Religion revealed, but what you get may not be what you See

CAIRO, May 3 (Reuters) - The Egyptian government will appeal against a court ruling in favour of the rights of the country's small Baha'i minority, a minister said on Wednesday.

Religious Endowments Minister Mahmoud Hamdi Zakzouk told parliament the government would base its appeal on the opinion of the country's leading Muslim cleric, the Sheikh of al-Azhar, that Baha'ism is not a "revealed religion" recognised by Muslims.

Zakzouk was speaking in a parliamentary debate in which many members opposed the ruling last month by an administrative court in favour of the Baha'i couple who have been fighting for two years to make the government register them as Baha'is.

Civil society groups welcomed the court ruling as a victory for freedom of belief, as the constitution guarantees in theory. In practice the authorities impose many restrictions.

Members of parliament attacked Baha'is as deviants and extremists and noted that the group's international headquarters is in the Israeli city of Haifa.

One member of parliament, Gamal Akl of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, said the Baha'is were infidels who should be killed on the grounds that they had changed their religion.

"The problem with the Baha'is is they are moved by Israeli fingers. We wish the Ministry of the Interior would not yield to the cheap blackmail of this deviant group," added another Muslim Brotherhood member, Mustafa Awadallah.

Zainab Radwan of the ruling National Democratic Party, however, said she favoured recognising the Baha'is on identity cards issued by the state. "There is an interest in them being known rather than unknown so that they do not succeed in infiltrating the ranks of society and spreading their extremist and deviant ideology," she said.

The Egyptian constitution guarantees religious freedom but in practice officials are reluctant to recognise religions other than Islam, Christianity and Judaism, which many Muslims believe to have a special elevated status.

The Baha'i faith, an offshoot of Islam, originated in Iran 150 years ago and claims five million members in 191 countries. The treatment of Egypt's Baha'i community, estimated at 2,000 people, has been an irritant for many years in relations between the government and human rights groups.

A slap in the face against the Vatican”: new episcopal ordination without pope’s approval

Rome (AsiaNews) – Dialogue between China and the Vatican suffers a new blow: tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m. in Wuhu, in the Anhui province of central China, a new bishop will be ordained without Holy See permission. For various Chinese Catholics this is “a slap in the face against the Vatican.” Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong accuses China of having “destroyed trust” and asks for a halt to dialogue between China and the Holy See.

The candidate for the new illegal ordination is Fr Liu Xinhong, a diocesan administrator, ordained to the priesthood in 1990 after having studied theology at Shanghai’s official seminary. He is known by local Catholics as being “very close to the government.” In February, the Vatican had denied approval for his episcopal ordination.

Chinese church to defy Vatican

The vice chairman of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, Liu Bainian, told Reuters yesterday that the government-sponsored church would make Father Ma Yinglin bishop of Kunming, capital of the south-western province of Yunnan. Liu said Ma would probably be installed within days, possibly today.

Ma, 40, is the secretary of the government-backed Council of Bishops and holds posts in the Patriotic Association, according to the AsiaNews service, a Rome-based Catholic news service that reported Ma’s promotion.

Both Chinese organisations follow Beijing’s line that the Vatican should not control Chinese church affairs, including appointment of bishops, and must cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Liu said Ma had been unanimously elected bishop by priests, nuns and parish representatives in Kunming. “Vatican should respect the choices of the Chinese church and not interfere,” he said.

China’s 10 million or more Catholics are divided between an “underground” church loyal to the Holy See alone, and a state-approved church that respects the Pope as a spiritual figurehead but rejects effective papal control.

Buddhist event aims to tout Beijing's religious tolerance

Speaking Tibetan in a gravelly voice, a 16-year-old Tibetan lama made a rare appearance Thursday before an international audience of Buddhist monks and Communist Party dignitaries.

The lanky teenager, the disputed 11th Panchen Lama of Tibet, spoke into a bank of microphones, defending China's record on religion and endorsing patriotism.

China's communist leaders appointed the boy more than a decade ago as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second-most-important figure in Tibetan Buddhism. Whisked away by the government, never to be seen again, was another boy who Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said was the true reincarnation.

World’s youngest political prisoner turns 17

A Tibetan youth considered by rights groups to be the world’s youngest political prisoner turns 17 on Tuesday, 11 years after disappearing from public view when he was named the Himalayan region’s second-ranking religious figure.

The whereabouts of Gendun Choekyi Nyima - who human rights watchdogs say has been living under house arrest since Tibet’s exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, appointed him the 11th Panchen Lama - is one of China’s most zealously guarded state secrets.

A senior Canadian official pressed for access to Nyima during a visit to Tibet this month, but it fell on deaf ears. Chinese officials parroted their assertion that Nyima was ”safe and comfortable and wishes to maintain his privacy”, said the Canadian, who requested anonymity.

The Dalai Lama’s unilateral announcement embarrassed and enraged China’s atheist Communists, who dropped Nyima’s name from a shortlist of candidates and endorsed Gyaltsen Norbu as the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama, who died in 1989.

Tibetan Buddhists believe in reincarnation and that the soul of a “living Buddha” migrates to a boy born shortly after the holy monk’s death. The reincarnation is identified through a mystical search that includes a series of ancient and rigorous tests such as picking out items that belonged to the late lama.

While Nyima languished in limbo, Norbu has studied Buddhism for years and made his debut on the world stage this month at China’s first international religious forum since 1949.

China says Tibetan boy not political prisoner

China condemned exiled Tibetans and international human rights watchdogs on Friday for calling a Tibetan youth the world's youngest political prisoner, saying their aim is to push for independence for the Himalayan region.

"Exiled Tibetan splittist elements and some foreign organisations with ulterior motives have been whipping up opinion that Gendun Choekyi Nyima is the world's youngest political prisoner," the cabinet spokesman's office said in a statement.

"Their objective is to split China, sabotage ethnic unity and internationalise the Tibet issue to serve Tibetan independence."

The cabinet spokesman's office said Nyima was "no reincarnation of the Panchen Lama" and was "just an ordinary boy belonging to China's Tibetan ethnic group".

"At present, his health is good. He lives a normal happy life and is receiving good cultural education," it said.

The return of the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising, does not hinge on whether he recognises the Chinese Panchen, the cabinet spokesman's said.

It argued that the Chinese central government had the final say on determining reincarnations of "living Buddhas" like the Dalai or Panchen according to a 1793 agreement between Tibet and China's last dynasty, the Qing (1644-1911).