Religion

When Faith Meets Disaster Management

By Kalinga Seneviratne
A consortium of faith-based organisations (FBOs) made a declaration at a side event Wednesday at the 6th Asian Ministerial Conference On Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR), to let the United Nations know that they stand ready to commit themselves to building resilient communities across Asia in the aftermath of natural disasters.

Atheists, the “Ultimate Other” in Turkey

By Nick Ashdown
"Being an atheist isn't something you can easily express in Turkey,” says Sinem Köroğlu, a member of the Atheism Association, the first official organisation for atheists in the country. “It's becoming more difficult with the current government as well,” she adds.

India’s ‘Temple Slaves’ Struggle to Break Free

By Stella Paul
At 32, Nalluri Poshani looks like an old woman. Squatting on the floor amidst piles of tobacco and tree leaves that she expertly transforms into ‘beedis’, a local cigarette, she tells IPS, “I feel dizzy. The tobacco gives me headaches and nausea.”

Conflicts in Syria and Iraq Raising Fears of Contagion in Divided Lebanon

By Mona Alami
With jihadists leading a Sunni uprising against Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government, the conflicts in Syria and Iraq are beginning to reverberate across the region, raising fears of contagion in divided Lebanon where a suicide bombing took place on Friday after a period of calm.

Anti-Muslim Violence Reaches New Heights in Sri Lanka

By Amantha Perera
The signs had been clear for months; beneath the veneer of normalcy in Sri Lanka’s southwestern coastal town of Aluthgama, religious tensions were brewing, but no one was sure how or when they would erupt.

Obstetric Fistula Haunts Pakistani Women

By Zofeen Ebrahim
The word on the street was that if there were one place on earth that could treat Mohammad Lalu’s wife, it would be the Koohi Goth Women’s Hospital in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi.

From Religious Conflict to an Interfaith Community

By Kanya D'Almeida
Holy men and their holy books have etched a trail of tears and blood in the annals of human history. From the depths of peaceful temples, mobs have been dispatched with flaming torches; from steeples and minarets messages of hatred have floated down upon pious heads bent in prayer. For too long religion has incited violence and fueled conflict.

Mosul Refugees Victims of “Victory of the Revolution”

By Jewan Abdi
“People with long beards and dressed like Afghans broke into our neighbourhood after they had bombed it. We were lucky to escape from that nightmare,” Aum Ahmad, a46-year-old woman from Mosul – 400 km northwest of Baghdad – told IPS from the recently set up Khazar refugee camp, 25 km east of the besieged city.

Syria’s Twin Jihads

By Mona Alami
The war in Syria has brought back to the forefront the concept of ‘jihad’, with tens of thousands of fighters currently waging what they believe to be a religious war there.

Arrest of “Happy” Iranians Highlights Rouhani’s Domestic Battles

By Jasmin Ramsey
It was a perfect headline for the satirical online news site, ‘The Onion.’

Tibetans Divided Over Cult of Martyrs

By Robert Stefanicki
Nestled in the Kangra Valley in the shadow of the Dhauladhar Mountains in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamsala is beautiful to behold. But the scenic landscape belies a dark reality: the cult of martyrs that has developed in this town, home to the Tibetan government-in-exile since 1959.

Minorities in Pakistan Fear ‘Forced Conversion’ to Islam

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Minority communities in Pakistan have long had a raw deal. Accounting for just 10 percent of this country’s population of 180 million, they are no strangers to marginalisation, discrimination or even violence.

Kyrgyzstan’s Sky Worshippers Seek Recognition

By Bakyt Ibraimov
Arslanbek Maliyev grew disillusioned with Islam when he realised foreign missionaries who came to Kyrgyzstan following the collapse of the Soviet Union were more concerned with building mosques than they were with education.

Vaccinating Against Their Will

By Monde Kingsley Nfor
The growing number of child deaths from diarrhoea in Cameroon has necessitated the introduction of a new vaccine (RotaTeq) designed to protect babies under five against common types of rotaviruses that cause diarrhoea. But growing skepticism over new vaccines, and lack of potable water and proper hygiene could thwart such public health efforts, experts say.

Palestinians Take the Tough Path Towards Unity

By Khaled Alashqar
The nascent move for reconciliation between the Fatah party in the West Bank and Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip could change the balance in the Middle East – if it were to proceed and deliver as promised.

OP-ED: Caribbean Religious Leaders Inspire IMF Sunday Schools

By Eric LeCompte
Last Fall, I witnessed the Grenada Council of Churches insert themselves into negotiations between their government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) around the island’s debt restructuring and presumed austerity policies. Religious leaders called from pulpits across the tiny island for a “Jubilee” or national debt cancellation.

On the Street That’s Home

By Rachel Williamson
Leila*, 19, has a soft, rasping voice and sad eyes. Her face is striped with long scars but nothing in her neat appearance hints that for the last nine years, her ‘home’ has been the streets just north of downtown Cairo.

Fatwa Comes Too Late for Kashmir’s Half-Widows

By Athar Parvaiz
Forty-seven-year-old Shahmala’s husband has been missing since 1993. In India’s restive Jammu and Kashmir state, she is what is known as a half-widow, a woman who has no clue whether her husband is dead or alive.

With Refugees Comes Crime

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Blaming Afghan refugees for a surge in crime, Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has placed restrictions on the movement of those who do not possess legal documents to stay in the country.

Syrian Split Divides Christians

By Karlos Zurutuza
Malki Hana says his men are afraid of cameras. “Most of them are army defectors and they may easily get in trouble," says this commander of a mostly unknown armed group in Syria.

Raped, And Abandoned By Law

By Irfan Ahmed
Amina Bibi, an 18-year-old from Pakistan’s Punjab province, was allegedly raped by four men on Jan. 5 this year. All the accused were granted bail. A desperate Amina set herself on fire outside a police station on Mar. 13 and succumbed to burn injuries the next day.
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