News and Analysis (10/10/19)

Will Turkey’s multiple conflicts and military activities secure its border and interests? …

• Confusion in Turkey’s Regional Foreign Policy (Arab Center Washington DC)

… Kamran Bokhari think it can:

• Hard Truths About the U.S.-Turkey Deal on Syria (Center for Global Policy)

Beijing may cancel trade talks with the US as the US restricts Visas for Chinese officials for their role in the human rights violations and abuses of Muslims minorities …

• The U.S. to Restrict Visas for Chinese Officials Linked to Abuse of Muslim Minorities (The Wall Street Journal)

… meanwhile, a 65-year-old woman has “been sentenced in June to 20 years in [prison for] …. ‘illegally using superstition to break the rule of law” and “gathering chaos to disrupt social order’”:

• ‘Illegal Superstition’: China Jails Muslims For Practicing Islam, Relatives Say (NPR)

An Indian Christian missionary says that under Modi’s party sees both “Muslims and Christians … with a special ‘contempt’ as foreign interlopers or as ‘brainwashed’ by colonizing forces’” and both are targets of violence:

• Opposition to Modi Isn’t Just About Anti-Muslim Violence, Indian Christians Say (Religion News Service)

“The perpetrator … is a member of the Brigade Juive, or Jewish Brigade, a pro-Israel extremist group” from which “many Palestine solidarity activists received death threats … threatening to ‘scalp you one by one’:

• Hacker Found Guilty of “Terror and Intimidation” Against Palestine Activists (electronic intifada)

Israeli Secret Services sanctioned illegal torture against Palestinian civilians …

• Palestinians Have a Right to Demand Freedom from Torture (Al-Jazeera)

… while “the demolition of their homes, arbitrary detention, and systematic attacks by Israeli settlers with the tacit support of the Israeli army” cause “significant long-term mental health impacts” as well as physical injury”:

• The Invisible Mental Health Crisis Plaguing the West Bank (Médecins Sans Frontières)

How Interfaith dialogue may heal divisions in a world inflicted with religious and political conflicts:

• Opinion: The Yom Kippur Lesson I Learned from a Muslim Man (LA Times)

The author asks, “Why in the world would you choose to increase your marginality? Why would you choose to increase the discrimination that you will experience?

• Religion Professor Presents Book on Latinx Muslim Community (Michigan Daily)

“Muslim and Catholic religious leaders observed the eighth centenary of St. Francis’ pilgrimage to Jerusalem by visiting Al-Aqsa Mosque, illustrating what appears to be a golden age of relations between the religions”:

• Visit from Vatican Reps Boosts Catholic-Muslim Interaction (Al-Monitor)

“Building and stockpiling nuclear bombs is wrong and using it is haram (religiously forbidden) … Although we have nuclear technology, Iran has firmly avoided [weaponizing] it”:

• Iran’s Khamenei Says Building, Using Nuclear Bomb is Forbidden Under Its Religion: TV (Reuters)