Violence and Security

Pakistan's Islamic Conservatives Block Bill to Criminalize Wife-Beating

July 19, 2021

Conservative Islamic clerics and societal groups in Pakistan have succeeded in pressuring the country's Parliament to revise the proposed Domestic Violence (Protection and Prevention) Bill 2021, which criminalizes domestic violence against women and girls, with opponents claiming that the proposed legislation controvenes Quranic permissions for "light" wife-beating.
Islamist Regimes Collude in Trading POW Returns for Military Information

July 16, 2021

The Islamist regimes of Azerbaijan and Turkey are colluding in trading Armenian POWs from the recent Azerbaijan-Armenia war in Nagorno-Karabakh in exchange for minefield maps from Armenia, with the wife of Turkey’s Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, caught on video telling the Azeri president not to return the POWs until the mine information is provided.
New Accounts of Saudi Arabia’s Human Rights Abuses

July 14, 2021

International rights watchdog Human Rights Watch highlights the endemic torture and abuse of prison detainees in Saudi Arabia, especially women’s rights activists who are subjected to beatings and whippings, sexual harassment, and electric shocks.
Islamist Groups Ramp Up Geopolitical Agenda with U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan

July 12, 2021

The drawdown of America’s military presence in Afghanistan is laying bare the geopolitical agenda of the Taliban and associated radical Islamist groups, with Taliban leadership warning Central Asian not to support future US “over-the horizon“ counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan.
Turkey Withdraws from Women’s Rights Convention

July 12, 2021

Turkey’s Islamist regime formally withdrew the country from the Council of Europe’s Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, as the government critiqued the international framework as contrary to Turkish family values and as a tool for promoting homosexuality.
Pro-Iran Militias Continue Strikes on U.S. Bases in Iraq and Syria

July 12, 2021

Pro-Iranian militias launched another round of drone and rocket attacks against U.S. bases at the Syria-Iraq border, with minor injuries to personnel caused by this latest in a series of attacks by Shiite extremist groups against the international coalition combatting a resurgence of the Islamic State.
Boko Haram & Bandits Drive Lawlessness in Nigeria

July 07, 2021

Voice Of America reports that the degrading conditions of lawlessness in Nigeria are being driven by militants from the Boko Haram Islamist extremist group and other bandits, who recently kidnapped more than 140 high schools students and teachers, as well as patients from one of the country's National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Center.
The Guardian: Taliban Continue Advance Towards Full Control of Afghanistan

July 05, 2021

The militant Islamist Taliban are contingent their steady advance across Afghanistan, taking advantage of the slow, gradual withdrawal of NATO and other stabilization forces to fight for full control over the geopolitically important South Asian state.
Pakistan’s Islamist Authoritarianism Corrodes Human Security

July 05, 2021

According to The Diplomat, Pakistan’s ruling regime is combining increasingly hardline Islamist nationalism with authoritarian politics in ways that are corroding human security at home, with discriminatory sociopolitical discourse and targeted violence against non-Sunni religious minorities, coupled with anti-Semitic slogans and calls for a nuclear attack against Israel.
Assassinations of Iraqi Activists Expected as Elections Approach

June 30, 2021

Iraqi civil society activists warn that as Iraq’s parliamentary elections in October 2021 nears, there will likely be an escalation in targeted assassinations of the country’s activist class by Iran-supported militias to undermine Iraq’s fragile democratic forces.