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An Ontario jury has convicted three members of the Shafia family — father, mother and son of an Afghan family living in Quebec — of murder in what has become Canada’s most notorious “honor killings” case. There has been some great crime and court reporting in the Shafia case, and the articles in the major newspapers are really quite good.
Back in June, a local man was arrested in a string of shootings at military targets. He was born in Ethiopia and was named Yonathan Melaku. There were also reports that he’d had al Qaeda materials and had shouted “Allah Akbar” (it was actually “Allahu Akbar”).
In recent days, some news has sputtered out of Nigeria about the horrific ongoing attacks perpetrated by Boko Haram. Many journalists have been pooh-poohing claims by the U.S. and Nigerian governments that Boko Haram is tied to al Qaeda. See, for example, this Reuters report headlined “Analysis: Nigeria’s Boko Haram ups game but no Al Qaeda.” Now that we’re learning more about the widespread coordinated attacks on Christians and other targets (the death toll is at least 162 in this Associated Press report), I sure hope to see more in-depth coverage of what’s happening there.
Last week, former Michigan congressman Mark Siljander was sentenced for helping an Islamic charity suspected of having ties to al Qaeda. It’s not that it didn’t get significant coverage, but considering this was a former member of Congress, the coverage wasn’t terribly thorough. The underlying story is interesting on two religious fronts. Most media coverage focused on only one.
That was my delayed reaction this morning after reading an excellent St. Louis Post-Dispatch profile of a young, hip new imam:
Last night I followed a random tweet that linked to this report from Nina Shea at National Review‘s Corner:
How long have I been away from my desk, out on the nation’s highways visiting various encampments of family members?
I have mixed emotions about focusing the critical spotlight on this New York Times story about the plight of Christians in the Sudan. I am pleased that a story that speaks to the state sponsored persecution of Christians made it into the paper’s pages, yet I would have wished they had fact checked their story.
