REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih via Boing Boing

A list of Coptic Orthodox churches has been unearthed on a Muslim extremist website, including the Alexandrian church that was attacked on New Year’s Day. Some of the other churches on the list have stepped up security in preparation for the Feast of the Epiphany on the 6th. In Holland several nearby Muslim communities have pledged support and protection for the event, and hundreds (of presumably Muslim students, I couldn’t find any other versions of the story) gathered at al-Azhar University in Cairo to show solidarity.

Interestingly, the story about the list and European connections is only mentioned in the video on the CNN story linked below, while the text discusses the situation in Egypt.

Salma Abdelaziz ‘Egypt beefs up security for Coptic Christmas Eve‘, CNN (6/01/11)

(Thanks to DavidP for pointing me to that awesome photo.)

Blogger Jago Constantine's avatar in Second Life

The Iran National Foundation of Computer Game (IRCG) is an industry body that, in 2007, established a self-regulated ratings system for videogames. Unlike in Australia where the Classification Board, an arm of the Federal Attorney-General’s office, regulates media, the Iranian Entertainment Software Rating Association (ESRA) seems to follow in the footsteps of the US Enterainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). Of course, all media in Iran is regulated by the Ministry for Culture and Islamic Guidance, so I imagine the idea of self-regulation is an attempt to meet the government half way.

What’s especially interesting about the ESRB, however, is the way in which they’re trying to position themselves as the rating system for the Islamic world. The IRCG and ESRA are sponsors of the upcoming 2011 Dubai World Game Expo (30/11-3/12/11) where they will have an exhibit about the rating system. The way they tell it, this is their first step towards Islamic world domination (although I wonder if something was lost in the translation from Farsi to English).

The system itself breaks down like this:

ESRA team
The research project of ESRA is managed by Mr. Majd and run by a research team of 17 psychologists and 8 sociologists. This research project is done at National Foundation of Computer Game and started in 2007 in 5 phases.

In rating, ESRA considers 4 characteristics in rating computer games
1. Physical – motional characteristics
2. Intellectual – mental characteristics
3. Emotional characteristics
4. Social characteristics

The age groups are
• The first rate (Kids) +3 years old
• The second rate (Childhood) +7 years old<
• The third rate (the beginning of adolescence) +12 years old
• The forth rate (the second half of adolescent) +15 years old
• The fifth rate (adult, single) +18 years old
• The sixth rate (adult, married) + 25 years old

Content descriptions
The seven content descriptors are:
Violence: The display of violence is when a behavior displayed to harm someone or something, ranged from destroying the belongings and making the unanimated things out of order.
Tobacco and drug: Watching the use of drug and tobacco in games can lose the internal-social taboo of not using it for the addressees.
Sexual stimuli: Sexual diversity, sexuality out of social norms, etc can end to the social and physical harms related to the sexual needs of the addressees and his/her social situations.
Fear: Fear is an internal feeling based on insecurity and not the lack of trust to the atmosphere, which leads to chronic stress, conservative behaviors, etc in social atmosphere.
Religious values violation: The violation of religious values is in accord with the Islamic principles. Two of the important elements of it are as follow:
1. The violation of the basic principles or religious believes (the howness of the display of the heaven or hell),
2. Sacrilege the holy places (sacrilege the mosque, church)
The social norms violation: Using the vulgar words and the uprightness behaviors which lead to breaking the social norms are among the social harms that the kids and the adolescents become familiar with.
Hopelessness: This content in games is related to a kind of feeling where the gamer have to do or not to do something which makes him/her feel sinful.

Panorama
The desire of ESRA, in a better way, its panorama is to achieve a place where it can be able to define the best age for each computer game. The best age during it, the game has no psychic and behavioral harm and helps the growth and the development of the addressee.
ESRA organization, in National Association of Computer Games, is going to continue its activities having two aims:
The first aim is to continue the studies and researches. Using the new perspectives as communication science, educational science and social psychology, designing the criteria and the new harmful scenes, classifying and distinguishing them were among the important research activities besides getting literacy for it which was designed and programmed in 5 research phases in guide map of ESRA.
The next aim was about the executing organization of ESRA. Taking film and extracting the contents of game, analyzing the gameplay, considering and defining the proper age group for each game were among the activities of this phase. Training human force of experts, who are responsible for this aim, is a difficult and expensive task, achieving which need using all capacities.

It’s interesting that they break down adults into a 18-24 and 25+ brackets, and amusing that they say “Sexual diversity” is something that should be regulated: it’s not surprising that they’d say so, just that they’d use such PC language to express it. I wonder if that shows a more liberal leaning in the IRCG.

Luke Plunkett ‘A Ratings System Just for Islam‘, Kotaku (30/11/10)

Google Earth was in the news regarding religion twice recently. The first story concerns the discovery via satellite photo that a prominent Star of David exists on Iran Air’s main building. My first thought was that it was just a geometric symbol, and also one that is prominent in Islam as its artistic tradition praised mathematical forms over anthropomorphic representations (although, admittedly, this was not so much the case in Persia). It would indeed appear, however, that the building was designed by Israeli architects during the Shah’s reign.
Nayef Zidani ‘Iran outraged as Star of David revealed on airport‘, Al Arabiya News Channel (29/11/10)

The second story tells how, in this age of mineral booms, thieves in the UK are using Google Earth to find churches that still have lead rooves they can fleece. Sneaky.
Reuters ‘Lead thieves use Google Earth to target UK churches‘, Faith World (2/12/10)

Here are a few views on what the WikiLeaks dump means for religions the world over. Obviously they focus on diplomatic relations, so we really only see Islam and Christianity represented here.

Muqtedar Khan ‘WikiLeaks exposes Muslim nations’ hypocrisy‘, Washington Post (28/11/10)

Reuters ‘Scathing U.S. view of French unrest and Muslim integration in WikiLeaks‘, Faith World (2/12/10)

Reuters ‘Russian Orthodox Church’s Kirill on ecumenism, via Wikileaks‘, Faith World (2/12/10)

Reuters ‘WikiLeaks: Talks with the Taliban a non-starter‘, Afghan Journal (5/12/10)

Tim Lister ‘Holy See urges “prudence” in reading Vatican-related cables‘, CNN (11/12/10)

Tim Lister ‘WikiLeaks: Sex abuse scandal left rift in Vatican-Ireland relations‘, CNN (11/12/10)

Reuters ‘WikiLeaks bares even tiny Vatican’s diplomatic soul‘, Faith World (11/12/10)

Martin Robbins ‘Mail’s Wikileaks ‘revelation’ about Muslim students is their own 2008 story‘, The Guardian (22/12/10)

Alan Berning

*deep breath* Okay, here’s the rest:

‘Muslims Target TV/Internet Evangelist for Death‘, ChristianNewsWire (14/10/10)

Reuters ‘Dead Sea scrolls going digital on Internet‘, FaithWorld (19/10/10)

Reuters ‘Bible.com investor sues company for lack of profit‘, FaithWorld (20/10/10)

Bob Allen ‘Sheriff’s office settles lawsuit with former church member outed for blog‘, Associated Baptist Press (21/10/10)

Heidi Campbell ‘New Publications in Religion and the Internet‘, When Religion Meets New Media (30/10/10)

Associated Press ‘Palestinian held for Facebook criticism of Islam‘ (11/11/10)

John Blake ‘Pastor: Facebook is encouraging adultery‘, CNN.com (18/11/10)
and
Mark Driscoll ‘Facebook doesn’t cause adultery; people do‘, Washington Post (19/10/10)

Reuters ‘Condoms, Pius XII, sex abuse and other main points in pope book‘, FaithWorld (20/10/10)
Pope admits the Vatican could have discovered that Bishop Williamson was a Holocaust denier by doing a simple search on the internet.

Lahav Harkov ‘IDF uses Facebook to catch 1,000 draft-dodging women‘, Jerusalem Post (23/11/10)
Israeli women who avoid military service due to being “religiously observant” are caught on Facebook eating in non-Kosher restaurants, dressing in “immodest” clothing and responding to invites from IDF agents to parties on the Sabbath. I call “Entrapment!” on that last one.

Helen Carter ‘Girl arrested for allegedly burning Qur’an‘, Guardian (25/11/10)
15 year-old English girl arrested “on suspicion of inciting religious hatred” after posting to Facebook a video of her burning an English translation of the Qur’an.

Thank God that’s over. This is as good an opportunity as any to announce the arrival of a new contributor to the site, Mediaevalia. Something from her soon!

Alan Berning

Trying to clear a bottleneck of stories I haven’t posted on. Mea maxima culpa.

Heidi Campbell ‘Can an online community be a church ? IRS says “No”!‘, When Religion Meets New Media (24/8/10)

Joshua M. Z. Stanton ‘Cyber Dialogue: The Future of Inter-Religious Engagement‘, Patheos (6/9/10)

Eli Yishai ‘Shas minister shuts down online payments on Shabbat, holidays‘, Haaretz.com (14/9/10)

Matthew Razak ‘Fallout Online viral advertising moves to religion‘, Destructoid (18/9/2010)

Reuters ‘Vatican Bank head in money laundering probe–sources‘, FaithWorld (21/9/10)
Vatican probably the only place in the world that allows people to use ATM’ s in Latin.

Mollie ‘Code name Esther‘, GetReligion (1/10/10)
The Biblical connection of the computer worm that got through Iran’s Digital Veil (that’s what we’re calling it, by the way).

Reuters ‘France charges man for burning, urinating on Koran‘, FaithWorld (5/10/10)

Randall Munroe ‘Online Communities 2‘, xkcd (5/10/10)
You can see “Religious Blogs” in the lower right-hand corner, east of the “Sea of Zero (0) Comments” and southwest of the “Blogosphere (Core Region)”.

tmatt ‘Bible-toting bullies with webcams?’, GetReligion (5/10/10)
and in the same vein
Jeff Kunerth ‘Religion plays different roles in cyberbullying debate‘, Orlando Sentinel (5/10/10)
as well as
Erica Brown ‘Outrage at humanity’s use of technology‘, Washington Post (7/10/10)

Elizabeth Drescher ‘Gen X, Gadgets, and God‘, Religion Dispatches (8/10/10)

Reuters ‘Brazil “values voters” go YouTube against prez hopeful Rousseff‘, FaithWorld (8/10/10)

Phew! That’s broken the back of it. Some more tomorrow, then we return to our regular programming schedule.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the Allahabad High Court struck a compromise between Hindu and Muslim interests last Thursday, ruling that the site be divided between all three parties: beside Muslims and “Hindus” are the Nirmohi Akhara sect, devotees of the Hindu god Hanuman. Text of the judges’ rulings can be read here (thanks to DavidP for this), which basically state that the court recognises the Hindu belief that the area under the mosque’s dome was the birthplace of Rama and where an idol and makeshift Hindu temple were erected should be given to the Hindus. They further recognise, however, that 16th century construction of the mosque was undertaken on a site which was, at that time, unoccupied and that in the 19th century Muslims and Hindus worshipped together in the same compound. As such, Muslims will retain an equal third share of the site. Whether this will allow them to reconstruct a (smaller) mosque on the site, or some sort of shrine is unclear.

I was a little surprised that they postponed the verdict from the original date of Friday the 24th to Thursday the 30th of September, so much closer to the opening ceremony of the New Delhi Commonwealth Games on Sunday the 2nd of October, given that they were clearly worried about civil unrest. Apparently 200,000 police were deployed around the nation to avoid a repeat of the 1992 riots. I suppose it’s possible that either they’d gotten wind of violent demonstrations in the intervening time or even that the court simply wished that time to deliberate their verdict, and Commonwealth Games be damned.

Supporting the view of an increasingly secular India put forward in such recent volumes as William Dalrymple’s Nine Lives, the Twittersphere lit up after the verdict urging peace and secularism. Posts included such comments as “We have built enough mosques and temples. Lets build the nation now”, and “Yes religion is important but NOT place of worship. And violence is not encouraged in any religion”.

Indo-Asian News Service ‘Let’s build nation now, says twitterati after Ayodhya judgment‘, Hindustan Times (30/9/10)

It has been confirmed that the verdict will be handed down on the 30th of September, as I previously speculated the dating of the texting ban extension indicated.

‘Indian court to rule on Ayodhya mosque row on Thursday‘, Reuters.com (28/9/10)

Presumably in honour of ‘Burn a Koran Day’ on the 11th of September QUT employee Alex Stewart, who works in the university’s legal services department, posted a video to YouTube (since removed) that featured him rolling ‘joints’ with pages from the Qur’an, then the Bible. Stewart started to suspect things may have gotten out of hand when The Courier Mail (click there for a still-live video) turned up two days later to ask if the marijuana was fake, which Stewart confirmed as grass clippings. Police were reported as unconcerned his performance may have been illegal. He started this thread on the Brisbane Atheists Meetup group, and a day later expressed worry (since deleted) that he may lose his job over a comment by QUT’s VC Peter Coaldrake:

The Indian government has banned bulk texting for three days until the publication by the High Court as to whether the Babri mosque is on Muslim or Hindu land. The poor Jains don’t even get a look-in.

Built in the 16th century on land that Hindus believe to be the birthplace of Rama, antipathy about the mosque came to a head in 1992 when it was demolished by a Hindu mob, leading to tit-for-tat attacks around the country.

Presumably the government is worried, given that the Bombay riots were fuelled by simple media reports, that bulk texting could result in much better organised rioting. I suppose the flash mobs of the Cronulla riot stand testament to that. I wonder if they’re going to ban talk-back radio for the next 3 days as well, although the Editors’ Guild of India has recommended that media outlets should avoid being inflammatory

Reuters ‘India bans bulk text messages before Ayodhya mosque verdict‘, Reuters.com (23/9/10)

Also, I wrote a fiddly post about the following story that got destroyed by WordPress (grr…). I was too annoyed to start from scratch so here’s a link:

Press Trust of India ‘On Facebook, young Muslims turn away from Islam‘, NDTV.com (7/9/10)

UPDATE: The Supreme Court (superior, as in America, to the previously mentioned High Court) has delayed Friday’s verdict in a bid to settle out of court. This seems unlikely, as both sides remain adamant. The government has not yet issued a repeal of their bulk texting ban.

Reuters ‘Supreme Court orders Ayodhya mosque verdict postponed‘, Reuters.com (23/9/10)

UPDATE 2: The ban on bulk texting has been extended until the end of September. It’s possible that gives some kind of indication on the date of a verdict.

I wonder if marketing companies or something are affected?

UPDATE 3: Google is my friend. American ad rag Advertising Age has a story on how the ban affects marketing companies in India.The Economic Times of India report one telco exec estimating an industry loss of 30 million rupees (under US$1 million), although that was based on the 3 rather than 7 day ban. They noted “Most cellphone operators and industry lobbies had no comment on the ban”, which struck me as strange.

Apparently the government may be further authorised to ban all SMS services in “sensitive” areas when the verdict comes down.

Kunur Patel ‘India SMS Ban Handicaps Massive Social Net‘, Advertising Age (24/9/10)