Draconian new laws have spread unease rather than outright panic in a population that is used to finding ways around legislation
A day after it became legally possible to be stoned to death for having gay sex in Brunei, 21-year-old Zain* got a bitter taste of the new reality.
Walking down the street in skinny jeans and high-heeled boots, a flamboyant anomaly in the conservative sultanate, the university student became a target.
Continue reading...The screening of a 1966 film about their country’s bitter colonial conflict has seen Algerians unite in peaceful protest
More than half a century since it was released – and promptly banned by French authorities – The Battle of Algiers, depicting the bloody struggle for Algeria’s independence from France in 1962, still has the power to shock.
On Friday night, the black-and-white, 1966 film relating Algerian anti-colonial guerrilla warfare and its brutal repression by the French military was screened in Paris. London-based musical activists Asian Dub Foundation (ADF) performed a live soundtrack.
Continue reading...Brunei’s introduction of new laws allowing stoning for adultery and sex between men has sparked international outrage. Elton John and George Clooney’s calls for a boycott of luxury hotels owned by the tiny south-east Asian kingdom have grabbed the spotlight. The United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has condemned the “cruel and inhuman” measures, as have the EU, Australia and others.
The punishment is only one of many horrifying changes in a penal code which also covers apostasy, amputation as a punishment for theft and flogging for abortions. Lesbian sex is punishable by 40 strokes of the cane as well as jail. In some cases children who have reached puberty are subject to the same penalties as adults; younger ones may be flogged. The sharia code was first introduced in 2013, and was supposed to be enacted gradually; following an outcry the government did not bring forward its harshest elements until now. Many suspect that the impact of declining oil revenues on public spending has left Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, one of the longest-ruling absolute monarchs, keen to bolster support among conservative elements.
Continue reading...Leaders and worshippers escorted through cordon by police as life begins to return to normal
Muslim community leaders and worshippers have been escorted back to one of two mosques targeted in the New Zealand terror attack.
Two groups were taken through the cordon to Masjid Al Noor on Saturday morning, accompanied by a delegation of dignitaries. They received a briefing from officers on the street before being led to the front door where the shooting rampage that killed 50 began.
Continue reading...When someone makes an inappropriate joke, or when a senator makes incendiary remarks, speak up
When I walked into work on Monday I told myself I was going to be strong. Then an Indigenous colleague pulled me aside and hugged me and I crumbled in her arms. She told me that the Indigenous community was so sorry for what has happened to our community, and we talked and cried. I, like many other Muslims, have felt the pain of the Christchurch mosque massacre so viscerally.
I was so shaken that I did not step out at all over the weekend.
Continue reading...New Zealand prime minister says document did not contain location or details on the shootings
The alleged Christchurch mosque shooter sent a “manifesto” to the office of New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern minutes before the terrorist attack that left 50 people dead, she has said.
Her office was among more than 30 New Zealand parliamentary email addresses that received the document on Friday.
Continue reading...Death toll from shooting at two mosques rises to 50, with 50 people injured
Hi, and welcome to our ongoing coverage of the fallout from Friday’s mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Continue reading...Messages of support and solidarity delivered in New Zealand, Australia, Britain, America and Canada
Mosques in New Zealand and around the world have been inundated with floral tributes and messages of support after a massacre in Christchurch that killed 49 Muslims.
The strongest response from the public was in New Zealand, which is reeling in the wake of the worst peacetime mass killing in the nation’s history.
Continue reading...The motivations and actions of far-right terrorists are not dissimilar to those of others
The terrorist attack in New Zealand has focused attention once more on the acute threat posed by rightwing extremists.
Waves of terrorism follow a pattern: a long, unnoticed buildup followed by a massive and spectacular strike that often inflicts significant damage and casualties but focuses minds and eventually resources.
Continue reading...Britain has gone through the looking glass and the artist’s new show follows it into the abyss. He talks about the upsurge in racism, fighting for Shamima Begum – and his clash with France’s president
At 7.30 on the morning after Britain voted to leave the European Union, Anish Kapoor left his London flat for an appointment with his analyst. On the street, he heard two men talking. “Bet he doesn’t even speak English,” said one. “I turned around and they were talking about me. I was so furious.”
Sir Anish Mikhail Kapoor, CBE, RA, the 65-year-old, Turner prize-winning, Mumbai-born British-Indian artist, who has lived in London since the early 1970s and (though this is hardly the point) speaks better English than most of his countrymen, had woken up in a new land. “Since then permission has been given for difference, rather than being celebrated, to be undermined.”
Continue reading...Top Uighur official says there will be fewer and fewer students at centres thought to house a million people
Top officials in Xinjiang have hinted that the system of internment centres used to hold a million Muslim minorities may one day be phased out.
Researchers say huge numbers of people, mostly Uighurs, are being held in detention and re-education camps in the far western territory as part of a huge security crackdown in the name of counter terrorism efforts.
Continue reading...Tourism industry wakes up to the rapidly growing earning potential of the Islamic economy
It’s a magnet for sun-deprived tourists from northern Europe, drawn to its long sandy beaches, pretty coves and ancient sites. Along Turkey’s Turquoise Coast, holidaymakers down exotic cocktails and ice-cold beers between dips in the sparkling Mediterranean and snoozing on the sun-lounger.
But an increasing number of hotels in and around Antalya are turning away from the traditional resort fare of booze and bare flesh in order to attract a new and growing clientele: Muslim tourists.
Continue reading...Retailer faced outrage from some of Macron’s ministers against Muslim head-coverings
The French sports store Decathlon has cancelled a plan to put a sports hijab on the market in France after several politicians, including one from Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party, called for a boycott.
The retailer’s plain, lightweight running headscarf, which covers the hair but not the face, is already on sale in Morocco and was to be extended to France and worldwide. But after a social media storm and outrage from some politicians against Muslim head coverings, the company backtracked and said the garment would not go on sale “at the present time” in France.
Continue reading...Government steps up outreach to foreign envoys, explaining its achievements in the region home to Muslim minorities
China’s counter-terrorism and de-radicalisation efforts in its far western region of Xinjiang should be applauded for creating a new method of tackling the problem, a senior diplomat told foreign envoys last week.
China is stepping up its diplomatic outreach over controversial detention camps in the heavily Muslim region, inviting more foreign diplomats to visit as it seeks to head off criticism from Muslim-majority nations and at the United Nations.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Activists urge embassy to ‘tell us if they’re alive or dead’ amid claims of inaction by Canberra
Seventeen Australian residents are believed to be under house arrest, in prison or detained in China’s secretive “re-education” centres in Xinjiang, the Guardian can reveal.
The 17 cases – 15 Australian permanent residents and two on spouse visas – have been collected by Nurgul Sawut, an advocate for Uighurs in Australia, through interviews with their family members.
Continue reading...Show of public Christian worship considered largest ever seen on the Arabian peninsula
Marivic Sorita’s eyes filled with tears as she spoke of her daughters back in the Philippines. She has seen them only three times in the 11 years she has worked as a housemaid in Abu Dhabi. Her eldest, now 21, had recently completed her studies “thanks to the sacrifice” Sorita has made by the separation, sending almost all her salary back home.
Maybe one day, when her 14-year-old daughter has also finished her studies, Sorita will be able to go back to Manila and be reunited with her family. But for now, she was enjoying a rare day off work for what she described as a “very, very special” occasion.
Continue reading...Almost one-third in UK see rift, finds survey ahead of pope’s visit to Arabian peninsula
Large numbers of people in Christian-majority countries in the west see a fundamental clash between Islam and the values of their nation, according to a survey.
However, significantly fewer people in the Middle East and North Africa view Christianity in the same way.
Continue reading...Pope Francis’s visit to the United Arab Emirates this week will be greeted enthusiastically. Some 120,000 people are expected to turn out for his mass in a sports stadium in Abu Dhabi – as many as turned out in Dublin when he travelled to historically Catholic Ireland last year. The first visit by a pontiff to the Arabian peninsula, the birthplace of Islam, highlights the complications of the religious situation in the Middle East, and more widely the issues of Christian-Muslim relations.
There may be as many as 2 million Christians in the Middle East today. Despite nearly 16 years of war and sometimes brutal persecution in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, many remain in the lands that were the cradle of Christianity. In part this is because it is still made as hard as possible for them to leave the region. The Christians of Iraq have largely been driven from their homes by persecution, as have some of the Christians of Syria, where a number have taken the side of the Assad dictatorship. But they have ended up in refugee camps rather than reaching notionally Christian Europe.
Continue reading...Result raises hopes of an end to decades of violence including attacks by Isis-inspired groups
People in the Muslim-majority southern Philippines have voted by a landslide to create a new autonomous region covering five provinces and three cities, a result the government hopes will bring peace to a war-torn part of the country and address issues that lure recruits to Isis-inspired groups.
On Friday, the election commission declared the Bangsamoro Organic Law plebiscite “ratified”, four days after the vote was held. Almost 1.6 million voted yes, while 250,000 voted no.
Continue reading...The next 15 megacities #5: Tourist flock to the Xi’an’s ancient Muslim area – but reports from elsewhere in China of crackdowns and re-education camps are setting nerves on edge
The streets of Xi’an’s Muslim quarter are bustling. Tourists from all over China and the rest of the world throng the small stalls and restaurants for delicacies such as yangrou paomo lamb stew, roujiamo lamb burgers, persimmon cakes and “smoked ice-cream” – a bowl of puffed cereal dipped in liquid nitrogen.
There has been a Muslim community in the capital of Shaanxi Province – at the eastern end of the old Silk Road in central China – since the seventh century. During the Tang dynasty, when the city was called Chang’an, travelling Muslim merchants and some soldiers from central and west Asia made it their home. Many married Chinese Han women, and their offspring became known as Hui, now one of China’s 56 ethnic groups.
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