Religious Extremism

Turkey's Islamism Consolidates in Face of Dysfunctional Opposition

August 07, 2018

NATO-member Turkey's Islamist authoritarian regime is consolidating its control over politics, society, and the state apparatus, in the wake the President's election victory in June on a platform of Islamism and an imperial presidential system and in the face of the accelerated fragmentation and increasing dysfunction of the country's myriad opposition parties.
Saudi Arabia Moves Against Canada for Critique of Rights Violations

August 07, 2018

The Riyadh government has expelled the Canadian ambassador and has frozen all new Saudi-Canadian business in response to Canadian officials' call for Saudi Arabia to release female rights activists arbitrarily detained for their public criticisms of the human rights violations that continue to be perpetrated in the Islamic theocracy in the name of Wahhabi Sunni theology.
Saudi Arabia Arrests Women’s Rights Activists

August 06, 2018

Saudi Arabia’s security apparatus has arrested two prominent female leaders of the rights movement pressing for an end to the country’s male guardianship system that uses fundamentalist Islamist arguments to make the regulation of almost all aspects of women’s domestic and international activities dependent on the permission of male relatives.
HRW Criticizes Rejection of Challenge Against Indonesian Blasphemy Law

August 06, 2018

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called an Indonesian court’s dismissal of a challenge to the country’s blasphemy law criminalizing deviations from the core tenets of Indonesia’s six officially recognized religions “a blow against religious freedom,” as HRW reports that authorities use the law in a discriminatory manner against vulnerable religious minorities.
Turkey Threatens Retaliation Against US for Sanctions

August 03, 2018

Turkey's government is threatening retaliation against the US for Treasury Department sanctions on the assets of two Ankara officials deemed responsible for the protracted imprisonment of US pastor Andrew Brunson, as pro-Islamist government newspapers call for the US to be banned from using the geostrategically important NATO airbase in Incirlik.
Islamist Turkey Uses Economic Aid to Penetrate the Balkans

August 03, 2018

Turkey's Islamist President is reinforcing his declared strategy of neo-Ottoman expansion into Europe by augmenting Ankara's Islamist alliance-building among the EU member states' Muslim communities with economic aid designed to drive a wedge between the EU and development-needy Balkan states in Europe.
Turkey Announces Rejection of US Sanctions Against Iran

August 01, 2018

Turkey's foreign minister has declared that the country will not comply with the US sanctions on the Islamic theocratic government of Iran about to go into effect as a consequence of Washington's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.
Coptic Couple Reveals Network of Islamist Persecution of Christians

July 30, 2018

The ordeal of a Coptic Orthodox Christian couple currently detained in Hong Kong’s largest immigration facility pending review of their asylum claims reveals an international journey from Egypt to East Asia that was marked by chronic Islamist persecution of Christians.
Pakistan’s New PM Is "Friend of Islamists"

July 30, 2018

The election of Imran Khan as Pakistan’s new prime minister places at the helm of a nuclear state a political opportunist who is pro-Islamist and anti-American populist and has combined sharp criticism of US counter-terrorism policy in Southwest Asia with strong support from Pakistan’s armed forces.
Islamist Extremist Parties Run Strong in Pakistani Elections

July 25, 2018

A range of Islamist extremist parties, all with differing political platforms, is running a broad field of 1500-plus candidates in Pakistan’s upcoming national elections, underscoring the geopolitical danger of Islamist radicalism’s dominance in a nuclearized Southwest Asian country.