Afghanistan
Four get death in mob killing of Afghan woman
Afghanistan sentenced four men to death for the mob killing of a 27-year-old woman who was falsely accused of burning a copy of the Koran.
Tag: struggle within Islam
South Asia
Bangladesh: protest murder of secular blogger
Hundreds of protesters gathered in Dhaka to denounce the murder of blogger Avijit Roy, who was hacked to death with machetes following threats over his atheist views.
Iraq
Cultural legacy lost as ISIS torches Mosul library
Many rare and antique volumes were lost as ISIS forces put the Mosul library to the torch—over vociferous pleas and protests from the city's notables.
Greater Middle East
Turkish troops in Kobani incursion
Turkish forces crossed into Syria, officially to relocate an Ottoman historic site that had been threatened by ISIS—but also to intimidate the autonomist Kurds in control of the region?
Southeast Asia
Cartoon wars hit ‘moderate’ (sic) Malaysia
In "moderate" Malaysia, an opposition leader is sent to prison for "sodomy," and when a cartoonist lampooned the sentence, he was arrested for "sedition."
Iraq
ISIS and atrocity pornography: politics of horror
The ISIS immolation video reveals a totalitarian cult, but Jordan and other regimes in the anti-ISIS coalition are also despotic—while Syria's pro-democratic forces are betrayed.
Greater Middle East
ISIS burns cannabis, snorts coke?
As ISIS burns the cannabis fields of northern Syria, Kurdish fighters at Kobani claim that ISIS forces besieging the town are snorting cocaine to keep their spirits up.
Greater Middle East
Yemen’s Houthi rebels: Iran’s proxies?
Claims that the Houthi uprising in Yemen is an Iranian plot ignore that the Houthis' brand of Shia is heretical to Iran's ayatollahs—and that Yemen's Shi'ites have real grievances.
Afghanistan
Anti-French protests in North Africa, Afghanistan
Eight are dead in anti-Charlie Hebdo protests in Niger, with street clashes also reported from Algeria and Pakistan. In Afghanistan, a cleric praised the attackers as "true mujahedeen."
Europe
#JeSuisCharlie hypocrisy goes off the charts
Under the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie, an attack on free speech is being used to justify further attacks on free speech… in the paradoxical name of protecting free speech.
Greater Middle East
Egypt: atheist gets prison for Facebook posts
An Egyptian court in Baheira governorate sentenced student Karim Ashraf Mohamed al-Banna to three years in prison for announcing on Facebook that he is an atheist.
Greater Middle East
Saudi blogger to be flogged for blasphemy
Blogger Raif Badawi, convicted of "offenses to Islamic precepts" in Saudi Arabia, is to receieve 1,000 lashes at the start of his 15-year prison term.