“Large parts of Egypt’s civilian infrastructure have been placed under army jurisdiction, a move nominally aimed at terrorists that also makes it easier for the government to try members of the political opposition in the country’s opaque military courts” …
… and “[t]he press, which experienced a rare window of greater freedom after Mubarak’s fall, is now effectively muzzled. On Sunday, 23 Egyptian newspaper editors issued what amounts to a loyalty pledge to Sisi’s government” …
- In Egypt, Avenues of Political Dissent Are Closing Steadily (Christian Science Monitor)
… and “[p]lainclothes policemen arrested three female Al-Azhar University students Monday, of whom one, Rehab Awad, remains in detention …
- More Students Arrested as Academics Condemn Crackdown (Egypt Daily News)
… “the most repressive regime Egypt has known in more than a half-century” demonstrates why subordination human rights to “backing repressive regimes that are supportive of U.S. national security objectives, such as fighting terrorism … is misguided”:
- Stop U.S. Support for the Repressive Regime in Egypt (Washington Post)
“None of [three murderers in this week’s headlines] was born and brought up a religious Muslim.” All were recent converts, “unstable young men prone to radicalism and violence” attracted by the fantasy projected by terrorists and Islamophobes, not by the teachings of Islam:
- Fareed Zakaria: “Muslims Are Right to Complain that There Is Anti-Muslim Bigotry” (Real Clear Politics)
In a video now banned on Youtube, the British hostage charges that “western reporters and commentators … are receiving their information from Kurdish fighters who, allied with Washington, don’t have the ‘slightest intention of telling the truth of what is happening here'”:
- Islamic State Hostage John Cantlie ‘Reports’ For YouTube Propaganda Video ‘From Kobane’ (IS / Huffington Post)
“The semi-official Isna news agency, one of the first Iranian media organisations to probe the assaults and interview victims, has come under attack from hardliners who have criticised the coverage of the vicious assaults in domestic and foreign news websites”:
Among the defenders of the event, Sisters in Islam defended the event, said that “touching a dog is not haram (prohibited). The dog is a creature of Allah,” and the organizer’s attorney said, “[T]here is nothing in Islam that says you cannot criticize something”:
- Malaysians Rally Around Activist Who Got Death Threats For Inviting Muslims To Touch Dogs (Huffington Post)
Libya has had “two governments and parliaments since a militia group from the western city of Misrata seized the capital Tripoli in August, setting up its own cabinet and assembly…, effectively splitting the vast desert nation”:
Israel thinks the back of the bus is too good for Palestinians. Pushing the envelope of apartheid, the Israeli AG proposes “banning thousands of Palestinian workers from the Israeli public buses they ride back to their homes in the West Bank” …
- Israel Attorney General Probes Palestinian Bus Ban (AP /abc News)
… and “US relations with Israel have plunged to new depths of bitterness and hostility as senior officials in the Obama administration decried Binyamin Netanyahu as a chickenshit prime minister, coward and a man more interested in his own political survival than peace” …
- Iran Assembly Rejects Rouhani Nominee for Minister (AP /abc News)
… but the Egyptian junta works to deprive the Palestinians of any means to defend themselves:
Canada and Australia react very differently to the pressures for religious discrimination:
- Watch: Canadians Stand Up to an ‘Anti-Muslim Bigot’ (Washington Post)
- How Anti-Muslim Sentiment Hit One Australian (BBC)
