Month: March 2011

With the detention of six opposition leaders and a “tear gas and shotgun attack” on “a pro-democracy tent city at Pearl Square on Wednesday in the worst day of violence since activists took to the streets last month,” Obama expresses “deep concern”: UN Warns of ‘Shocking’ Abuses in Bahrain (AFP / Sydney Morning Herald) U.S.…

The Qur’an (4:92) allows blood money in cases of accidental death if a captive is freed as well; but the U.S. refuses to free Aafia Sidiqui: ‘Blood Money’ Frees CIA Contractor in Pakistan (AP / abc News) With reports of Apache helicopters shooting at peaceful protesters, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expresses alarm at developments:…

For American-grown jihadists, it’s “Give me liberty or give me death”: The American Who Died for the Libyan Revolution (abc News) How “how some women navigated the restrictions under the Taliban to support their families”: The Dressmaker of Khair Khana (Christian Science Monitor) “Protesters – who organised the event via Facebook – say they have…

The confession of Swami Aseemanand that “Hindu radicals” were behind the wave of bombings in Muslim neighborhoods suggests “that a network of radicals stretched right up to senior levels of the country’s Hindu nationalist right wing”: Hindu Terrorism Charges Force India to Reflect on Prejudices Against Muslims (Washington Post) As Bahraini lawmakers call on the…

Tempering his rhetoric, Peter King steers “clear of his most controversial statements from the past, when he said more than 80 percent of American mosques were tainted by radicalism”: Peter King at Odds with Democrats on Muslims at Congressional Hearing (Washington Post) “At this time in our history, with billions of dollars being spent on…

When a woman quoted Qur’an to a man to prove that a woman could be president of Egypt, his rebuttal was to grope her: In Egypt’s Tahrir Square, Women Attacked at Rally on International Women’s Day (Christian Science Monitor) The violence between Muslims and Copts that started with a church-burning over an interfaith romance accelerates…

Islamophobe Peter King calls the move a vindication of the Bush administration policies and ACLU’s Anthony Romero calls it “a complete about-face”: Obama Creates Indefinite Detention System for Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay (Washington Post) Amid false rumors of Gaddafi’s departure and speculation as to whether Obama will be suckered into a military intervention, Gaddafi’s forces…

As Tunisia presses forth with serious reform … Tunisia Interim Leaders Dissolve Secret Police Agency (BBC) … the Egyptian military continues its repression by enforcement of the emergency laws (aided by “armed civilians’), and opposition leaders object to elections “held before numerous amendments including amending the law on elections, abolishing the committee for political party…

Not to be outdone by his Muslim counterparts, the Christian dictator of Ivory Coast shoots into crowds of demonstrators and deprives half his country of water and electricity: Ivory Coast: Women ‘Shot During Pro-Ouattara March’ (BBC) Asked to issue a fatwa against the demonstrations, the Saudi shaikh instead rules against Gaddafi, “saying it was ‘a…