Fundamentalisms

Bangladesh: Josh tones and suicide bombers

"Because of the prohibition of all organisations in opposition to the "party" of the Shah, the opposition tended to gather in the mosques.

USA: Latinos convert to Islam

Though precise statistics do not exist, the Council on American-Islamic Relations estimates there are more than 36,000 Hispanic Muslims in the nation today and it is becoming evident that the conversion rate among this minority group is increasing.

Pakistan: Our 'Jihadi image' in the quake-hit areas

According to reports, Western relief agencies, including those run by the United Nations and the United States government, have complained of “perceptible harassment by ‘Jihadi elements’ working in the quake hit-areas in Azad Kashmir and the NWFP”.

Women and Muslim fundamentalists’ entryist policies in Europe and North America

Report back of the Muriel V. Roscoe Annual lecture given by Marieme Hélie-Lucas in November 2005.

Norway: Samira Munir - champion for Muslim women

Samira Munir, Norwegian politician of Pakistani origin, died in mysterious circumstances on 14/11/05. Police hinted it may have been suicide. This is not impossible, but she received many death threats during her fight for the rights of Muslim women.

Bangladesh: How to fight Islamist extremism

The mayhem being perpetrated by Islamist extremists in Bangladesh is so widespread, and the threat of worse to come so real, that there is now a sense of crisis in the air. And it is time too.

Malaysia: Muslim burial for Malaysian hero

Lawyers for the dead man's relatives say the ruling leaves non-Muslims little protection in family disputes considered under Islamic law.

CIS: Central Asia's Islamic militancy

Most Central Asians maintain a largely secular worldview but among those searching for a new ethnic or national identity, there is renewed interest in religious ideas. Radical Islamic political ideas have also arrived from elsewhere in the Muslim world.

Iraq: Iraq's election result: a divided nation

The first results from the election show the country is dividing between Shia, Sunni & Kurdish regions. Religious fundamentalists now have the upper hand. Islamic fundamentalist movements are more powerful in both the Sunni & Shia communities.

Pakistan: Forced conversion of Hindu women in Karachi

This story has grave implications, not merely as a case of atrocities on 'religious minorities' but where an ideology of religious genocide uses such a technique on young 'unmarried' women - whether through threat of rape or this kind of imprisonment.