Religious Extremism

Turkish Imam Equates Western Free Speech and Islamic State as Causes of Islamophobia

December 28, 2015

Turkey's leading Islamic cleric, who heads the State Directorate for Religious Affairs, has blamed Western free speech and the Islamic State ("IS") as "the pioneers of Islamophobia," condemning newspaper cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammed as intolerable expressions of Islamophobia that are also aggravated by IS jihad that has "tarnished Islam's message of grace and mercy."
Muslim Reform Movement Calls on American Muslims to Reject Islamist Extremism and Violence

December 21, 2015

Muslim Reform Movement, a new organization founded in the aftermath of the Islamic State ("IS")-inspired attacks in San Bernardino, is calling on American Muslims to reject violence and extremism and simplistic West-against-Islam narratives.
Virginia Schools Confuse Teaching World Religions with Islamist Proselytism

December 21, 2015

A Virginia high school district assignment requiring students to calligraphy the Islamic statement of faith has sparked a broader debate about that state's preferential approach to Islam in teaching about world religions as a slippery slope to Islamic indoctrination.
Extremist Islamism Enjoys Widespread Support in Pakistan

December 21, 2015

Extremist Islamist ideology, including support for violence, remains deeply entrenched in society in Pakistan, feeding off economic divisions and foreign conspiracy theories to garner widespread support.
Africa Adds a Sharia State

December 15, 2015

Gambia's President declared the West African country, which has a poor human rights record, to be an Islamic state, a move that opposition politicians condemned as a constitutional violation.
Free Speech Is the Casualty of Military-Jihadi Bargain in Pakistan

December 14, 2015

The de facto power-sharing relationship between Pakistan's military and a constellation of domestic jihadi groups is deliberately suffocating speech and press freedoms under what has effectively become an Islamist authoritarian state.
Militant Islamism and Nationalism Fuel Turkey's Growing Intolerance and Violence

December 02, 2015

The deliberate use of exclusivist nationalism and militant Islamism by Turkey's governing Islamist Party ("AKP") to stifle media freedoms and to justify state violence against the country's Kurds and non-Muslims is also fueling growing societal intolerance toward ethnic and religious pluralism and is expanding sympathies for Islamic State ("IS") violent attacks against Western civilian targets.
Rights Watchers Worry About Saudi Arabia's Spike in Executions

November 30, 2015

Public beheadings and amputations are a regular feature of Saudi Arabia's criminal justice system, which operates according to puritanical Wahhabi Islamism, but human rights watchers warn that growing cases of poverty, sectarian targeting of Shiites, and the Kingdom's war against Islamist terror, are producing a shocking spike in executions in the hardcore Sunni theocracy.
Islamism and Authoritarianism Suffocate Media Freedoms in Turkey

November 30, 2015

Popular protests erupted in Istanbul in reaction to the latest episode of authoritarian suffocation of media freedoms by Turkey's Islamist government, following charges of espionage and terrorism against journalists covering allegations of Turkey's military support for Islamic State forces in Syria.
Saudis Continue to Use Death Sentences to Punish Free Speech

November 25, 2015

Saudi Arabia's infamous use of death sentences to crush speech freedoms was on display again this past week, when a local court ordered the execution of a young blogger for "renouncing Islam."