{"id":6831,"date":"2006-07-11T00:53:01","date_gmt":"2006-07-11T00:53:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/07\/the-dirty-dozen.html"},"modified":"2006-07-11T00:53:01","modified_gmt":"2006-07-11T00:53:01","slug":"the-dirty-dozen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/07\/the-dirty-dozen.html","title":{"rendered":"The Dirty Dozen"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Spectator online, Doug Bandow on the worst violators of religious freedom:<\/a> Bangladesh, Burma, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and seven more. Plus:<\/p>\n

\n
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ASSESSING THE RELATIVE BRUTALITY of varying regimes isn’t easy, and the level of repression sometimes changes over time. Unfortunately, many other nations have a claim to membership in the Dirty Dozen.<\/p>\n

Cuba is a traditional communist dictatorship which registers religious organizations, harasses congregants, prevents churches from building or repairing worship facilities, forbids the distribution of religious materials, and bars church provision of social welfare services.<\/p>\n

The Egyptian government discriminates in the provision of public services and benefits, arrests those who proselytize, and often ignores violent attacks on members of other faiths, especially members of the Coptic Church. Private discrimination and violence are common.<\/p>\n

In India sectarian violence is endemic, particularly among Hindus and Muslims. But Christians, constituting a much smaller minority, also are a common target. Attacks on Christians have been on the rise this year, yet the authorities often do little. Many states penalize religious minorities; some enforce anti- conversion laws, which even inhibit Christian social services.<\/p>\n

In Sri Lanka Buddhism is dominant. The authorities often overlook private attacks on Christian churches. Efforts are underway to make Buddhism the state religion and to criminalize conversions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Spectator online, Doug Bandow on the worst violators of religious freedom: Bangladesh, Burma, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and seven more. Plus: ASSESSING THE RELATIVE BRUTALITY of varying regimes isn’t easy, and the level of repression sometimes changes over time. Unfortunately, many other nations have a claim to membership in the Dirty Dozen. Cuba…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Dirty Dozen - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/07\/the-dirty-dozen.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Dirty Dozen - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the Spectator online, Doug Bandow on the worst violators of religious freedom: Bangladesh, Burma, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and seven more. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}