Links roundup: What’s up, religion?

I’ve been saving these ones up – stories of ordinary people who are subjected to oppression for religious reasons. (And several of them resist successfully!) Isn’t religion supposed to improve our quality of life, not destroy it?

• Teen May Have Died By Religious Ritual (Shamanistic, Korean ritual, performed in Virginia; the girl died of blunt force trauma and asphyxiation)
• Texas Polygamist Women Called “Pimps” (polygamist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints community allegedly sanctions marriages between young girls and grown men who already have multiple wives, and who are also accused of sexual assault and child abuse)
• Scientologists convicted of fraud in France: “The Paris case followed a complaint by two women, one of whom says she was manipulated into handing over 20,000 euros in 1998 for Scientology products including an ‘electrometer’ to measure mental energy.”
• Woman Threatened With Lashes for Wearing Pants (journalist and UN employee fights Muslim sharia law in Sudan)
• Taliban Video Shows Teen Girl Beaten for ‘Adultery’ (Muslim sharia law in Pakistan gives girl “lenient” whipping instead of stoning her to death, due to rumors she had hosted a man in her house)
• Afghan Human Rights Activists Angry at U.S. Indifference (Shiite Family Law justifies marital rape and says wives have to obey their husbands and get their permission to leave the house)
• Rekha Kalindi, Child Bride Who Defied Parents Inspires India (starved by her family for two weeks when she chose school over marriage at age twelve)
• ‘Crash’ director Paul Haggis renounces Scientology over gay rights: “The church’s refusal to denounce the actions of these [Proposition 8] bigots, hypocrites and homophobes is cowardly. I can think of no other word. Silence is consent… I refuse to consent… I’ve never been good at following orders, especially when I find them morally reprehensible.” (Thank you, Paul!)