Religion

Minorities in Pakistan Fear ‘Forced Conversion’ to Islam

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Minority communities in Pakistan have long had a raw deal. Accounting for just 10 percent of this country’s population of 180 million, they are no strangers to marginalisation, discrimination or even violence.

Kyrgyzstan’s Sky Worshippers Seek Recognition

By Bakyt Ibraimov
Arslanbek Maliyev grew disillusioned with Islam when he realised foreign missionaries who came to Kyrgyzstan following the collapse of the Soviet Union were more concerned with building mosques than they were with education.

Vaccinating Against Their Will

By Monde Kingsley Nfor
The growing number of child deaths from diarrhoea in Cameroon has necessitated the introduction of a new vaccine (RotaTeq) designed to protect babies under five against common types of rotaviruses that cause diarrhoea. But growing skepticism over new vaccines, and lack of potable water and proper hygiene could thwart such public health efforts, experts say.

Palestinians Take the Tough Path Towards Unity

By Khaled Alashqar
The nascent move for reconciliation between the Fatah party in the West Bank and Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip could change the balance in the Middle East – if it were to proceed and deliver as promised.

OP-ED: Caribbean Religious Leaders Inspire IMF Sunday Schools

By Eric LeCompte
Last Fall, I witnessed the Grenada Council of Churches insert themselves into negotiations between their government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) around the island’s debt restructuring and presumed austerity policies. Religious leaders called from pulpits across the tiny island for a “Jubilee” or national debt cancellation.

On the Street That’s Home

By Rachel Williamson
Leila*, 19, has a soft, rasping voice and sad eyes. Her face is striped with long scars but nothing in her neat appearance hints that for the last nine years, her ‘home’ has been the streets just north of downtown Cairo.

Fatwa Comes Too Late for Kashmir’s Half-Widows

By Athar Parvaiz
Forty-seven-year-old Shahmala’s husband has been missing since 1993. In India’s restive Jammu and Kashmir state, she is what is known as a half-widow, a woman who has no clue whether her husband is dead or alive.

With Refugees Comes Crime

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Blaming Afghan refugees for a surge in crime, Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has placed restrictions on the movement of those who do not possess legal documents to stay in the country.

Syrian Split Divides Christians

By Karlos Zurutuza
Malki Hana says his men are afraid of cameras. “Most of them are army defectors and they may easily get in trouble," says this commander of a mostly unknown armed group in Syria.

Raped, And Abandoned By Law

By Irfan Ahmed
Amina Bibi, an 18-year-old from Pakistan’s Punjab province, was allegedly raped by four men on Jan. 5 this year. All the accused were granted bail. A desperate Amina set herself on fire outside a police station on Mar. 13 and succumbed to burn injuries the next day.

Women Voters Win

By Abdullah Omeed
About a third of the voters in the Afghanistan presidential election were women. That still gives Afghan women a say in running the country, as never before.

U.S. Religious Progressivism “Way of the Future”

By Michelle Tullo
The future of religion in U.S. politics lies not with conservatives but rather with religious progressives, social scientists here are suggesting, with a faith-based movement potentially able to provide momentum to a new movement for social justice.

Displaced and Disturbed in Pakistan

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Every night in his sleep, Rizwan Ahmed sees his sons being killed. “When he wakes up, he starts crying. He realises they are dead and it was the nightmare he has been having,” says Dr. Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the psychiatrist treating him.

Kenya’s Nationwide Clampdown on Islamic Extremism ‘Counterproductive’

By Noor Ali
Kenya’s government was warned by Muslim clerics about the radicalisation and recruitment of youths by Al-Shabaab six years ago but did not take action, says Sheikh Ahmed, a management committee member of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya.

Morocco Divided Over Equality

By Abderrahim El Ouali
Morocco stands divided over a proposal for equal inheritance rights for men and women: modernists see this as application of equality arising from the new constitution, and Islamists see in this a violation of Sharia law.

Egyptian Quacks Mutilate Millions

By Hisham Allam
Saber Abd El-Mawgoud began his career castrating sheep and goats before moving on to humans. His first human experiment was a young boy he attempted to circumcise back in 1999 at the insistence of the boy’s father.

Interfaith Leaders Jointly Call to Abolish Nuclear Arms

By Michelle Tullo
On the eve of next week’s meeting at the U.N. headquarters in New York on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), more than 100 representatives of 11 faith groups from around the world have pledged to step up their efforts to seek the global abolition of nuclear weapons.

OP-ED: Russia’s Changing Islamic Insurgency

By Peter J. Marzalik
With the Kremlin’s attention fixated on Ukraine, the Caucasus Emirate, a terrorist group fighting to establish an independent Islamic state in the North Caucasus, threatens to undermine Russian domestic security in new ways.

Bringing the Bridges Home

By Francesca Dziadek
As foreign forces withdraw slowly from Afghanistan, they leave behind a vulnerable band of people who were their ears and guides on the ground. These people who served as interpreters, face a life of threats and uncertainties. Many have been killed.

Imprisoning Themselves to Stay Safe

By Karlos Zurutuza
"I don’t dare tell you who the murderers are but their target is just us, Turkmens," says Ahmed Abdulla Muhtaroglu, sitting by the portrait of his brother who was killed last year.

Azerbaijan Backing Turkey’s Crackdown on Gülen Movement

By Shahla Sultanova
Azerbaijan appears to be joining in Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s campaign against a religious movement led by U.S.-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen.
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