In The Media

A man has been charged with assaulting children while performing circumcisions in several English counties.

BBC

Humza Yousaf has been given a deadline to notify Holyrood of changes to the SNP's controversial Hate Crime Bill.

The Herald

The UN children's agency Unicef has called on the Nigerian authorities to urgently review an Islamic court's decision to sentence a 13-year-old boy to 10 years in prison for 'blasphemy'.

BBC

The level of infiltration of Pakistani politics surrounding 'blasphemy' into the British diaspora is dangerous, says Charlotte Littlewood.

The Article

Dominic Grieve will conduct the exercise after two of the charity's trustees stepped down because of antisemitic comments they had made on social media.

Third Sector

Kosher meat producers protested in Warsaw on Wednesday against new legislation going through parliament with the support of animal rights groups.

France 24

The Chinese Communist party government has defended its system of internment camps for Uighur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, in a white paper that also revealed some details of the breadth of its labour program.

The Guardian

The Myanmar military has said it is investigating "possible wider patterns of violations" before and during a 2017 crackdown in Rakhine State that the United Nations has said was executed with genocidal intent against Rohingya Muslims.

Reuters

A Hindu has been jailed for seven years in Muslim-majority Bangladesh for 'insulting' the Islamic Prophet Mohammed on Facebook, a prosecutor said on Thursday.

Eastern Eye

The owners of a number of Tel Aviv bars have declared their businesses to be synagogues, in protest of government lockdown plans that on the one hand will prevent all bars and restaurants from operating during the closure, while on the other allow dozens to take part in prayers at houses of worship throughout the country.

The Times of Israel

Piero Alfio Capuana, the lay leader of the 5,000-member Catholic Culture and Environment Association, is accused of delegating his associates to select and organise his targets, some as young as 11 years old.

Religion News Service

Humza Yousaf has signalled a retreat on the SNP's Hate Crime Bill, saying he plans to update Holyrood through a special ministerial statement.

The Herald

"If you think freedom of speech is an 'important right' you are in the majority. A poll, published in the same week the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill was discussed in Holyrood, revealed that 87% share that view."

Evening Telegraph

More than 66,000 online signatures have been added to a petition defending the charity Core Issues Trust, amid a campaign by activists opposed to "gay conversion therapy".

News Letter

Religious leaders in the UK and Ireland have called on Boris Johnson to "urgently" ban 'conversion therapy' in an open letter.

Pink News

A federal court has filed an injunction prohibiting a Tennessee school district from imposing religion on students.

FOX 17

The Pennsylvania House on Tuesday passed a bill that would prevent governors from applying their disease control powers to shut down gatherings at churches or other houses of worship.

Associated Press

A study has dismissed World Health Organisation-recommended campaigns to circumcise millions of African boys and men to reduce HIV transmission as systemic racism and 'neo-colonialism' rather than sound scientific research.

Bulawayo24

The Vatican has signed off on a two-year extension to a deal made with Beijing on the appointment of bishops.

Premier Christian News

The island nation of Barbados has pledged to put same-sex marriage to a public vote, but campaigners said on Wednesday they were wary about any hope of major reform in a nation that still has laws punishing sex between men on its books.

Reuters

Jihadism is not leaving anytime soon, and we need to understand it so we can better fight it, says David Patrikarakos.

The Spectator

The bill would give a legal and medical right to authorise voluntary assisted dying when a person is suffering a terminal illness.

Belfast Telegraph

A former Irish soldier charged with membership of terrorist group Islamic State and funding terrorism will go on trial in 2022.

BBC

A prominent gay politician in Poland has compared the government's repeated attacks on the LGBT+ community to the way Jewish people were "dehumanised" in the run-up to the Second World War.

Reuters

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi will no longer be invited to events of the European Parliament's human rights prize, EU lawmakers have said in a protest over accusations of genocide of Rohingya Muslims in her country.

Reuters

Victims of the 2015 attack on the satirical weekly took the stand with vivid accounts of how their colleagues were killed — and how their own lives were suddenly overturned.

The New York Times

The Mouvement laïque québécois is seeking financial help from the public to support Quebec's secularism law and avoid a "mismatched" court battle.

Montreal Gazette

The US will block some exports from China's Xinjiang region, over alleged human rights abuses against the mostly Muslim Uighur minority.

BBC

Many Christian homeschooling advocates have decried public schools as "values-indoctrination centres." The reality is that much of the most popular homeschooling materials—which many of these new homeschoolers are certain to find—are their own form of indoctrination, says Elena Trueba.

Religion and Politics

About 2,000 academics from top institutions in India and abroad have signed petitions demanding federal authorities stop targeting people critical of the government as part of a widening investigation into caste clashes two years ago.

Reuters

Two Nigerian filmmakers face the prospect of imprisonment if they ignore the stern warning of the authorities and proceed with the release of a movie about a lesbian relationship.

BBC

An SNP councillor has hit out at a party attempt to restart the debate around Scotland's assisted dying laws.

The National

The Presbyterian Church in Ireland and the Evangelical Alliance have both voiced unease about a ruling handed down in an employment tribunal, which appears effectively to condemn belief in the Bible.

News Letter

Rehman Chishti, the prime minister's special envoy on freedom of religion or belief, has resigned in protest at the Internal Market Bill and its implications for the backstop.

The Tablet

Town hall leaders in Scotland fear that controversial new hate crime laws could threaten free speech, a survey has found.

The Scotsman

An enormous Christian monument, more than twice the size of the Angel of the North, is to be built on the outskirts of Birmingham, fulfilling a vision its instigator says came from God.

The Guardian

Much of the evidence demonstrates that good-quality sex education has a range of positive outcomes, says Lisa Hallgarten.

The Times (£)

A Christian man who was sentenced to die under Pakistan's blasphemy laws has filed an appeal in an attempt to have his conviction overturned.

UCA News

Three families are suing Vermont's education secretary and certain school districts, saying that denying them a state tuition benefit to send their children to religious schools is unconstitutional.

Associated Press

More than half the arrests this year under a tough national security law in India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh have involved suspects in cases of cow slaughter, data showed. Vigilante attacks on those accused of killing the animal for meat, often people belonging to the Muslim minority, are common.

Reuters

All our rights and freedoms are qualified or constrained to some degree by secular law which is superior to religious law, says Tom O'Connor.

Stuff

Sara Khan, who leads the Commission for Countering Extremism, said "extremists are exploiting both the anti racism agenda and free speech cause, weaponising them to further their own extremist propaganda."

The Telegraph

Experts said the research, which compared beliefs held by British Muslims and white non-Muslims, showed that "Islamist and far-right ideas are resonating with young people in the UK".

The Independent

Almost all schools in Northern Ireland are paid for by the state. So why should churches, as of right, have an automatic role in the education of our children, asks Fionola Meredith.

Belfast Telegraph (via PressReader)

Mid Scotland and Fife MSP Alex Rowley has urged the Justice Secretary to go back to the drawing board to address fundamental problems with the Scottish Government's proposed Hate Crime Bill.

Central Fife Times

The Hate Crime Bill represents a serious risk to the democratic freedoms we all cherish, says Thomas Kerr.

Glasgow Times

Geeta Sidhu-Robb used the tactic to try to woo Muslim voters when seeking to be election as a Conservative MP in 1997.

On London

Josh Aaron-Mennie is to put proposals to the SNP annual conference next month which could lead to new assisted dying legislation being published in Holyrood after the election next May.

The National