Religious Extremism

Pakistan Court Imposes Death Sentence over Facebook Post

June 19, 2017

A Pakistan court sentenced a man to death on charges of committing blasphemy against Islam because of his Facebook posts, part of an escalation in restrictions on free speech and vigilante social violence in the name of protecting state-sanctioned, Sunni interpretations of Islam.
Islamist Conflicts Extend to Lobbying in Washington

June 14, 2017

The Saudi-Iranian competition that is producing Sunni-Shiite sectarian warfare and massive instability across the Mideast is also playing out in Washington through public diplomacy and lobbying campaigns, including art exhibits and film and cultural programs, designed to sway DC opinion-makers and foreign-policy makers.
Iran's Supreme Leader Accuses US of Creating IS

June 14, 2017

As tensions escalate in the regional Sunni-Shiite power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the clerical leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has blamed the US for the creation of the Islamic State (IS) and for destabilizing the Middle East.
Saudi-Qatar Islamist Rift Goes Global

June 14, 2017

Turkey's Islamist government is using military and economic support to lead a pro-Qatar response to Saudi Arabia's attempt to leverage its control over Islam's holy sites to rally Muslim-majority countries in Africa and Asia behind the effort to isolate Qatar over its presumed support for Islamist revolutions and for the Iran Islamist theocracy.
Turkish Islamization, IS Expansion Squeeze Religious Minorities

June 06, 2017

Turkey's large Alewite religious minority, a heterodox Shiite Muslim community, reports growing security risks due to discrimination and intimidation by the Sunni Islamization policies of the Turkish government and state indifference to threats of Islamic State (IS) attacks on Alewite places of worship.
Iran's Election Outcome Signals Islamist Resilience

May 30, 2017

Ayatollah Hassan Rouhani's victory in Iran's presidential elections signals the possible global impact over the long term of the country's Islamist revolutionary model, as his big-tent alliance of "modern theocrats" views moderate religious-political reform as the optimal mechanism for resilience and durability.
Islamists Gain Ground in Bangladesh with Assault on Statues

May 30, 2017

Bangladesh's hardline Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam scored another win in its sociopolitical campaign to impose sharia law across the country, including blasphemy statutes and strict gender separation in public spaces, by convincing state authorities to remove a sculpture of Lady Justice from the front of the Supreme Court building.
Indonesian Court Convicts Christian Governor of Blasphemy

May 26, 2017

An Indonesian court has convicted Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian, of the "criminal act of blasphemy" and sentenced him to two years in prison, harsher than the one-year suspended sentence sought by prosecutors, for a reference he made to a passage of the Koran in a campaign speech in 2016.
DC Officials Seek Prosecution of Erdogan Guards

May 25, 2017

American officials and policymakers are intensifying their calls in favor of lifting diplomatic immunity in order to prosecute members of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's security detail who violently attacked US citizens calling for an end to the authoritarian practices of Turkey's Islamist regime outside the country's embassy in Washington.
Iranian Election Signals Direction of Islamic Theocracy

May 22, 2017

Iranians recently voted in a presidential election viewed by most experts as a referendum on the direction of the Islamic theocratic regime, with a choice between the gradualist reforms of the incumbent, Hassan Rouhani, and the radical Islamism advocated by challenger Ibrahim Raisi, whose supporters include the country's hardline clerical faction committed to the global export of Islamist revolution.