An Afghanistan appeals court overturns the death sentence for Parwez Kambakhsh, who circulated an article about the rights of women under Islam.

In a case that has illustrated this country's drift toward a more radically conservative brand of Islam as well as the fragility of its legal system, an appeals court today overturned a death sentence for a student convicted of blasphemy but sentenced him instead to 20 years in prison.

The 24-year-old student, Parwez Kambakhsh, ran afoul of Afghan authorities last year when he circulated an article about the rights of women under Islam after downloading it from the Internet. He was studying at the time in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, where he also worked as a part-time journalist for local papers.

Arrested by security police and initially held without charges, he was eventually tried on blasphemy charges, convicted and sentenced to death. Tuesday's ruling by a three-judge appeals-court panel was a blow to human-rights groups and advocates of press freedom who have championed Kambakhsh's cause.

The Supreme Court begins its term on Monday, and the indications so far are that it could be a quiet year. There will be at least a few high-profile cases, on issues ranging from obscenity to church-state separation, but the swing vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy is likely to keep the court on a generally centrist path. The real excitement this fall is occurring on the outside — in a presidential race that could shape the court for years to come.

...This term’s docket includes Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, a challenge by broadcasters to the F.C.C.’s policy on “fleeting expletives.” The commission, in a sharp reversal, started imposing large fines for television programming with brief profanities — like a Golden Globe awards show in which the singer Bono uttered a single offending word. A federal appeals court rightly struck down the policy, which seriously infringes on free speech. We hope the court sides with the broadcasters.

The court will also consider, in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, whether a Utah municipality that allows a privately donated Ten Commandments monument to be displayed on public property must let another religion put up its own statue of similar size. The court should rule that the Constitution does not allow government to favor one religion over another....

Does it violate freedom of religion for the government to require that electronic markers be implanted in cows and other livestock? A group of Michigan farmers thinks it does and they’ve filed suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) to prevent the requirement of electronic tags on their livestock.

The tagging procedure is being mandated to help the government track diseases in animals as they travel from farm to slaughterhouse to stores, but the farmers say that such a system violates their religious freedom because it represents the “mark of the beast” mentioned in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. The complaint says:

“Use of a numbering system for their premises and/or electronic numbering system for their animals constitutes some form of a ‘mark of the beast’ and/or represents an infringement of their ‘dominion over cattle and all living things’ in violation of their fundamental religious beliefs.”

The “mark of the beast” is, according to some interpretations of the Bible, a mark that all people will have to get during the “end times” predicted in Revelation.

The RFID tag system for livestock is part of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), which is being implemented in Michigan by the MDA. The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction against the implementation and enforcement of the law and are asking for a preliminary injunction to be issued immediately to prevent “irreparable, actual harm” to the plaintiffs’ rights and interests.

    Florida's Supreme Court on Wednesday tossed out two statewide ballot initiatives aimed at ending a longstanding ban on public funding for religious institutions, drawing praise from church-state watchdogs.
    Civil liberties groups had filed suit to remove the amendments headed for the November ballot, which sought to rewrite the state constitution to allow church groups to participate in government programs, and pave the way for school voucher programs.

    A lower court had upheld the initiatives in an Aug. 4 decision.

For heartsick former supporters of John Edwards, this week offers an edifying tabloid alternative: the civil trial of Victoria Osteen, wife of megachurch minister and televangelist Joel Osteen, for assaulting a flight attendant. The issue was what is sometimes described as a "spill" and sometimes as a "stain" on the armrest of Mrs. Osteen's first class seat, which the flight attendant refused to clean up with sufficient alacrity because she was busy assisting others aboard. Although there is no evidence that the spill consisted of tuberculosis-ridden phlegm or avian flu-rich bird poop, Osteen was mightily pissed, allegedly pushing and punching the flight attendant and making such a ruckus that the Osteen family had to be removed from the flight.

I would be more sympathetic to the flight attendant, Sharon Brown, if she weren't demanding 10 percent of Osteen's fortune to compensate for injuries including a "loss of faith" and hemorrhoids somehow incurred from a frontal assault. But it isn't easy being a flight attendant in this era of layoffs, pay cuts and packed planes -- certainly not compared to being a millionaire on her way to Vail. Whatever dubious substance Victoria Osteen faced on that first class armrest, she should have been able to derive some serenity from the fact that the church she co-pastors draws 40,000 worshippers a week and that her husband has been dubbed "America's Most Influential Christian."

Just another celebrity meltdown set off by insufficiently servile servers? Recall Russell Crowe's 2005 assault with a telephone on a SoHo hotel clerk, or Naomi Campbell's attacks with similar weapons -- cell phone and Blackberry -- on members of her own staff. But there's a curious antecedent here that Christians would do well to ponder: In 1997, another megachurch pastor and leading televangelist -- Robert Schuller -- was prosecuted for an eerily similar first class tantrum.

OMAHA, Neb. -- A Nebraska senator who filed a lawsuit against God appeared in court Tuesday and demanded the defendant to "cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats."
Despite Sen. Ernie Chambers' lack of success in petitioning the defendant, he hopes the lawsuit brings to light his stance that no lawsuit is frivolous until the court decides.
Chambers said state senators periodically have offered bills prohibiting the filing of certain types of suits. He said his main objective is that the constitution requires that the doors to the courthouse be open to all.
"Thus anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody -- even God," Chambers said in 2007.
The lawsuit accuses God "of making and continuing to make terroristic threats of grave harm to innumerable persons, including constituents of Plaintiff who Plaintiff has the duty to represent." It says God has caused "fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects and the like."
At the latest hearing on Tuesday, the judge took the case under advisement.
"He may reach a decision on the 12th of never and when that happens I may be crippling around here and I'll say it came to pass on my 120th birthday, and at that point I'll be able to tell that it did come to pass," Chamber said.

    The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ, whose members claim to be descended from the legendary crusaders, have filed a lawsuit against Benedict XVI calling for him to recognise the seizure of assets worth 100 billion euros (£79 billion).

    They claim that when the order was dissolved by his predecessor Pope Clement V in 1307, more than 9,000 properties as well as countless pastures, mills and other commercial ventures belonging to the knights were appropriated by the church.

    But their motive is not to reclaim damages only to restore the "good name" of the Knights Templar.

    "We are not trying to cause the economic collapse of the Roman Catholic Church, but to illustrate to the court the magnitude of the plot against our Order," said a statement issued by the self-proclaimed modern day knights.

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Courtesy The Telegraph (UK)