Word: religion
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Today Portugal enjoys official freedom of religion, and the 400 members of Lisbon's openly Jewish community are prominent in business and the professions. In the northern villages, however, cruel memories persist. The priests are nearly as powerful-and many of them as backward and anti-Semitic-as in the Middle Ages. The current priest in Belmonte is a "good man," says a prosperous Marrano housewife, but the previous one "said in church that the Jews should be hanged." The Marranos claim that when they did not attend Mass they were denounced to the secret police as suspected Communists...
...scorecard had separate sections for each of the 82 countries that receive U.S. aid. Each section listed reported violations of 13 fundamental rights recognized by the United Nations, including protection from personal violence, the right to a fair trial, due process of law and the freedoms of expression, religion, assembly, travel and association. Among the most frequent worldwide violations: lengthy imprisonment without trial, blanket security laws that allow governments to suspend civil liberties and curbs on free expression (the press in 52 of the countries works under the threat of government restriction). Incidents of torture often involving terrorists and dissidents...
...performed about 70 similar missions in the past, seized Merylee at a shopping center last Aug. 5, forced her into a van and took her to a motel. There he began the increasingly common ritual known as deprogramming, in which the convert to some strange-sounding, all-encompassing religion is subjected to threats and arguments until he gives up his new faith. After five days of this, Merylee pretended to accept Kelly's arguments, was released, got back to the Hare Krishna temple in Manhattan and charged Kelly and her mother with kidnaping...
...Defense Attorney Paul Chevigny, it was "a classic freedom of religion issue." Agreed Attorney Jeremiah Gutman of the American Civil Liberties Union: "This case affects the most fundamental kind of First Amendment issues." Added Harvard Theologian Harvey Cox: "Some Oriental religious movements bother us because they pose a threat to the values of career success, individual competition, personal ambition and consumption, on which our economic system depends. We forget that Christianity, taken literally, could cause similar disquietude...
...indictments and summarily dismissed the case as a "direct and blatant violation" of constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom. Leahy stated that the Hare Krishnas' "indoctrination and constant chanting" may create "an inability to think, to be reasonable or logical," but that does not make it any less a religion. Both of the supposed victims voluntarily submitted to the tightly regulated life in the local temple, he said. The prosecutors admitted that no physical coercion was involved, and they failed to show any "deception" that, under New York law, might have justified the charges. The judge sympathized with the "hurt, fear...