Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again — A generation of British Islamists have been trained in Afghanistan to fight a global jihad. But now some of those would-be extremists have had a change of heart. Johann Hari finds out what made them give up the fight.
posted by netbros on Nov 16, 2009 - 16 comments

Children of the Taliban. [more inside]
posted by gman on May 17, 2009 - 38 comments

Discoveries made using satellite imagery, particularly via Google Earth, have made headlines in the blue and green before. Increasingly high-resolution photos, combined with obsessive interest, have lead inevitably to the next step: interpretation and analysis of spots on the Earth's surface for which information is restricted, censored, or classified, such as the preparedness of military defenses in North Korea and Iran, or the viability of Saudi Arabia's next big oil play. Of course, not all mapping is benevolent.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul on Mar 13, 2008 - 9 comments

It's been going on in Britain for a while. Now hundreds of men in Toronto are receiving welfare for each wife. Is this what Rowan Williams has in mind?
posted by gman on Feb 8, 2008 - 46 comments

It turns out that those boys who were hanged in Iran may not have been quite so innocent after all. [original post]
posted by dirtynumbangelboy on Aug 3, 2005 - 44 comments

Iran executes two teenagers. Their crime? Making love. Homosexuality is a crime under Sharia law. Meanwhile, newly "liberated" Iraq moves closer to embedding traditional Islamic laws in its new constitution, reducing rights for women. Will Iraqi gays be the next to suffer the wrath of "Allah's law" after years of secular oppression under Saddam Hussein?
posted by digaman on Jul 21, 2005 - 109 comments

Woman stoned to death for adultery ... ... in Afghanistan.
posted by magullo on Apr 26, 2005 - 63 comments

Sharia recommended to Ontario government. A review of Mumtaz Ali's recommendation to permit legal arbitration by Islamic law has concluded in his cause's favour, recommending that sharia be allowed for family disputes and inheritance cases. Sharia may be joining Roman Catholic and Orthodox Jewish laws as religious law arbitration options, which is good. But women's groups are worried about the inherent discriminatory nature of sharia, which is bad.
posted by DrJohnEvans on Dec 20, 2004 - 36 comments

Islamic law, traditionally, as practiced in countries such as Iran, is being considered by courts in Ontario, Canada as to whether it should receive status as a legal manner of settling disputes through arbritration. Canadian women are worried it will be unjust.
posted by shepd on Aug 23, 2004 - 19 comments

Beauty queens take a stand against stoning. I guess it's bad luck for Miss World that their contest this year was scheduled to take place in a country increasingly subject to Sharia law. Meanwhile Nigerian Muslim activists decry neckless nudity.
posted by alms on Sep 17, 2002 - 6 comments

Woman sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery The man with whom she had sex admitted it, then denied it, and was set free for lack of evidence. She was pregnant when she received the sentence (which provides for her to be buried up to the chest and stoned by male villagers until dead). The Nigerian court in question recently implemented a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic Law (Sharia, in the case), and have returned to mandatory sentences like stoning to death for adultery and amputation of hands for theft. Modernity, how we luff ya.
posted by brookish on Feb 14, 2002 - 23 comments