Discrimination Against Modern Pagans
Neopagans are a religious minority in every country where they exist and have been subject to religious discrimination and/or religious persecution. The largest neopagan communities are in North America and the United Kingdom, and the issue of discrimination receives most attention in those locations, but there are also reports from Australia and Greece (the latter specifically concerning Hellenic neopaganism). Australia In 2003, Olivia Watts charged the mayor of the City of Casey, Victoria, Rob Wilson, with violating the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 after he issued a press release in June of that year titled "Satanic cult out to take over Casey", in which Watts was mentioned by name. During a hearing on August 12, 2004, in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Watts said that after the press release, she suffered vandalism to her property and an assault at her home, in addition to general "hatred, contempt and revulsion". On August 13, it was reveale ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Neopaganism
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a term for a religion or family of religions influenced by the various Paganism, historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Africa and the Near East. Although they share similarities, contemporary pagan movements are diverse, and do not share a single set of beliefs, practices, or Religious text, texts. Religious studies, Scholars of religion may characterise these traditions as new religious movements. Some academics who study the phenomenon treat it as a movement that is divided into different religions while others characterize it as a single religion of which different pagan faiths are Religious denomination, denominations. Because of these different approaches there is disagreement on when or if the term ''pagan'' should be capitalized, though specialists in the field of pagan studies tend towards capitalisation. Prominent modern pagan religions inclu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vic Toews
Victor Toews (; born September 10, 1952) is a Paraguayan-Canadian politician and jurist. Toews is a judge of the Court of King's Bench of Manitoba. He represented Provencher in the House of Commons of Canada from 2000 until his resignation on July 9, 2013, and served in the cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, most recently as Minister of Public Safety. He previously served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1995 to 1999, and was a senior cabinet minister in the government of Gary Filmon. Prior to his appointment to the judiciary, Toews was a member of the Conservative Party of Canada. Personal life Toews was born September 10, 1952, in Filadelfia, Boquerón Department, Paraguay, son of Reverend Victor David Toews (1918–1993) and Anna Peters. His great-grandparents were killed in a bomb blast in Molotschna, southern Russia (now Molochansk, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine), during the Russian Civil War after the Russian Revolution. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Santa Barbara's climate is often described as Mediterranean climate, Mediterranean, and the city has been dubbed "The American Riviera". According to the 2020 United States census, U.S. Census, the city's population was 88,665. In addition to being a popular tourist and resort destination, the city has a diverse economy that includes a large service sector, education, technology, health care, finance, agriculture, manufacturing, and local government. In 2004, the service sector accounted for 35% of local employment. Education in particular is well represented, with four institutions of higher learning nearby: the University of Calif ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shenfield High School
A Secondary School Based In England Shenfield High School is a coeducational 11-18 secondary school located in Shenfield, Essex, England. It has over 1200 students on roll, including 300 in the sixth form. It opened in 1962, celebrating its 50th Anniversary in 2012. It converted to academy status in February 2012. To coincide with the fiftieth anniversary the school adopted a new badge and uniform. The new badge incorporates golden spurs tilted into the shape. As part of its annual Awards Ceremony, the school now bestows the Golden Spurs Award on a student who has given outstanding community service. Headteachers The school has had 5 headteachers in its 60 years: Tom Harry, Peter Osborne, John Fairhurst, Carole Herman, and Claire Costello. . School buildings The school has a number of buildings, having one of the largest total areas of any school in the local area in order to cope with its 1,500 pupils. It has a total of 10 academic buildings, as well as a large sports cent ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Independent On Sunday
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition. The newspaper was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to the Russian oligarch and former KGB Officer Alexander Lebedev in 2010. In 2017, Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel bought a 30% stake in it. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. The website and mobile app had a combined monthly reach of 19,826,000 in 2021. History 1986 to 1990 Launched in 1986, the first issue of ''The Independent'' was published on 7 October in broadsheet format.Dennis Griffiths (ed.) ''The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992'', London & Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p. 330 It was prod ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pagan Federation
The Pagan Federation is a Neopaganism in the United Kingdom, UK-based voluntary organisation, founded as the Pagan Front, that provides information and counters misconceptions about Neopaganism. It was formed in 1971, and campaigns for the religious rights of Neo-pagans and educates both civic bodies and the general public about Paganism. Pagan Federation is a constituted voluntary organisation, registered as a Company limited by guarantee, private Company limited by guarantee, with exemption for use of 'limited' with Companies House on 22 August 2000, with its nature listed as a Religious Organisation. The memorandum of the association lists the objects of the Pagan Federation as providing services for Pagans in the UK and abroad, providing information about Paganism to the public and all interested bodies, educating the public about Pagan beliefs and traditions, providing access to Pagan celebrations, and providing pastoral care for Pagans in the community including those in hos ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Battle Of The Beanfield
The Battle of the Beanfield took place over several hours on 1 June 1985, when Wiltshire Police prevented The Peace Convoy, a convoy of several hundred New Age travellers, from setting up the 1985 Stonehenge Free Festival in Wiltshire, England. The police were enforcing a High Court injunction obtained by the authorities prohibiting the 1985 festival from taking place. Around 1,300 police officers took part in the operation against approximately 600 travellers. The convoy of travellers heading for Stonehenge encountered a police road block seven miles from the landmark. Police claimed that some traveller vehicles then rammed police vehicles in an attempt to push through the roadblock. Around the same time police smashed the windows of some of the convoy's vehicles and some travellers were arrested. The rest broke into an adjacent field, and a stand-off developed that persisted for several hours. According to the BBC, "Police said they came under attack, being pelted with lumps ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New Age Travellers
New Age travellers, not completely synonymous with but otherwise shortened to New Travellers (often referred to as "crusties"), are people in the United Kingdom generally espousing New Age beliefs along with the hippie culture of the 1960s (overlapping with Bohemianism), and who used to travel between free music festivals and fairs prior to crackdown in the 1990s, who now congregate in community with others who hold similar beliefs on various authorised and unauthorised sites. A New Traveller's transport and home may consist of living in a van, vardo, lorry, bus, car or caravan converted into a mobile home while also making use of an improvised bender tent, tipi or yurt. "New Age" travellers largely originated in 1980s and early 1990s Britain, when they were described as "crusties" because of the association with "encrusted dirt, dirt as a deliberate embrace of grotesquerie, a statement of resistance against society, proof of nomadic hardship." History Origins The movement or ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mpumalanga Witchcraft Suppression Bill
In June 2007 the Office of the Premier of the Mpumalanga province in South Africa leaked a draft Mpumalanga Witchcraft Suppression Bill of 2007. Unlike the ''Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1957'' (which was directed against witch-hunting), the proposed Witchcraft Control Act would explicitly acknowledge the existence of witchcraft and criminalise it. Drafting of the Bill was suspended the following year following opposition from traditional healers and Neopagans which also led to a review of existing national witchcraft legislation by the South African Law Reform Commission. Background Despite the ongoing existence of the national ''Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1957'' based on colonial witchcraft legislation, which criminalises the "pretence of witchcraft" and accusations of witchcraft, violent witch-hunts have persisted in rural areas of South Africa. Various legislative reforms have been proposed to try and address this complex problem. The principal tenets of the ANC's 1 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Witchcraft Suppression Act, 1957
The Witchcraft Suppression Act 3 of 1957 is an act of the Parliament of South Africa that prohibits various activities related to witchcraft, witch smelling or witch-hunting. It is based on the Witchcraft Suppression Act 1895 of the Cape Colony, which was in turn based on the Witchcraft Act 1735 of Great Britain. Provisions The act criminalises a number of actions. The following two crimes, the most serious under the act, attract a fine of up to R400,000 or imprisonment for up to 10 years. * Imputing to any other person the causing, by supernatural means, of any disease in or injury or damage to any person or thing, or naming or indicating any other person as a wizard. * In circumstances indicating that the accused professes or pretends to use any supernatural power, witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration, imputing the cause of death of, injury or grief to, disease in, damage to or disappearance of any person or thing to any other person. If the person in question wa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Indigenous Religions
Indigenous religions is a category used in the study of religion to demarcate the religious belief systems of communities described as being "indigenous". This category is often juxtaposed against others such as the "world religions" and "new religious movements". The term is commonly applied to a range of different belief systems across the Americas, Australasia, Asia, Africa, and Northern Europe, particularly to those practiced by communities living under the impact of colonialism. The term "indigenous religions" is usually applied to the localised belief systems of small-scale societies. These belief systems do not typically engage in proselytization, thus distinguishing them from movements like Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism that all seek converts and which are typically classified as "world religions"; unlike Judaism, even though it is often referred to as a “world religion”. They are also often characterised as being distinct from the "world religions" because they ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gradually spread throughout much of Asia via the Silk Road. It is the world's fourth-largest religion, with over 520 million followers (Buddhists) who comprise seven percent of the global population. The Buddha taught the Middle Way, a path of spiritual development that avoids both extreme asceticism and hedonism. It aims at liberation from clinging and craving to things which are impermanent (), incapable of satisfying ('), and without a lasting essence (), ending the cycle of death and rebirth (). A summary of this path is expressed in the Noble Eightfold Path, a training of the mind with observance of Buddhist ethics and meditation. Other widely observed practices include: monasticism; " taking refuge" in the Buddha, the , and the ; ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |