Source: theguardian.com Rachida Dati, the first Muslim woman to hold a key ministerial post in France, calls for a new stance on religion In the immediate aftermath of the terrible attacks that have shaken our country, the French came together last week in a rarely equalled demonstration of national unity. […]
Source: theguardian.com The large numbers of children in mainly Muslim areas of France who refused to observe a minute’s silence for the victims of the Paris terror attacks shows that the country has “serious work to do to avoid a catastrophe”, warns Laurent Cantet, director of an award-winning film set […]
Source: independent.co.uk Mosques in London have been sent death threats, hate mail and drawings of the Prophet Mohamed in the wake of the Paris attacks. Tell Mama, which records Islamophobic hate crime in Britain, said it had received reports of incidents at the East London Mosque, in Tower Hamlets, and Finsbury […]
By Shahid Khan The latest front cover Prophet Muhammad cartoon on the satire magazine “Charlie Hebdo” has sparked new eruptions of violence throughout the Islamic world. The cartoon depicted the Prophet Mohammed holding a “Je suis Charlie” sign as a reference to the solidarity slogan which went viral on social media after the […]
Epigraph: O mankind, We have created you from a male and a female; and We have made you into tribes and sub-tribes that you may recognize one another. Indeed, the […]
Source: NY Times: For the second time in three terms, the Supreme Court has agreed to consider the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. The last time around, the justices declined to take up the broad question. This time, there is every reason for them to follow the logic of their own […]
Source: ET The new Rajkumar Hirani-directed Bollywood movie PK starring Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma has divided opinions in India. ‘#BanPK’ trended on Twitter, there were protests all over India and religious groups burnt posters of the movie at processions but the movie is in course to be the highest grossing Indian […]
Source ET I was born in Saudi Arabia and am very closely accustomed to the grossly odd laws that exist within the nation, namely, and perhaps most famously, that women are not allowed to drive, that women have to don the black abaya when in public and that there is […]
Source: ET NIAMEY: A violent mob torched at least seven churches in Niger’s capital Niamey Saturday during fresh protests against Charlie Hebdo magazine, as France’s president stressed his commitment to “freedom of expression.” With France still reeling from last week’s deadly attacks that killed 17 people, jittery European countries stepped up […]
NIAMEY (Reuters) – Demonstrators in Niger attacked the French cultural centre, set fire to churches and raided Christian shops on Friday, as protests erupted against Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons in several Muslim West African countries. Staff of the satirical French weekly, which had angered Muslims by publishing images of the Prophet […]
Source: thetimes. A blogger sentenced to 1,000 lashes has had his punishment suspended after a direct intervention by the Saudi royal family as the country appeared to bow to international uproar over the case. Raif Badawi, 31, whose installment of 50 lashes due yesterday was postponed on medical grounds, will […]
Source: rt.com Europe is in a state of high alert after anti-terror raids netted over two dozen arrests. UK police have raised threat level to ‘severe’ fearing attacks similar to the one narrowly averted in Belgium, while Brussels has deployed troops to guard key sites. The security beef-up in Britain […]
Vengeance – Nasruddin style One day, Mullah Nasruddin heard a knock on his door. He opened the door and found his daughter standing there crying with a bruise on her eye. “What happened?” Nasruddin asked. She said that she got into a fight with her husband and he beat her. […]
A surprise visit to insurgency-hit Borno state by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan before an election has been written off by displaced persons as a bid to assuage his critics. A car bomb attack in Maiduguri in July 2014 was blamed on Boko Haram Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan ventured into the […]
Source: Samaa.tv: LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) today awarded death sentence to two militants for their role in 2010 bomb and gun attack on an Ahmadi worship place in Lahore. The two convicts, Maawia and Abdullah, were handed the sentence on seven counts. Both the militants are members of proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan […]
geo.tv: Court sentences Ahmadi worship place attackers to death, life imprisonment READ MORE…
Journalist Jürgen Todenhöfer’s interview with the German “Islamic State” fighter Christian Emde was released on Wednesday and aired on private TV network RTL. Filmed in Mosul with masked men carrying guns in the background, Todenhöfer also published the interview on his Facebook page. In an accompanying comment., the journalist said […]
by VAGER SAADULLAH When Islamic State swept into Mosul in June 2014, Iraq’s army crumbled and fled. Baghdad’s troops also abandoned surrounding territories, including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. But before Islamic State could move in, Kurdish Peshmerga forces swiftly secured Kirkuk. The ethnically diverse city is home to Kurds, […]
Samuel Huntington miscalculated. Despite the immediate horror of the Charlie Hebdo affair, the coming century will be defined not by a clash of civilizationsbetween the so-called Islamic World and its neighbors but by a fissure–whereby fault lines within the Greater Middle East break and bleed as its peoples seek answers […]
How is progress measured on board the US aircraft carrier which is playing a key role in the fight against Islamic State? The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, plying the waters of the Gulf, represents a big slice of the coalition effort being used to pound the self-proclaimed Islamic State […]