Secretary Pompeo Fails to Publicly Address Human Rights Issues During Bahrain Visit

15 January 2019 – On 8 January 2019, United States (US) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo embarked on a week-long trip to the Middle East and Arab Gulf, where he met with various leaders and high-level officials to discuss critical regional issues.

For ADHRB Weekly 285, click here.
See also Human Rights Watch here.
See also BIRD Weekly 220.

Indian Muslims: A rich hunting ground for Middle Eastern rivals

By James M. Dorsey

When President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently declared that Turkey was “the only country that can lead the Muslim world ” he probably wasn’t only thinking of Middle Eastern and other Islamic states such as Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Increasingly, there is evidence that Indian Muslims, the Islamic world’s fourth largest community after Indonesia and the South Asian states, is on Mr. Erdogan’s radar.

Mr. Erdogan’s interest in Indian Muslims highlights the flip side of a shared Turkish and Indian experience: the rise of religious parties and leaders with a tendency towards authoritarianism in non-Western democracies that, according to Turkey and India scholar Sumantra Bose, calls into question their commitment to secularism.

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Christmas in Lebanon: ‘Jesus Isn’t Only for the Christians’

Lebanon Dispatch BEIRUT – The Iranian cultural attaché stepped up to the microphone on a stage flanked by banners bearing the faces of Iran’s two foremost religious authorities: Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, and Ayatollah Khamenei, the current supreme leader.

A mysterious Shia group has Nigeria worried

THE STREETS are quiet and the tear gas has dissipated, but no one knows for sure how many protesters were killed in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, at the end of October. The army claims six people died when soldiers stopped demonstrators from overrunning a checkpoint.

Imamia Medics International (IMI) Northern and Southern California Chapters will be hosting IMI’s 2018 North American Conference in Orange County, California. The conference combines IMI’s commitment to enhancing health, education, capacity building and the integration of community and faith based approaches to health. The theme for this conference is an exploration of the two public health emergencies across North America: Opioids and Obesity. In addition we will overview all aspects of health and medical sciences from clinical, basic and population perspectives. The conference will also incorporate full parallel programming for young leaders with skills development as well as conversations centered around the overall conference theme exploring healthy physical and mental lifestyles.

For tickets click here.

For the Conference Schedule, click here.

Bahrain: No Free Elections in Current Environment

(Beirut) – The upcoming parliamentary elections in Bahrain, scheduled for November 24, 2018, are occurring in a repressive political environment that is not conducive to free elections, Human Rights Watch said today. Bahrain’s allies should encourage the Bahraini government to take all the necessary steps to reform laws undermining freedom of expression and assembly and to release detained opposition figures.

For more on the US Senate vote and the Bahrain elections, see ADHRB Weekly 278, accessible here.

Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission Calls on Bahrain to Make Parliamentary Elections Free and Fair

06 November 2018 – Today, Representative Jim McGovern and Representative Randy Hultgren, the co-chairs of the Congressional Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, publicized a letter they sent last week asking Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to “take all necessary steps to ensure that the upcoming elections for the Council of Representatives of Bahrain’s National Assembly meet international standards for free and fair elections.”

For ADHRB Weekly 277, click here.

Bahrain’s Unending Shia Repression

by Emile Nakhleh Amid the Saudi-caused horrific human tragedy in Yemen and the ongoing investigation into the premeditated murder of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, …

Reforming the Faith: Indonesia’s battle for the soul of Islam

Nahdlatul Ulama, with 94 million members the world’s largest Sunni Muslim movement, is bent on reforming Islam. In a 40-page document, argued in terms of Islamic law and jurisprudence and scheduled for publication in the coming days, Nahdlatul Ulama’s powerful young adults wing, Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, spells out a framework for what it sees as a humanitarian interpretation of Islam that is tolerant and pluralistic in nature.

Statement on the Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting

The Shia Muslim Council strongly condemns the terrorist attack upon worshippers in the midst of Sabbath service at the Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday Oct 27 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Our hearts go out to the families of the worshipers who were mercilessly killed as well as those were injured.