News and Analysis (11/24/17)

“[M]edical units have now been installed in the Ritz-Carlton hotel where the beatings have taken place … to prevent torture victims from being taken to hospital” …

• Saudi Torture Victims Include Former King’s Son (Middle East Eye)

… while in an act of stupefying supreme act of hypocrisy the man who invaded Yemen declares that appeasement doesn’t work as an argument why the world and the region should appease him:

• Saudi Crown Prince Speaks on Anti-corruption Drive, Islam, Women’s Rights and ‘New Hitler’ (Al-Arabiyya)

… and “a former senior Israeli military figure speaking in London … report that … senior Saudi princes … said to him words to the effect that, ‘you are not our enemy any more’”:

• Israel and Saudi Arabia: What’s Shaping the Covert ‘Alliance’ (BBC)

The suspension of his resignation “lends weight to the theory that Hariri was forced to resign,” but the Lebanese know that “they lack the military and political might to hold foreign powers at bay”:

• Lebanese PM Saad Hariri’s Suspended Resignation Is Only Cosmetic (Guardian)

“The climate for this type of attack is made possible by the pernicious influence of Sri Lankan hard-line Buddhist groups such as Bodu Bala Sena”:

• Fake News Sparks Buddhist and Muslim Extremists Clash in Sri Lanka—Is This Asia’s Next Conflict? (Newsweek)

“The idea that Burma will now welcome them back to their smoldering villages with open arms is laughable” — Bill Frelick, refugee rights director at Human Rights Watch:

• Rights Groups Say Outside Monitors Needed for Rohingya Return to Myanmar (Reuters)

A focus on “employment, career and material advancement” yields a “deficit of criticality in education … [and an] inability to cope creatively with ambiguity, the predisposition to seek black and white answers”:

• Education, Islam and Criticality (Open Democracy)

The 1753 Marriage Act “limited ceremonies to registered buildings, … [with notable exceptions “for Quakers and Jewish people, … but today renders hundreds of thousands of women outside the protection of our courts”:

• British Law Must Recognise Muslim Marriage Ceremonies (Guardian)

The group seeks to address “polygamy, nikah halala, minimum age for marriage etc.” with “new legislation which is comprehensive and is as per the Quran as well as the Constitution”:

• Triple Talaq: Amending IPC Not Enough, Need New Muslim Law, Say Activists (Indian Express)

“Abdul-Jabbar recounts the tremulous time surrounding his decision to change his name from Lew Alcindor to Kareem-Abdul Jabbar, which means ‘noble servant of [the Most Compelling],’ after” converting to Islam:

• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the Painful Public Backlash to His Islam Conversion (Entertainment Weekly)

“Rabita had closely analyzed Islamic State videos and found they sometimes used quite unreligious bait to entice youths to join their jihad”:

• Morocco Goes Digital to Counter Radical Islam Online (RNS)

ImadadDean