Tag Archives: people

By Kenneth Roth Some combination of denial and fear led the Egyptian government to refuse my colleague and me entrance to the country on Sunday night. The form wrapped around my colleague’s passport describing why we were being denied entry was checked, “For security reasons.” It was an unprecedented step. No one from Human Rights Watch had ever been barred …

Top Muslim leaders in Oklahoma City are fearful for their life after the beheading of a Vaughan Foods staffer last week in Moore. 30-year-old Alton Nolen has been accused of killing 54-year-old Vaughn Foods employee Colleen Hufford and for attacking two other people last Thursday after he was suspended from his job for using racial slurs. Tensions flared up in …

On Wednesday, over 30 Syrian school-going children were killed in a double bombing carried out by a lone assailant in regime-controlled city Homs, the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said. The monitor said that at least 39 people had died in the attack on a school in the Akrameh neighborhood of Homs. “At least 30 children were among 39 people …

A former psychologist was executed in Iran of heresy after spending eight years in prison, a human rights group said on Tuesday. The execution is the most recent example of what activists feel is a troubling rise in the use of the death penalty in Iran. The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said that Mohsen Amir Aslani was hanged …

Winnipeg’s Islamic Social Services Association (ISSA) on Monday issued a new handbook to help prevent Canadian Muslim youth from being influenced by extremist groups and become foreign fighters in the Middle East. The book was unveiled by the ISSA in conjunction with several Muslim organizations and with input from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). According to ISSA President Shahina …

In June, this reporter traveled to Israel and Palestine with a Sabeel delegation of individuals from the United States and Canada to explore the religious and political climate of the Holy Land. This article is the first in a series that will examine our findings and reflections. As Iraq and Syria disintegrate, the world watches with great trepidation. The group …

The Canadian government is set to introduce a new law that will make it harder for immigrants to obtain Canadian citizenship. As things stand, a person needs to be physically present in the country for 1,095 days of the four years from their application date. If the remainder of Bill C-24, introduced by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Chris …

Several senior Islamic scholars and Imams have written an open letter to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of extremist group Islamic State (IS), spelling out how the actions of the Islamic State (IS) are forbidden under Islamic scripture and Islamic law. In the letter several scholars explain the teachings of the Quran and the Hadiths of the Prophet Mohammed must …

As a part of a report called ( A State of Mind ) Lebanon in Number Introduction Access to reliable data on socio-economic and political issues in Lebanon has been a rare and seasonal privilege, more often than not restricted to private circles. As a result, statistics offering a quantitative perspective on current affairs have been largely absent from the …

An Iranian court last Friday sentenced seven people to prison for making a viral video earlier this year in which they danced to American singer Pharrell Williams’ hit song “Happy”. Last Wednesday, a defense attorney explained that six of the defendants were handed six-month jail sentences and 91 whiplashes as punishment. Additionally, the seventh defendant was given a year-long prison …