Categories : News

Two conferences spotlight Muslim world’s struggle to counter militancy

Two conferences this week spotlight the Muslim world’s struggle to come to grips with extremism and militancy. The conferences, the Arab-Islamic-American summit in Riyadh and a gathering in East Java of youth leaders of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world’s largest Muslim movement, laid bare the difficulty of reforming cultures in the battle against extremism, called into question the commitment of Muslim states to combat radicalism and political violence, and put on display US President Donald J.

Bahrain police ‘open fire on sit-in’ around Shia cleric’s home – BBC News

Bahraini police have opened fire during a raid on a sit-in near the home of the Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom’s most prominent Shia cleric, activists say. The UK-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy said one protester had been killed in the incident in Sheikh Isa Qassim’s hometown of Diraz.

See also Reuters
“Human Rights Watch condemned the Diraz raid as a crackdown on free expression. It said it was no coincidence it occurred two days after a “convivial” meeting between Trump and King Hamad.”
See also ADHRB statement.
See also Washington Post

UK Protest: at Bahrain Embassy, 15.00 (3.00 pm) today, 30 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8QB

Experimenting in Mapping Online Anti-Shia Sectarianism on Twitter in the Middle East

Wouldn’t it be interesting to see if sectarianism itself was more dominant in one place than an other, at least online? Are some countries/cities more sectarian than others? Is sectarianism a localised phenomenon, despite what we might see in the news? If we knew this, we could then highlight where to prioritize tackling it.

This is the aim of Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia

Donald Trump sets off on Friday to create the fantasy of an Arab Nato. There will be dictators aplenty to greet him in Riyadh, corrupt autocrats and thugs and torturers and head choppers. There will be at least one zombie president – the comatose, undead Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria who neither speaks nor, apparently, hears any more – and, of course, one totally insane president, Donald Trump.

Opinion | Don’t Profit From Abuses by Bahrain

We know we risk much in calling for this. Some of my fellow activists have been tortured, sentenced to life imprisonment, even killed. But I believe that respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms is the way to attain peace, stability and prosperity in any nation; I have devoted my life to that ideal.

UN Committee Against Torture Releases Concluding Report on Bahrain – Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain

12 May 2012 – The United Nations (UN) Committee Against Torture (CAT) released its concluding observations regarding Bahrain’s second and third periodic reports today as the panel’s 60th session comes to a close in Geneva. This session marked the first time in five years that the CAT has conducted a …

See also ADHRB Newsletter 206.

Article Free Read

On May 12, the Al-Akhbar daily newspaper carried the following report: “The Saudi authorities implemented their earlier threats by demolishing the historical neighborhood of Al-Masoura in the town of Awamiyah in Al-Qatif governorate, which is administratively part of the Eastern Province.

See the Arabic
See ADHRB Condemnation of Attacks

The Shi’a Revival

Four years after Lebanon’s Hezbollah first appeared in Syria, and following the military victory in Aleppo last December, there is great change in Syria’s Shi’a Twelver community. The community makes up no more than 1-2 percent of the total Syrian population, a few hundred thousand people at most, but has been largely militarized since 2012.

Conflict in the Middle East threatens Pakistan and lynchpin of China’s One Belt, One Road

Increasingly caught up in the Middle East’s multiple conflicts, Pakistan is struggling to balance relations with rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran amid concern in Islamabad that potential US-Saudi efforts to destabilize the Islamic republic could turn its crucial province of Balochistan, a lynchpin in China’s One Belt, One Road initiative, into a battleground.

In Senegal, Iran and Saudi Arabia vie for religious influence

In an upmarket suburb of Senegal’s seaside capital, a branch of Iran’s Al-Mustafa University teaches Senegalese students Shi’ite Muslim theology, among other subjects. The branch director is Iranian and a portrait of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hangs on his office wall.