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Russian Muslim 'catacomb sect' faces cruelty charges
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19180554
Members of the sect could be seen at the gate of the house
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Four members of a breakaway Muslim sect in Russia's Tatarstan region have been charged with cruelty against children for allegedly keeping them underground.
Police discovered 27 children and 38 adults living in catacomb-like cells in an eight-level underground bunker.
The sect's elderly leader, Faizrakhman Sattarov, had reportedly wanted to build his own Islamic caliphate beneath the ground.
Prosecutors said some of the children had lived there for more than a decade.
The sect was uncovered last week in a suburb of the city of Kazan during an investigation into recent attacks on Muslim clerics in Tatarstan, a mainly Muslim region on the River Volga.
Mr Sattarov, who had declared himself a Muslim prophet, has been charged with the crime of "arbitrariness", a broad crime that covers "actions contrary to the order presented by a law".
No immediate reaction to the charges was reported.
'Divine light'
Nineteen under-age children were removed by the Russian authorities, some of them placed in care, others in hospital, Russian government-owned newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta reports.
Officials said the children, aged between one and 17 years, had never left the compound, gone to school or been treated by a doctor, and had rarely seen the light of day.
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The teachings of Sattarov, who declared himself a prophet, have been rejected by traditional Muslims”
Rais Suleimanov
Kazan-based theologian
According to the Russian website Islam News, Mr Sattarov, 83, declared himself an Islamic prophet in the mid-1960s after interpreting sparks from a trolleybus cable as a divine light from God.
He and his followers began to shun the outside world in the early part of this century.
The sect, dubbed Faizrakhmanists after their founder, reportedly do not recognise Russian state laws or the authority of mainstream Muslim leaders in Tatarstan.
Only a few sect members were allowed to leave the community to work as traders at a local market, local media report.
The cramped cells descend on eight levels under a decrepit, three-storey brick house on a 700 sq m (7,530 sq ft) plot of land, the Associated Press reports.
The house was built illegally and will be demolished, local police were quoted as saying.
Teachings rejected
Muslim leaders in Tatarstan said Mr Sattarov's views contradicted their own.
"Islam postulates that there are no other prophets after Muhammad," Kazan-based theologian Rais Suleimanov told the BBC.
"The teachings of Sattarov, who declared himself a prophet, have been rejected by traditional Muslims."
Mr Sattarov is said by Rossiyskaya Gazeta to be bedridden and delirious.
The crime of arbitrariness is defined as "unauthorised commission of actions contrary to the order presented by a law or any other normative legal act" and is punishable by up to five years in prison.
On 19 July, Valiulla Yakupov, chief of the educational department of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Tatarstan, was shot and killed at his home.
The same day, Mufti Ildus Fayzov, the head of Tatarstan's Muslims, was wounded when his car blew up. At least four arrests were made.
There was no suggestion that Mr Sattarov or his followers were connected to the attacks.
Freedom gone mad - The director of MCD, the concert promoters who hosted a concert on July 7 in the Phoenix Park after which two people died, nine were stabbed and there were several outbreaks of violence and 58 arrests, claimed on radio that "wherever you get a large number of young people you can expect a level of violence and disturbance".
Apart from being a pretty awful opinion of young people, this is not true. Last year I attended World Youth Day (WYD) in Madrid. The estimate of the crowd was somewhere between 1.5 million and 2 million young people, most of them aged in their late teens and 20s.
To the best of my knowledge there were no arrests or outbreaks of violence, except by a small number of anti-Church protesters.
The police presence at WYD was minimal. All I saw the officers doing was smiling, directing traffic and taking photos for willing pilgrims.
At the Phoenix Park event there were 511 security personnel and 125 gardai (at whose expense?).
At the celebration in Madrid I was privileged to see and be part of crowds of young people filled with joy, vitality and a spirit of service.
Doesn't the juxta positioning of these two events tell us something?
What is it we adults are holding up to our young people today as an example?
Is it to follow the whims of a freedom gone mad or to seek the truth which Christ, through his church, is offering us, calling us to love God and one's neighbour and to discover that true freedom is found in self-giving?
Fr Alphonsus Cullinan Rathkeale, Co Limerick
just reading about this now. this glorious cross of dozule does not actually exist. can you have a scale model of a non-existent item?The illuminated cross would have been higher than Sister Mary's bungalow
Sister Mary said the cross would have been a scaled down version of the 738m Glorious Cross of Dozulé in France.
Pussy Riot uproar continues: FEMEN offers bounty for desecrating crosses
http://rt.com/politics/cross-femen-cutting-money-952/
An activist of the Ukrainian feminist group Femen raises a chainsaw after cutting down a cross, erected to the memory of victims of the political repression in Kiev.(AFP Photo / Genya Savilov)
A group claiming to represent the Ukrainian feminist movement FEMEN has offered payment to anyone who desecrates Orthodox crosses and churches. Cutting down a cross will earn you as much as 6,000 rubles, or $188 US.
Leaving an inscription on an Orthodox cross will net around $62, while graffiti on a church wall comes with a nearly hundred-dollar reward. The bounty list was published on the Internet by Karina Pankova, a 23-year-old woman who presented herself as the leader of FEMEN’s branch in northwest Russia’s arctic city of Murmansk.
Naked monk in woods 'had eaten bad berries'
http://www.thelocal.de/society/20120911-44897.html
Published: 11 Sep 12 14:26 CET
A Bavarian hiker who called the police after coming across a naked man staggering around in the woods, might have saved his life – it turns out he was a monk who had eaten poisonous berries. Police in Unterwössen near Traunstein, took a call last Thursday evening from the worried walker, the TZ newspaper reported. The hiker said he had tried to help the naked man but he had refused all offers of assistance and wandered off.
Officers went into the forest to track him down – luckily not taking long to find the man and persuading him to go with them. They said he was disoriented and cold, and took him to hospital. It was later discovered that he was a monk from the Traunstein area who had set off on an expedition with his bicycle and tent, planning to be in the countryside for several days.
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