Thursday, December 15, 2011

Imran Khan Addressing Minorities at Rally in Lahore

Hi everyone, it's been so long since I added a post but I am at a critical point in my studies and have been totally emersed in my textbooks. But I'll definitely have a lot of updates coming this month.. As for this video brought to us by the facebook group Christians in Pakistan.. What do you think of his speech? A valiant effort or just another political speech? Let's hope it's more than that for the sake of Pakistan and it's minorities...

Friday, December 2, 2011

November 10th, 2011 - LTNI Meets with Hamilton-Area NDP Member Parliaments

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Love thy Neighbour International extends its sincere thanks and appreciation to MP David Christopherson (Hamilton Center), for coordinating and inviting two other Hamilton area New Democratic Party MPs, to meet with an LTNI delegation at his constituency office. On November 10th, 2011 LTNI Chair Vincent Samuel, Director Rafique Masih and Executive Member Simon Arif met with MP David Christopherson and MP Chris Charlton (Hamilton Mountain East), as well as a constituency office staff member of MP Wayne Marsdon (Stoney Creek).

Initially, Vincent spoke regarding the lack of religious freedom and human rights around the world. According to recent REW research reports, approximately one third of the countries in the world have high or very high restrictions on religion, and nearly 70% of the world's population live in countries with heavy restrictions on freedom of religion. These restrictions on religion originate from both national authorities and religion-related terrorism undertaken by private individuals, organizations and extremist groups. Government restrictions included constitutional limitations or other prohibitions on free speech. Countries in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa have the most severe restrictions on religion. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran top the list of such countries. While most countries provide for the protection of religious freedom in their constitutions or laws, only a quarter of these countries fully respect and implement these legal rights in practice.

In 75 countries i.e., 4 out of every 10 countries in the world - governments limit the efforts of religious groups to preach and in 178 countries or 90% percent of the world’s countries: members of religious groups must register with the government. India and China also have extreme, but different restrictions on religion. China has very high levels of government restriction but few incidents of social hostilities, while India has very high social hostilities but few government restrictions. The governments with most religious restrictions are Saudi Arabia, Iran,Uzbekistan, China, Egypt, Burma, Maldives, Eritrea, Malaysia and Brunei. Whereas, countries with highest religion related terrorism are Iraq, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Somalia, Israel, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Saudi Arabia.