Kunwar Khuldune Shahid is a Pakistan-based correspondent for The Diplomat
Tashnuva Anan Shishir last week became the first transgender person to read the news on Bangladeshi TV. The 29-year-old broke down in tears, overtaken by the momentous occasion, after delivering her first three-minute bulletin on March 8. Shishir reached this milestone after facing years of marginalisation, bullying and sexual assaults. A 2015 study of the
Is Switzerland ‘Islamophobic’? Critics of the country’s decision to outlaw face coverings think so. The ‘Burqa ban’, which passed into law this week as a result of a narrow vote in a referendum, applies to any form of face covering in a public gathering, unless worn for health reasons, at religious congregations, or carnivals. The legislation is not, at
Last week, Indonesia banned schools across the country from forcing girls to wear the hijab, after the parents of a 16-year-old Christian schoolgirl uploaded a video of their daughter being forced to wear the headscarf in Padang, in West Sumatra. According to the Education Minister, schools that now fail to comply with the order will
Last week, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered the release of UK born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh who was accused of kidnapping and beheading the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The verdict came after Sindh High Court overturned the death penalty for Sheikh and three alleged abettors last year, ruling that there was insufficient evidence to find them
On Thursday, Turkey Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu will land in Brussels to meet with European Union officials to start to ‘build Turkey’s future in Europe’. Next week, Turkey is expected to resume talks with Greece to resolve their maritime disputes after a five-year hiatus. The clash in the eastern Mediterranean between Ankara and Athens has
On Monday, 13 soldiers were killed by the Islamic State in northeastern Nigeria. A week ago, just after midnight on Friday morning, a Boko Haram suicide bomber blew up 14 villagers in northern Cameroon. These attacks — passing us by, as they do, in a stream of news and information — are becoming increasingly common in the beleaguered
After becoming the latest Arab state to formalise ties with Israel, the fourth in as many months, Morocco has gone a step further; it will start teaching Jewish history as part of the school curriculum. Morocco is now the first modern Arabic state to embrace its tradition of religious pluralism — a pluralism that has
Rapists in Pakistan will soon face a stark choice. Under a law backed by the country’s prime minister, Imran Khan, those convicted of rape can either be chemically castrated, face life imprisonment or even a death sentence. But while the new law sounds radical, it’s unlikely it will be enough to curb the wave of
Mohammed bin Salman and Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting – albeit denied by Riyadh – shows it is surely only a matter of time before Saudi Arabia and Israel formalise their covert relations. Israel’s recent peace deals with Bahrain and the UAE could not have materialised without Saudi backing. MBS is also arm-twisting Pakistan to help ‘normalise normalisation’ by extending
The war of words between Pakistan and France – sparked by president Macron’s comments about radical Islam – rumbles on. But the latest skirmish has led to an embarrassing climbdown from one of Pakistan’s top politicians. ‘Macron is doing to Muslims what the Nazis did to the Jews – Muslim children will get ID numbers
Donald Trump’s defeat in the US election was widely predicted, but what was less anticipated was the level of support Trump received from Muslim voters, a third of whom backed him, according to the AP VoteCast survey. It seems many Muslim voters reflected on Trump’s tumultuous time in office and liked what they saw: there was an almost
Emmanuel Macron’s staunch defence of the right to publish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad proved popular in France. But now the president has a big fight on his hand abroad: French products have been removed from shops in Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan – and calls for a boycott are spreading. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is
A schoolteacher, Samuel Paty, was decapitated in Paris on Friday for showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, in what turned out to be a fatal lesson on freedom of expression. It is the second Islamist attack in the city in less than a month, after a Pakistani man injured two near the former offices of
As the transgender war plays out online in Britain, a far bloodier turn of events is unfolding in Pakistan. This month, transgender activist Gul Panra was shot dead in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s capital Peshawar. Another transgender woman, named Tariq alias Chahat, who had joined Panra to perform at a wedding, was also wounded in the attack.
Pakistan’s stock exchange isn’t typically seen as one of the world’s best, but in recent weeks it has outperformed almost every other rival market. In terms of weekly profit, the Pakistan stock market was among the world’s top-performing last week. In August, it was Asia’s best and the fourth-best globally. For many, this has been a surprising turnaround
‘Our stand on Israel is clear,’ Pakistan’s prime minister Imran Khan said this week. ‘We cannot recognise Israel until Palestinians get their right’, he said. For Khan, the UAE’s deal with Israel – which will inevitably lead to more Muslim states formalising relations with Israel – counts for little. But Khan is no stranger to
As the covid-19 pandemic rages on, Pakistan is emerging as an unheralded, and unlikely, success story. Despite having the fifth highest population in the world, Pakistan’s cumulative covid-19 cases at 281,136, and 6,014 total deaths. rank the country 14th and 19th in the world. However, most remarkable of all is Pakistan’s progress over the last month,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a sucker for conquest symbolism. As Covid-19 restrictions were being eased this year, he ensured that mosques reopened on 29 May to coincide with the 567th anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. The Turkish president has now gone on to sign a decree converting Hagia Sophia into a mosque, just
The parents of Suntara Kohli, Bhagwanti Kohli, Aisha Megwad and Priyanka Kumari continue their protests against the abductions and forced conversions of their daughters. The four Hindu girls were among seven cases of forced conversion in Pakistan reported by local newspapers last week alone. Suntara, Bhagwanti and Aisha are still teenagers; the former only 15. But their
Imran Khan has dedicated much energy to the plight of Muslims around the world. Now, his government has finally decided to pay heed to the suffering of its own religious minorities, by putting together a long-planned commission last month. Days after the commission was formed, it was decided to exclude Ahmadis from it. Since coming to power
