SNP Foreign Aid Recipient Maldives Intensifies Religious Repression

I've written before about how the SNP is giving foreign aid to the Maldives (see here, here and here) and made a specific commitment to this in their manifesto. The Maldives was already ranked one of the most religously repressive Islamic regimes in the world. Now the repression is going to intensify a bit further.

MALE, September 17 (HNS) – President’s Office has gazetted the controversial Religious Unity Regulation, declaring it an offence to preach a religion except Islam in the Maldives.

The 12-clause regulation makes it mandatory for preachers of Islam, both locals and foreigners, to have a first degree in a field of Islamic education from a ministry-approved college, university or centre.

...The regulation also prohibits comments of hatred towards people of other religions, spreading a religion other than Islam and using an object that resembles a sign of a religion other than Islam.

A person who violates the regulation will be sentenced to 2-5 years in prison, banishment or house arrest.

Source

West Dunbartonshire Council Boycotts Israeli Books

The council is SNP-controlled but all 22 councillors (9 SNP, 9 Labour, 3, Independents, 1 Scottish Socialist) voted for the resolution in 2009. It's interesting that the SNP is not only not boycotting, but is actually giving foreign aid to countries like Pakistan and the Maldives, where the persecution of Christians by Muslims is rife.

Amusingly, this seems to have gone global on Israel-sympathetic sites round the blogosphere. I don't know if any of them have picked up on the SNP's donation of money to Islam-dominated countries that persecute Christians but if they did, it might be a good way of exerting pressure on the SNP about it. All the information is on this site.

Source

British Foreign Policy Anti-Christian, Says Cardinal

BRITAIN’S foreign policy is anti-Christian, the UK’s most senior Catholic claims.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien today launches an attack on Foreign Secretary William Hague following the announcement that the UK plans to double overseas aid to Pakistan to more than £445 million.

Cardinal O’Brien, the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, says the aid package should be conditional on a commitment to religious freedom and a pledge to protect Christians and other religious minorities.

Source

I've been checking all of the UK newspaper sites to see how much coverage the Cardinal's statement would attract. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it has been almost completely ignored by the politically correct media. So far, apart from the Scottish press (in the Herald, linked above, and here in the Scotsman) the only news coverage has been in the Daily Mail, although Damian Thompson mentioned it in a blog post on the Telegraph site.

It's rather remarkable that Britain's most senior Catholic can make such a sharp attack on government policy and it goes almost completely unremarked by the press. No doubt if he was calling for Sharia law or criticising Israel, the coverage would have been much more substantial.