Religious Extremism

Report Links Islamism, Blasphemy Laws, and Rights Violations

August 31, 2017

A newly released report on blasphemy laws by a US government expert commission on international religious freedom reveals the comparatively high number of cases in which Islamist regimes use blasphemy laws to limit fundamental rights, with criminalization under penalty of imprisonment or death in worst-offender countries.
Sunni Hardliners Condemn Tunisian Inheritance Reforms

August 28, 2017

Conservative clerics at Egypt's Al-Azhar university, the leading jurisprudential authority in global Sunni Islam, have condemned as impermissible and blasphemous a proposal by Tunisia's president for changes in women's inheritance rights as part of broader legal reforms aimed at gender equality before the law.
Turkey's Islamists Target Cultural References from Antiquity

August 28, 2017

Turkey's constellation of Islamist parties is extending its Islamization project to an assault on cultural references from antiquity, demanding the removal from public view of a statue of Greek philosopher Diogenes, born in the Black Sea area now part of Turkey, as a foreign cultural plot.
Indian Court Rules Against Islamic Divorce Practice

August 28, 2017

India's Supreme Court ruled against the practice of instant divorce used frequently in the country's large Muslim community, a move heralded by international and local rights organizations as an important step toward developing uniform civil code protections for equal rights for all citizens and protecting Muslim women against socioeconomic marginalization by hardline Islamist laws.
Deterioration in Women's Rights in Maldives Reflects Islamization

August 22, 2017

Rights organizations that report a measurable deterioration in women's health, education, and social rights and freedoms for women in Maldives are explaining the change as a function of the increasing penetration of radical Islamist ideas and monies into the Indian Ocean country from hardline Islamist states like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Islamist Authoriarianism Spurs Anti-West Shift in Turkish Policy

August 21, 2017

Recent commentary explains how the consolidation of Islamist authoritarianism in Turkey has driven growing hostility in Turkish foreign policy toward both the country's NATO allies in Europe and Western strategic priorities in the Middle East, signaling Ankara's turn against "the Western liberal world order and its values."
Turkey Includes Jihad in Public Education Curriculum

August 18, 2017

Public school textbooks in NATO-member Turkey have incorporated teaching on jihad into the official curriculum and have removed teaching about evolution, all while the country's Islamist president has publicly critiqued the youth brain-drain due to increasing applications to study abroad.
Pakistan Court Suggests Blasphemy Reforms

August 18, 2017

Human rights experts anticipate strong push-back from Pakistan's hardline Islamist clerics and other parties to the suggestion from the country's High Court that the Parliament review reforms to the country's blasphemy laws, which have gained notoriety because of abusive false accusations and vendetta violence against those labelled "ant-Islamic."
Turkey's Islamization Policies Target Christians, Jews

August 17, 2017

The controversy in Turkey over the government's moves to convert the Byzantine Orthodox Cathedral of Hagia Sophia into a mosque reflects the state's broader strategy of Islamization of politics and society, including targeting the country's small Christian and Jewish communities and escalating an Islamist foreign policy agenda toward Israel.
Hegemony of Turkey's Islamism Threatens Christians

August 11, 2017

The hegemony of Islamism in Turkey's politics and society has been accelerated in the post-coup-attempt purges of the authoritarian Erdogan government, posing a range of existential threats to the country's small, remaining Christian communities.