INTERNATIONAL

There has perhaps been no modern-day law that has irked so many, and particularly human rights activists, as the harsh penalties inflicted for blasphemy in certain Muslim countries like Pakistan. The harshness of these rulings which do not give the accused the opportunity to repent certainly call for review. Islam is a religion of love where repentance is always possible …

INTERVIEW/PROF. DR BALADAS GHOSHAL. How has global Islamic resurgence affected Indian Muslims? Globalisation, the internet and the global war on terror have affected Indian Muslims. There is also a victim mentality growing out of their sense of insecurity, which makes them ghettoised, and an attempt to search for scapegoats instead of looking into their weaknesses. Is the consolidation of Muslim …

There is still much debate about whether torture has been effective in eliciting information — the assumption being, apparently, that if it is effective, then it may be justified. By the same argument, when Nicaragua captured U.S. pilot Eugene Hasenfuss in 1986, after shooting down his plane delivering aid to U.S.-supported Contra forces, they should not have tried him, found …

An argument can be made that implementation of the CIA’s “torture paradigm” never violated the 1984 Torture Convention, at least as Washington interpreted it. McCoy points out that the highly sophisticated CIA paradigm developed at enormous cost in the 1950s and 1960s, based on the “KGB’s most devastating torture technique,” kept primarily to mental torture, not crude physical torture, which …

Dear friends,  this is a fascinating article. The commonsense of the matter is given in the Egyptian Grand Mufti’s view that the Koran , more specifically parts of it, should be read through “the prism of the era”, meaning that some Koranic provisions take into account varying cultural practises in different societies at different times. The most potent argument against …