Word: worship
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...most countries, such vitriol would signal the ugliest of scandals, perhaps involving choirboys. Father Ly's crime? Challenging the government. Last month, the priest sent a letter to U.S.Congressmen urging them to reject ratification of a bilateral trade agreement until Vietnam grants greater freedom of worship. Hanoi's retaliation against Father Ly was swift, but it may be backfiring and could dim chances for the treaty's ratification. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives' powerful International Relations Committee have vowed to bring up the issue in hearings that could start as early as next month. The action against Father...
...Hanoi insists that every citizen has the right to religion, pointing to its millions of worshipers. Phan Thi Lan Huong is one of them. Surrounded by clouds of incense, the 59-year-old grandmother clutches her hands in prayer in front of an altar ringed with painted Buddhas. She is one of up to 20,000 who flock each day to the Chua Huong Pagodas southwest of Hanoi during the pilgrimage season. "Of course we are free to worship," she says, blinking with surprise. "The government never stops us?just those who have bad practices...
...paradox is actually codified in Vietnam's laws: every citizen is guaranteed the right to worship, but "abuse of religious rights" is punishable by up to three years in prison. According to Zachary Abuza, a Vietnam expert at Simmonds College in the U.S., it is not individual faith that Hanoi opposes, but the prospect of a nationwide structure of authority that could topple the party's monopoly on power. Hanoi has thus appointed Vietnam's Catholic bishops since 1975, annoying the Vatican, which recently elevated an exiled Vietnamese bishop to cardinal. There are dissident priests in Vietnam, like Father...
...long that the prospects of its recovery, even if the Taliban were to vanish tomorrow, are distant at best. And now the Taliban have outraged world opinion with yet another bizarre and fanatic provocation. The leading Taliban mullah, Mohammed Omar, declared that since the Koran forbade the worship of idols, all idols in the country (meaning, for the most part, Buddhist sculpture made before the arrival of the Muslims in the 8th century) were to be destroyed. "The statues are no big issue," said an official, Qadratullah Jamal, from his office in the capital, Kabul. "They are only objects made...
...Beauty Pageant and What's All the Noise About Boys? I also marveled at the ingenuity of the contestants who, not allowed to go to a gym at night, tried to lose pounds by running up and down their hotel hallway. And I also discovered a uniformity in idol worship: when asked to list those they most admire, almost all named Oprah, God, Katie Couric and Julia Roberts, in that order...