At least 850 people were executed in Iran in the last 15 months, a UN official stated on Monday, emphasizing the worsening human rights situation in the country under President Hassan Rouhani. Ahmed Shaheed, the UN’s rights rapporteur for Iran, said that the “surge in executions” has resulted in Iran having the world’s highest death penalty rate per capita. “The …
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The mother of Michael Zehaf Bibeau, who shot down a soldier in Ottawa recently, claims that her son’s actions were in despair and expressed doubt over his radicalization. Zehaf-Bibeau killed Corporal Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial before being killed in a gunfight with Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and security personnel at the Parliament Building. According to Postmedia …
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The town of Erfoud in the middle of a palm grove in Morocco’s eastern desert watches over a rare treasure – petrified skeletons of prehistoric creatures. The oasis town, home to around 30,000 people, has been called by archaeologists and geologists as “the largest open air fossil museum in the world”. According to locals, the town was under the sea …
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On Friday, a student at a US school opened fire in the school, killing two students and wounding several others before he took his own life. The incident occurred in the cafeteria of Marysville-Pilchuck High School in the town of Marysville, Washington. Marysville police spokesman Robb Lamoureux spoke to reporters after the incident, saying, “We are confident that there was …
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The Masjid al-Salaam mosque in the town of Burnaby has recently come under the spotlight after it was discovered that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the man behind the Ottawa shooting, had attended the mosque. However, on Friday, the mosques fielded questions from international press members to dispel all notions that the Mosque has not condoned his actions. B.C. Muslim Association’s spokesman for …
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Reyhaneh Jabbari, the Iranian woman who was hanged on Saturday for killing her alleged rapist, in her final message to her mother, said that she will get her justice in “the court of God”. The 26-year-old, who was executed despite an international campaign arguing for a seven-year prison sentence instead, left the voice message in April to her mother Shole …
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A local councilor belonging to France’s far-right Front National party seemingly embarrassed his colleagues by announcing that he had converted to Islam and urging others to join him. Twenty-two-year-old Maxence Buttey councilor, in the Parisian suburb of Noisy-le-Grand, reportedly embarrassed members of his anti-immigration party by sending a video in which he praises the “visionary” virtues of the Koran and …
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Israeli plans to build new settler homes in east Jerusalem is likely to escalate into needless violence, a senior Palestinian official warned on Monday. “Such unilateral acts will lead to an explosion”, Jibril Rajoub, a senior member in Fatah, said at a press conference in Ramallah. Rajoub said that such a move might further inflame tensions in the city, which …
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When Islam was at its strongest, it was also at its most open-minded By Gerard Russell – Onfaith Ours is the oldest religion in the world,” said the Mandaean high priest to me in 2006, when we met during my diplomatic posting to Baghdad. He did indeed turn out to be the religious leader of an ancient people whose traditions …
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By David Hearst – The Middle East Monitor Nothing illustrates the free-wheeling chaos of the Middle East better than what is going on in Yemen. A small Iranian-backed North Yemeni militia, modeled on Hezbollah and from an offshoot of Shia Islam, has walked into the capital Sanaa, taken over Hodeida, Yemen’s main port on the Red Sea, and is now …
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