Articles – Page 42

India: potential temple-mosque trouble spots abound

By Deepshikha Ghosh - Indo-Asian News Service, 13 March 2003

A court order to excavate and ascertain if a temple existed at the site of a razed mosque in Ayodhya revives a long-standing debate about a large number of monuments across India with a disputed history. The Ayodhya temple-mosque row is only the most prominent. Hindu activists contend that thousands of temples were demolished and mosques erected in their place in a succession of invasions that racked medieval India.

Russia: Supreme Court supports ban on headscarves in document photos

By RFE/RL, 11 March 2003

The Supreme Court on 4 March rejected an appeal by 10 Muslim women from Tatarstan who asked the court to overturn a Tatar Interior Ministry ban on wearing headscarves in photographs for their domestic passports and other official documents

First published in Russian Foreign Policy and Security Watch, Vol. 4, No. 10, 11 March 2003. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Website: http://www.rferl.org/

Bangladesh: party wants enforcement of ‘fatwa’

By Indo-Asian News Service, 11 March 2003

A ruling coalition partner in Bangladesh has renewed calls for the enforcement of the ‘fatwa’, or religious decree, as law in the country.

Kyrgyzstan: Hizb ut-Tahrir accused of increased militancy

By Charles Carlson - RFE/RL, 11 March 2003

Over the past three years, reports of arrests in southern Kyrgyzstan of members of the banned Islamic Hizb ut-Tahrir party have become increasingly frequent. Officials say the group is aligning itself with more-militant Islamic groups, but observers say the accusations may just be a government ploy to detract attention from domestic troubles. Meanwhile, in an attempt to undercut attempts by Hizb ut-Tahrir to recruit new members, Muslim clergy have started sending groups of volunteers to local villages to foster traditional Islam.

Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Website: http://www.rferl.org/

Chechnya: Amir Abu al-Walid and the Islamic component of the Chechen war

By Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst - 26 Feb 2003, 11 March 2003

Following the death of Amir Ibn al-Khattab last spring, there was speculation as to whether the foreign Islamist mujahidin would continue to play a large role in the Chechen struggle for independence from Russia. Khattab appears to have been replaced by a 35 year old Saudi, Abu al-Walid. Unlike the often flamboyant Khattab, al-Walid’ has a more reclusive style. Ample speculation surrounds him, incuding whether he exists at all. Al-Walid is an experienced and worthy successor to Khattab in the field. What remains to be seen is whether al-Walid can preserve the supply networks of volunteers and money under enormous international pressure is being applied to terminate these conduits.

Andrew McGregor works with Aberfoyle International Security Analysis, Toronto.

This article was first published in the Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, a journal published by the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute (CACI). The Institute is an independent research and policy institution, affiliated to the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at The Johns Hopkins University. It was inaugurated in 1996 as the first institute in Washington, DC, devoted to the study and analysis of the Central Asian, the Caspian Basin and the Caucasus.

The Islamic Party of Russia

By Robert Bruce Ware - RFE/RL, 27 February 2003

Boasting 2,160,000 members and aspiring to five times that number, the recently organized Islamic Party of Russia (IPR) stands poised to play a significant role in Russian electoral politics. It will undergo its first important test on its home field on 16 March when Daghestan elects its third National Assembly.

Robert Bruce Ware is an associate professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville who conducts fieldwork in the Caucasus.

Copyright (c) 2003. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
Website: http://www.rferl.org/

India: Hindutva is an all-encompassing vision

By Indo-Asian News Service (New Delhi), 11 February 2003

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his deputy L.K. Advani Tuesday made a strong pitch for Hindutva, justifying it as a grand vision that absorbed the thinking of all humanity and did not belong to one community.

Africa: Christian retaliation increasing in Nigeria’s religious violence

By Obed Minchakpu - Compass Direct, 7 February 2003

Seventeen Christians from various church denominations in Aba, a city in Nigeria’s southern Abia state, were arrested in late January over reprisal attacks on Muslims. Sources said Christians were reacting to “incessant” attacks on Christians in northern Nigeria by Muslim extremists.

India: Government under attack for moving court in Ayodhya tangle

By Indo-Asian News Service (New Delhi), 6 February 2003

Hindu and Muslim leaders Thursday criticised the Indian government’s move to seek the removal of a Supreme Court ban on any religious activity at the site of the razed Babri mosque in Ayodhya, stating this was no solution to the temple-mosque dispute.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir remains active in Central Asia

By Alexei Igushev - Eurasianet, 6 February 2003

Officials in the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are resorting to repressive measures in an effort to counteract the clandestine activity of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamic group. Despite the officials’ increasingly coercive measures, one regional analyst has described the radical group as “growing like a hydra.”

EurasiaNet provides information and analysis about political, economic, environmental and social developments in the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as in Russia, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia. EurasiaNet is operated by the Central Eurasia Project of the Open Society Institute.
Website: www.eurasianet.org/index.shtml