OP-ED: Secularism to the Rescue of the Arab Spring

Spring has come early this year to the Arab world. Climate change has awakened the once comatose Middle East from the stupor of singular leaderships. A new dawn of democracy and freedom is sprouting from Morocco to Oman. Or so we are told.

Sunni Monarchies Close Ranks

Reports that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is considering some form of membership for two non-Gulf states – Jordan and Morocco – confirm that the conservative Sunni monarchies of the Middle East are closing ranks against Iran, Shiite-led Iraq and the democratic wave sweeping the region.

OP-ED: Private Beliefs, Public Change

When the suicide bomb exploded as worshippers left New Year's mass at a Coptic church in Alexandria, 21 people died and 79 were wounded. It's hard to imagine a more grim, ghastly, or tragic way to ring in a new decade.

Rights Groups Take on “Ex-Gay” Ministries

Groups peddling the widely discredited notion that gay people can be "cured" of their sexual orientation are encountering staunch resistance to their message, even as converts insist that they are leading happier lives.

BANGLADESH: Women Defy Islamic Clergy

Bangladeshi women are pushing government to implement the recently approved National Women Development Policy (NWDP) 2011, which has met with strong resistance from Islamic clergy.

Women Struggle to Unite Fractured Bahrain

Women in Bahrain have launched new initiatives to tackle sectarian tensions that emerged as the fallout of widespread unrest sweeping the country since Feb. 14.

Headscarf Is Also a Scarf Over the Head

While Belgium’s politicians, academics, business leaders and feminists grapple with the concept and reality of a law banning headscarves in public institutions and beyond, two entrepreneurial women have joined forces to rescue the headscarf from the country’s political debate. Inge Rombauts and Fatima Rafiy run the exclusive hijab boutique Noor D’Izar, which offers women, "a fashionable solution regardless of their reasons for wanting to wear a headscarf," Inge Rombauts tells IPS.

EGYPT: Islamic Hardliners Becoming Aggressive

Shrines venerated for centuries by Sufi Muslims have come under attack as Islamic fundamentalists seek to purge the Egyptian landscape of "heretical" artifacts that do not conform to their strict interpretation of Islam.

PHILIPPINES: Religious Groups Weigh In on Reproductive Health Debate

In a country where an estimated 4,500 women die every year due to complications during childbirth, the enactment of a reproductive health (RH) policy is said to be a measure that could save lives.

EGYPT: Shia Hope for New Chapter

The political currents that sweep across the Middle East often surge out of Iran, form treacherous eddies in Lebanon and Iraq, then slam into the front door of Ahmad Rasem El-Nafis' apartment in the northern Egyptian city of Mansoura.

OP-ED: Misunderstanding Bahrain’s Shia Protesters

Listening to the rhetoric coming out of Tehran, one might assume that Bahrain's Shia opposition is relying on help from its co-religionists next door. But, in fact, the opposite is true: the Shia opposition wants nothing more than for Tehran to stay out of the sectarian dispute unfolding in the tiny kingdom.

U.N. Staff Killed in Afghanistan Quran Protests

Afghan officials say at least 11 people have been killed at a United Nations operational centre in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif when protests over the burning of the Quran by an American preacher turned violent.

MIDEAST: Washington’s Patchwork Policy on Democracy

While a NATO-led coalition continues to enforce a no-fly zone in a Libya that seems to be on the brink of catastrophe, the Barack Obama administration has yet to formulate a set of guiding principles in dealing with ongoing protests throughout the region in countries like Bahrain.

Syria Promises Reform as U.N. Condemns Crackdown

Protesters braved live ammunition from security forces Monday in the southern Syrian city of Dara'a, where rights groups say more than 60 people have been killed since pro-democracy activists took to the streets to demand greater freedoms from the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

ECUADOR: Catholics Demand Removal of Far-Right Bishop

The appointment of an ultra-conservative priest as apostolic administrator of the diocese of Sucumbíos, in northeastern Ecuador, triggered open rebellion among a large proportion of the area's Catholics, with the support of civil society organisations and even of President Rafael Correa himself.

BAHRAIN: Saudi Intervention Likely to Bring Regional Blowback

Saudi Arabia's incursion into neighbouring Bahrain is a risky move that could further inflame domestic unrest in both countries and give a propaganda boost to Tehran's campaign to cultivate the Arab street.

BAHRAIN: Saudi Deployment Could Widen Communal Fault Lines

Monday's arrival of 1,200 Saudi and 500 Emirati security forces with a mandate from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to support King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa's regime in Sunni- ruled, Shiite-majority Bahrain only stokes sectarian conflict and fuels the regional power politics between U.S.-Saudi hegemony and an increasingly influential Shiite-led Iran, analysts here argue.

LIBYA: Religious Leaders Hold Out Against Gaddafi

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi claims Al-Qaeda and other Muslim extremists are behind the recent rebellion to oust him from power. Salem Geber, the most well-known cleric in Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city, says this explanation is not only wrong, but a vintage Gaddafi tactic to inspire fear.

Ancient Buddhas Will Not Be Rebuilt – UNESCO

Afghanistan's historic Bamiyan Buddhas, destroyed by the Taliban 10 years ago, will not be reconstructed despite claims the 1,500-year-old statues could be repaired, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) said Thursday.

U.S.: Critics Condemn Islam Hearings as Witch Hunts

On the eve of a controversial hearing by lawmakers on extremist Islam in the United States, civil rights and Muslim- American groups are warning of its potential repercussions, which they say may undermine the very intent of the proceeding.

EGYPT: Mubarak Regime ‘Provoked’ Attacks on Christians

Ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak portrayed himself as a paradigm of stability in a country he once described as a "powder keg" of sectarian unrest. Yet far from promoting stability, his regime may have actually been the source of much of the religious strife it claimed to suppress.