Religious Extremism

OIC & Al-Azhar Condemn Israel for Hannukah Actions in Hebron

December 04, 2021

The global, multilateral Organization of Islamic Cooperation and international Sunni community’s leading institution of Al-Azhar University issued multiple condemnations of Israel for Hannukah celebrations at the Ibrahimi Tomb of the Abrahamic Patriarchs Mosque in Hebron, charging the Jewish settlers with aggression against Islamic sanctity.
Lawyer's Blasphemy Conviction Underscores Hardline Islamist Influence in Egypt

December 04, 2021

Egyptian security courts meted out a five-year imprisonment sentence to a high-profile Islamic thinker and lawyer convicted of blaspheming Islam because of his calls for an Islamic enlightenment, with the maximum sentence for contempt of religion and provoking sectarianism highlighting the leverage of Islamist hardliners.
Steady Convergence of Politics, Ideology & Violence Explains link between Islamism & Jihadism

December 03, 2021

According to careful analysis detailed in a new book by a faculty expert at the US Naval Postgraduate School, the gradual, steady convergence of Islamism's focus on politics and ideology to produce changes in governance and society, with jihadism's focus on violence as the optimal means for sociopolitical transformation, explains the complex, globalized linkages between contemporary Islamist and jihadist movements that share goals of internationalizing states based on sharia law and practices
Ruling May Lead to Rupture Between Islamist Turkey and Council of Europe

November 30, 2021

The latest decision by Turkey’s courts to continue the indefinite detention of Osman Kavala, a high-profile prisoner of conscience, charged by Ankara with supporting anti-government terrorism activities, has accelerated a possible rupture between the Council of Europe (COE) and the Islamist regime, as the COE had made Kavala’s release a benchmark for whether to star impingement proceedings that could result in Turkey’s suspension and/or expulsion from the COE.
Turkey’s Islamist Regime Weakens Institutions & Creates Alternative Reality to Maintain Control

November 23, 2021

Turkey's ruling Islamist regime, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has hollowed out the country’s institutions, traded on foreign conspiracy theories, and consolidated political power the hands of a presidential cadre of clientelistic loyalists, allowing for almost a quarter century of uninterrupted rule and social transformation that has enabled the AKP leadership to create an alternative reality via state-controlled media that either dismisses or blames the country’s economic decline and political authoritarianism on enemies of the Islamist party-state.
NBC: Hardline Islamists Show Strength as Pakistani Government Caves to Pressure

November 23, 2021

Pakistan’s government caved into weeks of pressure in the form of massive, violent street protests by supporters of hardline Islamist leader Hussain Rizvi, with the government releasing the Tehrik-e-Labaik militant leader from jail and removing his name for a terrorism watchlist, only two weeks after releasing several thousand of the Sunni militant group’s members from prison and allowing the TLP to stand candidates in the country’s national elections
Islamist Youth Organization Meeting with European Commission Provokes Critique by French Government

November 23, 2021

A meeting by Islamist youth organization FEMYSO (Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations) with the European Commissioner for Equality has generated a critical response by the French government, which called out the European Commission for engaging with an organization that is part of “Islamist associations attacking France and infiltrating French institutions” and that has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Dominant Types of Authoritarianism in Turkey Draw on Islam as Tool of Political & Social Control

November 23, 2021

Both dominant regime types of Islamist versus secularist in Turkey have shared an authoritarianism that uses Islam as a tool of political and social control, so that Islamism runs as a continuous, albeit complex, thread through the NATO-member’s history, according to a new book by an internationally renowned political scientist with expertise on Turkey.
Taliban Leadership Makes Notorious Anti-US Jihadi Governor of Kabul

November 19, 2021

Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban regime has signaled its ongoing islamist extremist commitments in appointing as governor of Kabul a jihadi notorious for lethal attacks on US and NATO coalition forces and civilians, putting the country’s capital city under the command of Qari Baryal, a hardline Islamist with extensive ties to al Qaeda, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and a hist of violent jihadist groups operating across Eurasia.
Islamist Regimes Use Religious Soft Power & Citizenship Rights to Compete Globally

November 19, 2021

Islamist regimes in the Mideast Gulf region are using citizenship to attract international talent to key economic sectors in a growing effort to compete globally, maintaining religious soft power as a critical element in the citizenship tool.