Atheist News Aug 25 2018: Denied Citizenship for Refusing Handshake, Jailed for Mosque Complaint

Armin discusses the latest news on religion and atheism in the past week 😃

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In Switzerland, there is a problem with Muslim immigrants who do not adopt to their cultural norms. A Muslim couple was denied citizenship because they did not shake hands with officials of the opposite sex during the interview. The officials said that they were not rejected based on religion but for the lack of respect for gender equality.

Claire Dalton, a 21 year old Mormon woman dumped her fiance a week before the wedding after she found out that he watches porn. She was looking at her fiancé’s phone and saw porn. He lied and told her that it was his brother. Later that night, he admitted that it was him. She said that her life is ruined.

The Bishop of Madison, Wisconsin, has said that the Catholic Church must renew its conviction to identify and reject sin, and admit that a homosexual culture among some clerics has caused great harm in the Church. This is his response to the recent sexual abuse crises.

In Texas,Imad Khalil took his stepdaughter Pamela to private schools in the area. She just moved from Lebanon. Both of them went to Cornerstone Christian Schools and she was treated by the staff well. The staff asked her if she would be comfortable with the Bible classes and mandatory classes in which she agreed. It changed when the staff found out that she is a Muslim. They told her she could not enroll and rejected her application.

A prominent Saudi campaigner, Israa al-Ghomgham, has been given a death sentence in Saudi Arabia. Canada called out Saudi Arabia over its treatment of women and prisoners. Al-Ghomgham is most likely facing execution with a sword. Some sources said that she had been killed already but no evidence of this has been made public.

Denmark is one of the European countries that enforces a new law which bans women from wearing face veils in public places. The first person to be fined for breaking the law is a 28 year old woman. She was involved in a fight with another woman who tried to tear her niqab off. Police were called and took a photograph of the woman wearing the niqab. Aside from being fined, she was asked to either leave the premises or remove her niqab. Fine was $156. She chose to leave the shopping center.

Daniil Markin, a 19-year-old film student from Barnaul, the main city in Russia's Altai region, is standing trial for saving memes that mock Christianity in an album on the social media platform VKontake (VK). Last year on the month of July, police came to his house and took him for interrogation. One of the interrogators opened his VK page and showed him some of the memes he had saved to a public album. Markin was banned from using his bank accounts. After nearly a year, the case against him, on charges of "inciting hatred against a religious group" moved to trial. Markin confessed to saving the memes. This autumn, the judgement is expected. The authorities are busy building cases against at least three other "online offenders."

In China there is a worsening crackdown in the country's inaccessible western region Xinjiang. They may be detaining "millions" of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in "reeducation camps for political and cultural indoctrination." The Uighurs are a majority-Muslim, Turkic-speaking ethnic group in western China.

In Utah, Walter J. Plumb III, a Mormon lawyer is suing to keep voters from getting a chance to legalize medical cannabis as his religious beliefs are more important than sick people who use it. Polls show that two-thirds of Utahans are in favor of the medical marijuana bill. If it passes, it will be the 31st state to legalize medical cannabis.

A Buddhist woman in Indonesia has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for blasphemy. The Indonesian court carried that sentence after she was accused of insulting Islam when she complained the Muslim call to prayer was being played loudly at the mosque near her house. She cried as the presiding judge announced her sentence. Her lawyer said they would appeal the verdict. Islamic Community Forum, a conservative group, said Meilana's sentence was too light.