Islamic law

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Saudis May Outlaw Under-18 Marriages

(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...

Woman in Saudi Faces 40 Lashes for Mingling

(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...

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...

Somalia Will Impose Sharia Law
Somalia
Will Impose
Sharia Law
Mar 1, 2009 10:40 AM CST

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,...

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...

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...

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,”...

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,...

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...

Saudi Women Want to Drive
Saudi Women Want to Drive
Sep 18, 2007 1:13 PM CDT

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...

Tolerant Swiss to Ban Minarets?
Tolerant Swiss to Ban Minarets?
May 28, 2007 9:57 PM CDT

Tolerant Swiss to Ban Minarets?

(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.

Stories 21 - 31 | << Prev