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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2009
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NEWS ABOUT: Islamic law

Islamic law stories: 16 news summaries

(Newser) - Supporters of a woman facing 40 lashes for wearing trousers were beaten and teargassed by police in Sudan yesterday, the Guardian reports. Some her female supporters wore pants in solidarity with Lubna Hussein, in defiance of the country's law against "indecent dressing." "We are here to protest... More »

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Sudan protests Islamic law Khartoum flogging Lubna Ahmed Hussein

(Newser) - The leader of an uprising set on introducing Islamic law in Nigeria died in custody today, the BBC reports. Mohammed Yusuf was captured in his in-laws’ goat pen in Maiduguri—and was later seen standing and with no visible injuries by a Reuters reporter. “He has been killed,”... More »

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Islam Africa Nigeria violence Islamic law Shariah Mohammed Yusuf police custody

(Newser) - A local woman working for the United Nations in Sudan has been charged with wearing “clothing causing harassment to the public sentiments” and could be flogged 40 times tomorrow for the crime, the Washington Post reports. Lubna Ahmed Hussein and 12 other women were rounded up earlier this... More »

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United Nations Sudan Islamic law clothing Omar al Bashir Shariah flogging Lubna Ahmed Hussein

Saudi Prince to Liberal Bro: Stop Spreading Vice

He's mad that media mogul reintroduced movie theaters

(Newser) - A conservative Saudi prince has exposed a rift in the royal family with an unprecedented attack on his liberal brother, the BBC reports. Prince Khaled called for the assets of Prince Whaled—owner of a huge media empire that includes a big stake in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.—to... More »

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Saudi Arabia Islamic law News Corp Prince Walid bin Talal

(Newser) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today again denied the Holocaust and excoriated the concept of liberal democracy, AFP reports. “Liberal democracy has been exposed to the world by its protection of the most criminal regime in the history of humanity, the Zionist regime,” he said in a campaign speech,... More »

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Iran Israel Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Holocaust Islamic law election liberal democracy

(Newser) - The days of 8-year-olds getting married in Saudi Arabia may be numbered. Spurred by international hostility toward the marriage of a girl that age to a 50-year-old man, the nation is considering a ban on marriage for those under 18, Reuters reports. Such a restriction is “among the options... More »

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Saudi Arabia Islamic law Arabs ban child marriage underage marriage young girls

(Newser) - A 75-year-old Syrian woman faces 40 lashes and 4 months in prison for mingling with two men in Saudi Arabia, CNN reports. Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi will also be deported for allowing the men to enter her home last year. The men, sentenced to lashings as well, told police that Sawadi... More »

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Saudi Arabia women's rights sentencing Islamic law

Iran Says It
Will Release
US Journalist in 'Next Few Days'

31-year-old imprisoned for buying bottle of wine

(Newser) - Iran will soon free Roxana Saberi, a journalist imprisoned more than a month ago, Reuters reports. Saberi was jailed after buying a bottle of wine, but held on concerns over her working papers. Tehran said its investigation is finished and that the 31-year old Iranian-American’s release is imminent, but... More »

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Iran Hillary Clinton Tehran wine Islamic Sharia law Islamic law detainee journalist Roxana Saberi

Somalia
Will Impose
Sharia Law

Prez submits to rebel demands, but vows
loose enforcement

(Newser) - In a move to broker peace between his troops and insurgents, Somalia’s president has agreed to militants’ call to impose Islamic law, CNN reports. The law bars girls from school, requires beards for men and veils for women, and bans TV and music. But President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed,... More »

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Somalia Islamic Sharia law Islamic law Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed

Ex-Iranian President Khatami Will Challenge Ahmadinejad

In previous terms, advocated change, international communication

(Newser) - Former president Mohammad Khatami will challenge his successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in Iran’s upcoming elections, the Washington Post reports. The bid would set up “a full-fledged confrontation between totalitarians and reformists,” says a former Khatami official. Khatami, who served from 1997-2005, tried and failed to expand personal freedom... More »

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Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Islamic law Mohammad Khatami Iranian election

 


 Premarital Sex, 
 Abortion on 
 Rise in Iran 

Marriage rates dip, despite Tehran's efforts

(Newser) - Iran’s Islamic law bans premarital sex and abortion, but an increasing number of Iranians are engaging in both, the Guardian reports. More than a quarter of men aged 19 to 29 had premarital sex, and 13% of those situations resulted in the termination of an unwanted pregnancy, a state... More »

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Iran education abortion feminism marriage Islamic law premarital sex

 Taliban Surges 
 Back With New 
 Battle Plan 

These are not your father's theocrats

(Newser) - Today’s Taliban bears little resemblance to the incompetent barefoot mullahs the US ousted 7 years ago. In the past year, the Taliban has reinvented itself as a confident, well-armed militia with a mighty propaganda machine, the Washington Post reports. “This is not the Taliban of Emirate times,... More »

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Afghanistan War on Terror Taliban Hamid Karzai Islamic law

US Firm Calls
for Islamic Law in Lawsuit

Blackwater boss seeks Sharia law to dodge Afghan plane crash suit

(Newser) - An American firm blamed for the death of three US soldiers in a plane crash has asked a federal court to apply Islamic law to a lawsuit brought by their widows, the Raleigh News & Observer reports. Presidential Airways, Blackwater's sister company, argues that since its plane crashed in Afghanistan,... More »

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Afghanistan Blackwater Islamic Sharia law Islamic law Erik Prince court cases

Saudi Court to Review Rape Victim Sentence

Prince about-faces, claims case is being used against country

(Newser) - Courts will take another look at the sentence of a gang-rape victim, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said yesterday, following an international outcry when the 19-year-old was handed a six-month prison term and 200 lashes. “What is outraging about this case is that it is being used against the Saudi... More »

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Saudi Arabia rape Islamic law Annapolis Saudi rape victim Annapolis summit Saud al Faisal

Saudi Women Want to Drive

Neither Islamic law nor country's constitution forbids female drivers

(Newser) - A group of Saudi women is trying to regain a “stolen right”: driving. The group will deliver a petition to King Abdullah this week demanding the right to get behind the wheel. But prospects for lifting the world's only ban on female drivers are cloudy, the BBC reports, because... More »

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Saudi Arabia King Abdullah women's rights Islamic law driving

(Newser) - The Swiss have gone NIMBY (not in my back yard) on minarets.  While Switzerland's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, a number of leading politicians want to ban them via a referendum this fall.  There are now exactly two minarets in all of Switzerland. More »

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Islam religion Switzerland minarets Islamic law

16 Stories