A Saudi secondary school teacher has been ordered imprisoned for three years for blasphemy, and sentenced to 750 lashes, to be delivered—50 a week—in the public market of the town of al-Bikeriya. Chemistry teacher Muhammad al-Harbi of Qassim province was… Read moreSaudi teacher jailed for blasphemy
The apparent identification of a suicide bomber in the Jordan hotel attacks as an Iraqi who had been detained by US forces in Iraq adds a new dimension to reactions in the Hashemite kingdom. Authorities say three Iraqi men died… Read moreJordan: Jihadis question terror tactics
Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority is to launch its own satellite television this month. After deadly riots in Alexandria Oct. 21, many Copts see the creation of the channel as an essential tool to assert their long-repressed identity. But some fear… Read moreEgyptian Copts get TV station —but not tolerance
A Kurdish PKK prisoner died on Nov. 1 after what Turkish prison officials claimed was a suicide. Prison officials claimed that the prisoner, Serdar Ari, captured had Antalya in 1998, had set himself on fire. But a delegation of observers… Read moreMysterious death of PKK guerilla in Turkish prison
Organizers of the First International Congress on Islamic Feminism, now underway in Barcelona, are calling for a “gender jihad.” Organizer Abdennur Prado Pavon of the Catalan Islamic board says the struggle for gender equality in Islamic countries involves refuting chauvinist… Read moreIslamic feminists call for “gender jihad”
The Lebanese army has besieged military positions run by the People’s Front for Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), including a network of tunnels dug in the mountains in Sultan Yaqoub (Jacob) area in the eastern Bekaa Valley. Lebanese authorities are… Read moreStand-off in Bekaa Valley
Heavens to Murgatroid! Nuance in the pages of a contemporary left publication! Sasha Abramsky shows in the October issue of The Progressive that it is still, at least, possible. We at WW4 Report do have misgivings about some of what… Read moreThe left’s “al-Qaeda problem”
The Washington Post reports Sept. 29 that a group of Turkish women’s rights activists confronted Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes with harsh criticisms of the US-led invasion of Iraq, turning a session designed to highlight the empowering of women into… Read moreTurkish women blast US envoy
A reference in a recent post on ethnic politics in eastern Anatolia to “the two Kurdish dialects of zaza and kurmanci” prompted the following letter from a reader, which we produce verbatim: Zaza(Sassaniden)’s are not Kurds and not Turks We… Read moreNext: Free Zazaistan?
One man was killed and five officers were injured during clashes between Kurdish protesters and police in southeastern Turkish city of Batman Aug. 29. The violence flared after some 1,000 Kurds marched to demand the release of the bodies of… Read moreKurds clash with Turkish police, one dead
A Reuters report Aug. 18 depicts the situation in the Sinai Peninsula escalating to a small counter-insurgency war between Egyptian security forces and Bedouin Islamic militants. A landmine damaged an Egyptian police vehicle in northern Sinai Aug. 27, injuring a… Read moreEgyptian security forces hunt Bedouin militants in Sinai
The Economist writes in its Aug. 18-25 issue that last week, in a landmark speech in Diyarbakir, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the first Turkish leader ever to admit that Turkey had mishandled the Kurdish rebellion in the country’s… Read morePKK ceasefire in Turkey; new attacks in Iran
