Islamic law

Malaysia’s Islamic religious police on Saturday night raided a large Halloween party in Kuala Lumpur attended by LGBT activists, arresting 18 of the thousand or so participants for offenses against Muslim sharia law including cross-dressing and indecent behavior.

A court in northern Nigeria’s Kano state, which enforces Islamic law (sharia) alongside common law, sentenced an atheist man to 24 years in prison on Tuesday on the charge of “blasphemy” for a Facebook statement he posted in April 2020 deemed offensive to Islam, Nigeria’s Premium Times online newspaper reported.

Tehran – “No, my cat is not dangerous,” says Iranian animal lover Mostafa, outraged by a proposal from ultraconservative lawmakers to ban pets.

The Taliban put several corpses on public display over the weekend, including bloody bodies hung from cranes in the western city of Herat, in a bid to intimidate potential lawbreakers. Onlookers were encouraged by Taliban officials to gawk at the bodies and spread the word.

The head of the Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, published an open letter to the United States Tuesday urging it to withdraw its military from Afghanistan, as the administration of President Donald Trump had committed to doing in a peace deal that also required the Taliban to stop associating with international terrorist groups.

Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada, chief of the Afghan Taliban, has instructed his top officials to “avoid second, third, and fourth marriage if there is no need.” Constant requests from Taliban officials for extra money to pay for multiple wives reportedly prompted the order.

Iran’s Justice Minister for Human Rights said that people who knowingly spread coronavirus should be sentenced to death, based on the Islamic law precept of an eye for an eye, Radio Farda reported on Tuesday.

One Egyptian woman is taking on the country’s Islamic inheritance laws that mean female heirs inherit half that of men.

A former mayor of Tehran who murdered his wife has been released on bail, his lawyer said Wednesday, two weeks after her family spared him from the death sentence.

Long-promised new laws allowing Saudi women over 21 to travel without permission from a male guardian came into effect Tuesday.

TEL AVIV – Iranian police have shut down 547 restaurants and cafes in the capital Tehran for not observing “Islamic principles” including modesty, the city’s police chief announced Saturday.

Iranian hijab protester Vida Movahed, who in 2017 removed her obligatory Islamic headscarf in a public protest, has been sentenced to one year in prison for her act of defiance.

Actor George Clooney is calling for a boycott of hotels in Brunei over new laws making homosexuality and adultery crimes punishable by death.

A group of unmarried couples were publicly whipped in Indonesia’s religiously conservative Aceh province after they were caught behaving amorously — a crime under the region’s strict application of Islamic law.

Six couples were publicly whipped in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province Monday for relations outside marriage, with at least two women unable to walk after the painful punishment.

Saudi Arabia defended a smartphone app Saturday which allows men to track women’s movements and potentially “stop them leaving the country.”

BANGKOK — Thailand’s immigration police chief met Tuesday with officials of the Saudi Embassy in Bangkok, and said the officials told him they are satisfied with how the case of a young Saudi woman who claims to be fleeing her abusive family has been handled.

A Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) flight denied entry to a man because he was wearing shorts and might offend the sensibilities of observant Muslim passengers.

KUWAIT CITY – In 2014, the Kuwaiti press hailed Gabriel Garcia Marquez as a literary “giant”. But since his death, the Colombian writer and a slew of others have been banned as censorship takes root in the Gulf state.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia on Tuesday executed seven death row inmates, who had been convicted of murder and drug trafficking, state media reported.

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Gay rights groups and activists pressed ahead with the Istanbul Pride parade on Sunday despite Turkish authorities banning the event for a fourth year in a row.

NEW DELHI – One of India’s top women chess players has pulled out of an upcoming championship in Iran in protest at having to wear an Islamic headscarf.

Saudi Arabia has arrested seven women’s rights campaigners, accusing them of working with “foreign entities” as the kingdom prepares to lift its controversial ban on female drivers.

Saudi women, start your engines. The General Department of Traffic Director General Mohammed al-Bassami said on Tuesday that female drivers will be allowed the freedom of the road in the deeply conservative kingdom from June 24.

A 32-year-old Syrian man appeared on German media this week thanking German Chancellor Angela Merkel for allowing him to reunite with his other wife and children despite polygamy being illegal in Germany.

An Iranian woman who became the public face of protest after defiantly taking off her headscarf and holding it on a stick in Tehran has been freed, a human rights lawyer says.

CAIRO – Egypt’s ultra-conservative Islamist Al-Nour party has decided to support President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in his bid to be re-elected in March, the party said on Sunday.

A lawyer in Iran expressed concern over the fate of the “Girl of Enghelab Street,” a woman arrested for removing her white headscarf and waving it in the air in a sign of protest to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s compulsory hijab law

A football match scheduled for this Friday in Saudi Arabia will mark the first time women in the Gulf kingdom have been allowed to venture to a sporting event.

Another Egyptian singer was arrested on charges of “inciting debauchery” after releasing a sexually suggestive music video, it has emerged.

ISTANBUL — Turkish officials have banned all events by lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex rights groups in the country’s capital.

TEL AVIV — Saudi officials who were arrested in recent days in a corruption crackdown are expected to receive prison sentences of 3-10 years, Saudi news outlet Al Watan has reported.

“It is not possible to subject our country to a jurisdiction marked by religious radicalism,” said Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti on Sunday, stressing that there can be no question of allowing sharia law a foothold in Italy.

A Scottish man holidaying in Dubai is facing up to three years in jail for allegedly putting his hand on another man’s hip to avoid spilling his drink.

TEL AVIV — Saudi Arabia’s Information Ministry has reprimanded a Saudi journalist for writing that the slaughter of animals during the Muslim holiday of Eid ad-Adha isn’t an obligation under Islamic law.

For a brief moment, Iran’s female football fans thought they were finally allowed to attend a match, but their hopes were dashed on Monday when authorities said their tickets were sold by mistake.