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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFour Christians sentenced to 80 lashes in Iran for drinking communion wine
Four Iranian Christians have been sentenced to 80 lashes for drinking ceremonial wine during a communion service and possessing a satellite radio antenna.
The harsh punishment comes amid a government crackdown on Irans so-called house churches where worshippers gather in unofficial buildings to conduct Christian ceremonies.
The four men, Behzad Taalipasand, Mehdi Reza Omidi, Mehdi Dadkakh and Amir Hatemi, were originally arrested in the middle of a service just before Christmas last year. They were finally sentenced for the crimes on October 6 and given ten days to launch an appeal.
Reacting to the punishments, Chief Executive of Christian Solidarity Worldwide Mervyn Thomas said: The sentences handed down to these members of the Church of Iran effectively criminalise the Christian sacrament of sharing in the Lords Supper and constitute an unacceptable infringement on the right to practice faith freely and peaceably.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/four-christians-sentenced-to-80-lashes-in-iran-for-drinking-ceremonial-wine-during-communion-service-8904279.html
Just horrible. Yes, the US has its faults but it's good to live in a country where religious freedom is enshrined in the Constitution.
pnwmom
(109,021 posts)protects freedom of belief -- not religious practice.
So not everyone, even progressives, understands the basic rights in our Constitution.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Rastafarians can use their religious belief, that marijuana is a
sacrament, as a defense against a charge of possessing marijuana, a
federal appeals court ruled Friday.
Citing the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals overturned three marijuana-possession
convictions in Montana because the judge had barred evidence of the
defendants' religious views. The court, however, upheld the
convictions and prison sentences of seven defendants on drug
trafficking and related charges.
The possession charges were a small part of a case against members
of an organization accused of conspiring to import thousands of
pounds of marijuana from Mexico to Billings, Mont., for a decade. The
alleged leader, Cameron Best, convicted of operating a continuing
criminal enterprise, was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 1994, a
sentence left intact by the court.
Legally, however, the ruling was significant for its overturning of a drug
conviction based on the 1993 law, which strengthened defenses
against criminal prosecutions that interfere with religious practices.
The court did not cite any previous appellate decision that had used
the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to reverse a drug conviction,
and a lawyer who has been a longtime advocate of liberalizing drug
laws said he was unaware of any such ruling.
http://eabicbahamas.ning.com/profiles/blogs/rastafarians-pot-conviction-reversed-court-oks-religion-defense
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)sentences, a retrial is unlikely, but the ruling could be used in future
drug cases in the nine Western states covered by the court
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Crazy people like me sort of feel that if the law is going to err on any sort of philisophical side, it should be the side of letting people do whatever they want with their own bodies, bloodstreams, and nervous systems, as long as they're not directly harming or endangering anyone else.
But either way, pot should be legal, regulated, and taxed.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)dimbear
(6,271 posts)close to that.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)This is what happens when you let fundamentalists run your country.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)Why can't RWers just leave people who aren't hurting anyone alone?
It's because haters gotta hate, I suppose.
temporary311
(955 posts)They do, however, have far more power and societal acceptance to act out over there than they do here.