian Academy in Arvada, Colorado, are the same as in most cases concerning the “ministerial exception.”The doctrine exempts faith-based organizations from anti-discrimination laws to prevent government, including court, intrusion into the selection of church leaders and others who minister or serve as teachers of a faith, the high court said in Hosanna-Tabor…

A militancy wing of pro-Caliphate Hefazat-e-Islam are being trained in Afghanistan under the coordination of Pakistani spy agency ISI. According to Bangladesh Police source, Hefazat has a wing called ‘Menhaji’ which comprises unknown number of jihadists who were trained in Afghanistan by the Afghan terrorist groups. While Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Joint Commissioner, Mahbub Alam told Blitz that banned terror group Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) was also showing signs of activity, another official of Bangladesh Police said, there have been a growing relations between Hefazat-e-Islam and other militancy groups including Jamaatul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB), Ansar Al Islam, Hizbut Tahrir, Hizbut Tawheed, Khatmey…

Let us know what you think and join the conversation at the bottom of this article.Foysol Choudhury, a Bangladeshi-born businessman and long-time chair of Edinburgh and Lothians Regional Equality Council (ELREC), was elected to Holyrood as a Labour list MSP for Lothian in last week’s elections.He said it felt “fantastic” but “still hard to believe”.Sign up to our daily newsletterThe i newsletter cut through the noise

BEIJING (AP) — Xinjiang in far western China had the sharpest known decline in birthrates between 2017 and 2019 of any territory in recent history, according to a new analysis by an Australian think tank. The report from the Australian Strategy Policy Institute, obtained exclusively ahead of publication by The Associated Press, showed the 48.74% decline was concentrated in areas with many Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other largely Muslim ethnic minorities, based on Chinese government statistics over nearly a decade. Birthrates in largely minority counties fell 43.7% between 2017 and 2018 alone, with over 160,000 fewer babies born. That compares to…

For years, radical Islamic groups as well as militancy outfits have been forming alliances and conglomerates amongst themselves with the notorious agenda of spreading the flag of ‘Caliphate’ or ‘Sharia rule’ through the South Asian nations and beyond. According to counterterrorism researchers, in South Asia, Al Qaeda and its franchise Ansar Al Islam (AAI) as well as other militancy and ultra-Islamist outfits including Hizbul Mujahedin, Jamaatul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB), Hizbut Tahrir, Hezbut Tawheed, Hefazat-e-Islam, Khatmey Nabuwat, Ahley Hadith, Tablighi Jamaat etcetera are advancing with the mission of turning the region into next battle ground. Currently, members of these groups, especially…

The Minority Chief Whip and Leader of the Muslim Caucus in Parliament has cautioned that they will not watch on for any religious group to plunge the country into chaos.Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak on JoyNews’ PM Express on Monday expressed his frustration that the Christian Council and the Catholic Bishops Conference had thrown their support behind the Methodist Church and Wesley Girls’ SHS decision not to allow Muslim students in the school to observe the Islamic ritual of fasting.The Asawase MP said, the act has exacerbated the situation.“We won’t allow any Imam or any pastor to lead this country into chaos.…

Portrait by Adriana Bellet When I first arrived from Jamaica to the United States in 1979, I did not fully understand the ramifications of religious freedom. Even though I was a practicing Christian, I remember denying a staff member’s request for a day off on Good Friday as a new manager at a Boston hospital. It never occurred to me that I might be impinging on this person’s expression of faith. In retrospect, it’s a decision I deeply regret. At the time, religious freedom simply wasn’t on my radar, even though I was deeply involved with issues of racial and…

Are there any direct consequences at all? Mamata Banerjee’s election win was not a nail-biting one, but it has given her Trinamool Congress (TMC) a vigorous shakedown that it had not seen in the years that it has been in power.The elections may have netted her more legislative seats than in 2016 (213 vs 211), but there were times during the election campaign when it seemed her grip on power was slipping with Narendra Modi rousting up his BJP supporters all over West Bengal.Modi and his party were so bent on snatching the West Bengal elections that he and his…