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?
In "moderate" Malaysia, an opposition leader is sent to prison for "sodomy," and when a cartoonist lampooned the sentence, he was arrested for "sedition."
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
Blogger Cheikh Ould Mohamed of Mauritania was sentenced to death for apostasy after a court convicted him of "speaking lightly of the Prophet Mohammed" on websites.
The dueling hashtags #JeSuisCharlie (I am Charlie) and #JeSuisMusulman (I am Muslim) reveal a pathological dichotomy: we can defend free speech and oppose Islamophobia.
A sweeping "anti-terrorism" decree and expanded crackdown on opposition come as Egypt's President al-Sisi is making overtures to the Copts and invoking pluralism.
