Anti-Islam film: Padraig Reidy asks if this time is different from previous blasphemy rows
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The protests against controversial film “Innocence of the Muslims” follow a pattern familiar since the days of the Satanic Verses fatwa, says James Kirchick. And so do the reactions of many western liberals
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Stanislav Samutsevich, 73, is the father of the imprisoned Pussy Riot member, Ekaterina Samutsevich. She, together with Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina, was sentenced to two years in the women’s prison colony on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after performing an anti-Putin protest songin Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral.
Rest stops for migrants operated by Roman Catholic priests across Mexico are coming under attack from top Church officials after centre directors criticised Mexican government policies on Central American migrants.
The most recent case is that of Father Alejandro Solalinde, the Mexican priest who ran Hermanos en el Camino (Brothers in the Road), a rest stop in the state of Oaxaca. Solalinde, who recently returned from two months of forced exile after receiving death threats from organised crime groups, was ordered by the Bishop of Tehuantepec, Oscar Armando Campos, to stop his work with migrants. Solalinde said the Bishop objected to his public statements in the media in support of migrants who face harassment from not only organised crime groups, but also local government and police officials. Local residents have also criticised the centres, whose rest stops draw large groups of the mostly male Central-American migrants. A political backlash has forced Bishop Armando Campos to clarify that he never told Solalinde to leave the centre.