PAKISTAN: Taliban Backs Off From Attacking Civilians

A series of Taliban attacks selectively targeting Pakistani security forces is being seen as an attempt to shore up the flagging popularity of the fundamentalist Islamic scholars.

Negative Stereotypes Persist Between West and Muslims

Westerners and Muslims continue to hold negative stereotypes of each other, although views of Muslims in the West appear to have improved marginally over the past five years, according to a new survey released here by the Pew Global Attitudes Project Thursday.

Bitter Divides Persist Below Bahrain’s Relatively Calm Surface

When Bahraini ambassador Houda Ezra Nonoo arrived in Washington three years ago, she was greeted as the representative of a close U.S. ally with a reputation for more openness and tolerance than most Gulf nations.

Execution Videos Strike Terror in Pakistan

A video showing a group of 16 Pakistani policemen, hands tied behind their backs, being executed by Taliban gunmen in the Dir district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is only the latest in a series showing brutal acts designed to strike terror in the areas bordering Afghanistan.

PAKISTAN: ‘U.S. Military Aid Came With Spies Attached’

Defence analysts in Pakistan believe that foregoing 800 million US dollars worth of aid may be a fair bargain for ridding this country of over a hundred ‘military trainers’ who were suspected of being spies.

Iranian Man Faces Death over Religious Conversion

Faith leaders in the U.S. representing 25 million citizens have expressed outrage about the case of Youcef Nadarkhani, an Iranian man who faces the death penalty if he refuses to recant his Christian faith.

INDIA: Temple Treasures Open Up Problems of Plenty

The discovery that treasures lying in the vaults of an ancient temple in Thiruvananthapuram may be worth more than 25 billion dollars is raising questions regarding the vast wealth owned by religious shrines in this impoverished country.

PAKISTAN: Religious Scholars Called In to Promote Peace

The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northwestern Pakistan is calling on religious scholars to help end the violence in the militancy-wracked province, in a desperate attempt to restore peace.

MIDEAST: Mosques Carry the Scars of War

"The mosque was just 100 metres from our house. We prayed there every day, five times a day. But it was more than a house of prayer," says Mohammed, a Beit Hanoun resident, of one of the 34 mosques completely destroyed during the 23-day Israeli war on Gaza in 2008-2009.

BAHRAIN: U.S. Experts Sceptical Over Dialogue

As Bahrain's government launches its much-touted "national dialogue" with members of civil society, experts here are expressing scepticism that it will defuse growing tensions in the strategically located Gulf kingdom, let alone promote genuine reform.

MIDEAST: A Zionist Way to Back Palestinians

To many people Rabbi Arik Ascherman would appear to be a contradiction in terms. He is an ardent Zionist and religious Jew who believes that God made a covenant with the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. But the core of Ascherman’s Zionist ideology revolves around fighting for human rights, especially those of the Palestinians.

MIDEAST: Confrontation Begins Before the Sailing

Activists are engaged in a harsh confrontation with Israeli authorities days before the international ‘Freedom Flotilla II – Stay Human’ sets sail towards the Gaza strip in an attempt to break the naval blockade Israel has imposed since 2007.

OP-ED: Religion, Revolution and Two Languages

The elderly Venerable Tep Vong, the Supreme Patriarch of the Buddhist community in Cambodia, traveled to Jaffna in Sri Lanka in the midst of the recent civil war. In a broken city under siege, he joined others - Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Christians - to try to bring a peaceful end to the violent separatist conflict.

ECUADOR: Bishop Fasts for Reconciliation in Jungle Province

Catholic bishop emeritus Gonzalo López Marañón has been fasting since May 24 in a park in the Ecuadorian capital to call for peace and reconciliation in Sucumbíos, an Amazon province immersed in a conflict over the Vatican's decision to put the diocese in the hands of an ultra-conservative Catholic order.

OP-ED: Europe’s Rising Islamophobia

Religious intolerance is a daily reality in Europe. Mainly targeted at Muslims, attacks on religious pluralism focus on refusing to share public space with non-majority religions or only tolerating practices seen as "secular".

OP-ED: Cutting the Fog: Multiculturalism, Religion and the Common Good

The death of "multiculturalism" has been proclaimed repeatedly recently, the idea pronounced with a big "M" as if we were talking of something tangible around which there is consensus.

EGYPT: Revolution Brings Religious Freedom to Sinai

Abu Sumaia’a Al Suoarki is 29 years old and a Muslim, according to the personal identification card issued by the Egyptian government. These days, however, his religious belief is no longer just a detail on his ID card, but is something he openly practices every day.

OP-ED: Religion, Out of Place?

Brazil is seen as a country of diverse and profound faith. But though religion is an important reference point in the lives of the population, the extent of religious diversity in this sprawling country is not nearly so pervasive as belief itself.

OP-ED: The Sacred and the Secular – Promoting Muslim Democracy

The presence of religion in public space challenges our ideas about the roles of faith in our lives and politics. Over the last centuries, proponents of secularisation have claimed that as societies modernise, the role of religion in public and private life diminishes. For them, modern rationality, science, and the ideal of representative governments as sovereign replace religion as a source of authority, regulation, and security.

EGYPT: Political Punch with a Religious Thrust

More than three months since the fall of the Mubarak regime, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood movement is well on its way to forming its first official political party since its inception in 1928. But while the nascent party is to be based on "the principles of Islamic Law and respect for freedom of belief," some critics see this as a contradiction.

Tajikistan’s New Generation of Guerrillas

While most of the world is closely watching the Middle East, monitoring the human rights situations in Bahrain, Syria, Libya and Israel, the International Crisis Group (ICG) is keeping its eye on neighbouring Central Asia.