Religious Extremism

Turkey's Government Uses Armenian Genocide Centennial to Consolidate Islamist Credentials

April 22, 2015

Turkey's Islamist government is using a combination of threats against NATO allies and accusations of Western Islamophobia to politicize global remembrance events of the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, part of the broader effort by Turkey's President and Prime Minister to consolidate domestic power behind the ruling Islamist party and to expand Turkey's claims to global status as protector of the Muslims worldwide.
Saudi Elites Frame War in Yemen in Terms of Islamic History and Islamist Struggles

April 22, 2015

Saudi Arabia's political, intellectual, and religious elites tend to concur on the Saudi-led military coalition against the Houthi rebel militias who have captured Yemen's capital, framing the air war as a necessary step to protect Sunni Islamic orthodoxy against advances by Iranian-backed Shiite heterodoxy.
Islamization and Destruction of Christian Sites Continues in Turkey

April 22, 2015

Last week's recitation of Quranic prayers in the Byzantine Orthodox Christian Cathedral of Aghia Sophia was sponsored by Turkey's State Directorate for Religious Affairs, reflecting NATO-member Turkey's policy of eradicating the presence of Christians and Christian sites from their ancient homeland in Constantinople and Asia Minor, by an Islamization policy that converts churches into mosques and a religious cleansing policy that destroys Christian religious sites by turning them into stables, public toilets, and commercial buildings.
Turkey Accuses Pope Francis of Religious Hatred for Statement about Armenian Genocide

April 14, 2015

The Government of Turkey has accused Pope Francis of using his "religious post to stoke hatred and grudges" along religious lines, in reaction to the Pontiff's description of Ottoman Turkey's murder of 1.5 million Armenian Christians as the 20th century's first genocide and to his call for Muslim leaders to denounce the targeted terror attacks against Mideast Christians by jihadi groups such as The Islamic State ("IS").
Domestic Radical Islamism Bent Explains Turkey's Failure to Condemn ISIS

April 13, 2015

Multiple sources of extremist Islamist support within Turkish civil society, combined with the increasingly radicalized Islamist ideological positions of Turkey's governing party, help to explain the country's unwillingness to condemn and to combat the jihadi operations of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ("ISIS").
Islamist Party in Tajikistan Sparking Debate about Threat of Transnational Extremism to Secular Democracy

April 01, 2015

Calls by the government of Tajikistan and some of the country's leading imams for a referendum on the closure of the Islamic Renaissance Party turn on concerns about the party's links to transnational networks of Islamist extremists and, thereby, poses a threat to the Tajik government's goals of developing secular, pluralist democracy in the country.
Islamic Reformation Is Key to Success for Countering Violent Extremist Islamism

April 01, 2015

"Muslim dissenters" argue that debates about the authenticity of Islam as a religion that promotes peace and tolerance versus violence and intolerance depend upon an internal Reformation entailing Muslims' self-reflexive critique and unqualified repudiation of both literalist theological claims and ahistorical leadership which are the wellspring of Islamist extremists and jihadis.
Controversy in Afghanistan Follows Woman's Stoning Death for Blasphemy Under Sharia Law

March 23, 2015

The death by stoning of a mentally disabled woman in Afghanistan's capital city by a vigilante mob that accused her of blasphemy against Islam has laid bare the continuing dominance of fundamentalist Islamist laws and values against international human rights norms, despite more than a decade of U.S.-led international programs for implementing rule-of-law governance in Afghanistan.
Qatar's Complex Links to Radical Islamism Reveal Broader Gulf Networks of Support for Extremist-Terror Groups

March 20, 2015

The Emirate of Qatar's complex connections and permissive support environment for radical Islamist groups offer a revealing window into delicate balancing games and broader networks of support amongst Gulf regimes for global Islamist extremist-terror groups.
UN Report Finds Human Rights Violations Under Sharia Governance in Iran

March 19, 2015

The new report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran concludes that there has been a deterioration of overall human rights conditions, including religious, civil, and political liberties, since 2013, as these freedoms are subject to interpretation, qualification, and restriction according to sharia as the law of the land in the Islamic Republic of Iran.