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Protests broke out in Egypt in recent days over President Mohamed Morsi’s unilateral decree assuming widespread powers that may not be challenged or questioned. The Associated Press carried a list of some of those powers, beginning with:
I mentioned the story of Shaima Al Awadhi the other day. (Previous coverage here, here and here.) I became mildly obsessed with her after news of her unbelievably brutal killing broke in March. Al Awadhi was only 32 years old when she died and was a mother of five. She was attacked in her home, succumbing to her injuries a few days later.
The New York Times published a riveting piece about Salafism in Tunisia. From the beginning, the reader is transported to Kairouan:
That was my first reaction when I saw several versions of this bizarre little story from the tense world of airline travel, especially in the skies around Washington, D.C.
Of the many curious coverage decisions the mainstream media made this year, I thought the relative lack of interest in the plight of Mark Bassely Youssef, who made “Innocence of Muslims,” was noteworthy. There’s no question the dude is shady and broke the law in matters unrelated to the YouTube phenomenon. But the Obama administration’s focus on him, the physical threats issued against him, and his incarceration over the last few months also merited some serious discussions about free speech as its practiced in the United States.
It should be a quiet day on the religion-beat front, in the wake of yesterday’s nail-biters in the real world of politics. If the past repeats itself, as it often does, it will take a few days for the religion elements of the story to emerge, other than the usual “Obama won the Catholic vote (whatever that is)” headlines.
First things first: I would like to stress that, while I am a member of an Orthodox Christian parish with historic ties to Arab Christianity, I do not speak Arabic.
It is touching to see that in spite of everything that has happened over the course of the Twentieth century, there is still a belief in the Whig theory of history — of the inevitable march of progress. One can see this philosophical framework of man’s “move forward into broad, sunlit uplands” in this story on gender violence from the AP’s New Hampshire reporter.
