Religious Extremism

Militant Islamist Influence Growing in Indonesia

July 13, 2015

Increasing episodes of societal and state intolerance in Indonesia against non-Sunni Muslim communities and non-Muslim minority groups are being interpreted by experts as signs of the growing influence of militant Islamist ideas and actors inside the country with the world's largest Muslim population.
Egypt's Al-Azhar Under Pressure for Curriculum Reform to Reject Islamist Violence

June 15, 2015

The Egyptian government continues to press the leadership of Cairo's Al-Azhar university and mosque, considered the world's most prestigious and authoritative Sunni intellectual centers of learning, to implement a timely curriculum reform that would eliminate exhortations to violence and intolerance from textbooks and training whose influence extends to Muslim communities around the world.
Syria's Leading Mufti Implicates Turkey in Radical Islamists' Abduction of Christian Hierarchs

June 15, 2015

The Supreme Mufti of Syria has gone public with charges that the abduction of the country's two leading Orthodox Christian hierarchs two years ago by Islamist radicals was carried out with the support of Turkey's intelligence authorities.
Saudi High Court Confirms Flogging Punishment for Blogger

June 08, 2015

Bucking widespread criticism from international human rights organizations, Saudi Arabia's Supreme Court upheld another, forthcoming round of public flogging as the sharia-based punishment for what the lower courts in the Islamic theocracy deemed to be free speech excesses by one of the country's most well-known bloggers.
OSCE Chief Calls on Muslim Communities to Stand Against Anti-Semitism in Europe

May 29, 2015

The Personal Representative of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe ("OSCE") Chairperson-in-Office on Combating Anti-Semitism called on Muslim communities and leaders gathered in Azerbaijan at the Third World Forum on Intercultural Dialogues to take a more vigorous stand against anti-Semitism in Europe.
Muslim Groups Push Back Against Egyptian President's Call for Religious Tolerance

May 27, 2015

Months after Egypt's President, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, made a public statement calling on Egypt's Muslims to undertake "a religious revolution against extremism" and to support reform within Islam, the country's diverse array of Islamic groups has inverted the messages of pluralism and tolerance in the speech, instead making it a clarion call for sectarian chauvinism, Islamic literalism, and Islamist nationalism.
Tunisia Confronts Challenges of Islamism in Effort to Sustain Arab Spring Liberalization

May 20, 2015

The Tunisian government is facing complex challenges from Islamism which could stall efforts to sustain the liberalizing impulses of the original "Arab Spring" country, as years of religious repression inside Tunisia have given traction to deliberate radicalization efforts from jihadi groups and are beginning to undermine the country's fragile democratization process.
Saudi Government Recruits Civil Service Executioners for Sharia Punishment

May 20, 2015

The government of Saudi Arabia is actively recruiting to expand its executioner corps, civil servants who are charged with carrying out beheadings, amputations, crucifixions, and stonings, as punishments determined by sharia law under the Kingdom's Wahhabi Islamist regime.
Afghan Women Worldwide Protest Islamist Extremist Violence Against Women

May 07, 2015

Afghan women worldwide have mobilized to protest the mob murder of an Afghan female university student falsely accused of blasphemy for desecrating a Koran, with women in Afghanistan forming a funeral cortège for the victim in defiance of conservative Islamic clerics' ban on women in cemeteries and demanding government protection of basic human rights and rejection of radical Islamism.
Saudi Royal Family Politicizes Islam in Domestic and Foreign Policies

May 01, 2015

Saudi Arabia's royal family is fueling domestic competition between hardline Islamists and liberals, while also playing the Sunni sectarian-nationalist card to secure both groups' support for intervention in Yemen against the Shiite Houthis, as a strategy for maintaining royal power and avoiding implementing of domestic political and social reforms.