“Egypt’s election commission disqualified 10 presidential hopefuls, including Hosni Mubarak’s former spy chief and key Islamists, from running Saturday in a surprise decision that threatened to upend an already tumultuous race… The disqualified candidates have 48 hours to appeal the decision…”:
- 10 Egyptian Presidential Hopefuls Barred From Race (AP / abc News)
“The lawsuit says that since 2008, the four men, including the imam of a big mosque in Canton, were at various times detained, handcuffed, strip-searched and interrogated for hours. Sometimes, agents would surround their cars with guns. Agents would ask questions such as: Which mosque do you go to? How many times a day do you pray?”
- Local Muslim Americans Sue U.S., Alleging Strip Searches at Border (Detroit Free Press)
“[I]in what Western diplomats called a constructive development given their low expectations, agreed to meet again next month.” The chief Iranian negotiator indicated that despite “differences of opinion … some important points had been agreed to” and “that the next talks should focus on arranging measures to build mutual confidence”:
- Iran Nuclear Talks: ‘Constructive’ Day Yields Plan for Round 2 in May (Reuters / Christian Science Monitor)
Contradicting the women’s affidavits, a variety of official documents, and the age given by one woman’s father in an official police filing, the police insist that a “”medical examination” reveals that they are minors, but they declared “they were old enough to marry, had not been coerced by the boys or anyone else and had voluntarily converted to Islam” :
“Islam is a religion that banned and stopped people from burying their daughters alive, and injustice and brutality against women. But five women were killed in the span of 2 weeks in an Islamic republic and there is no sign of justice. Islam emphasizes on love between couples but in an Islamic country, when a husband kills his wife, her Islamic and human rights are forgotten and nobody is ready to maintain justice”:
- Statement on Justice for Women: Walk on April 14, 2012 (Young Women for Change)
More unintended consequences of the NATO intervention into Libya; “A group called Ansar al-Din who have been fighting along the main Tuareg rebel group in Mali say they have established a state based on Islamic law in the north of the country,” but “mass looting and extreme poverty have been the only result so far”:
- Fighters in Timbuktu Declare Islamic State (AlJazeera)
The “top government lawyer and devout Muslim … taking on menial jobs to atone for the beheading of a Sikh by Islamist militants … initially hid his quest from his family … but they are now supportive. He also avoided media interviews until a reporter reminded him that Islam tells followers to publicize good deeds as an example to others”:
- Muhammad Khurshid Khan: Muslim Cleans Shoes In Shrines To Atone For Beheading Of Sikh By Islamists (Huffington Post)
“America, … a safe heaven for persecuted believers since the Mayflower, keeps up with its heritage by welcoming Muslim believers as well,” and the handful of “fear-mongering … anti-Islamic propagandists … represent not the best of America, but the worst of the hateful oppression from which some of the newly Americanized Muslims have just fled”:
- Why Some Muslims Like America (Huffington Post)
In “the US … a network of neo-conservative, evangelical and conservative organisations attempts to spread ‘negative perceptions of Islam, Muslim minorities and Islamic culture’. Nick Lowles, director of Hope Not Hate said: “… it was the ‘counter-Jihadist’ ideology that inspired [Breivik] and gave him the reasoning to carry out these atrocious attacks”:
