Mission & Justice

Tom Hyland; 4/5/08

Prisoners captured by Australian and Dutch troops in Afghanistan allege they have been beaten after being handed over to the notorious Afghan secret police. While the Australian Defence Force says there is no evidence prisoners taken by Australian troops have been mistreated, official documents show three have complained they were beaten around the head by secret police after being captured by the Dutch-Australian taskforce. The Dutch documents show prisoners are routinely handed over to Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS), which human rights groups accuse of torturing and abusing prisoners.

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Mohammed Rasooldeen;16/4/08

European Commissioner for External Relations and Neighborhood Policy Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who finished a two-day visit to Riyadh yesterday, said that the EU would not develop new laws against blasphemy. Ferrero-Waldner was speaking in reference to the recent release of “Fitna,” a short film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, and offensive cartoons published in European newspapers in 2005 and 2006. “There are two principles involved in this matter: freedom of press and freedom of religion. Every individual has a right to express what he thinks is correct. Similarly, the other individual, who is not in agreement, can rebut in the same way,” she said.

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Barbara Bibo’; 14/3/08
The European Union expects Islamic countries to allow Christians to exercise their religion as freely as Muslims in Europe, a top EU official said here on Sunday. Praising Qatar for allowing the construction of its first church, Hans-Gert Pattering, President of the European Parliament, said while the EU allows Muslims to have prayer houses and mosques, it also expects Muslim countries to reciprocate the same freedom. “Muslims who are living in Europe can live their religion freely. They have their prayer houses and their mosques … We expect that Christians in the Muslim world can live their [religious] beliefs too,” Pattering told a press conference in Doha.

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