THE BBC is institutionally biased, an official report will conclude this week. The year-long investigation, commissioned by the BBC, has found the corporation particularly partial in its treatment of single-issue politics such as climate change, poverty, race and religion. It concludes that the bias has extended across drama, comedy and entertainment, with the corporation pandering…
Canada is more tolerant of immigrants than Europe and less afraid of terrorist attacks than the United States, meaning it could be a model for faithful Muslims trying to integrate into Western society, a controversial Islamic scholar says. Tariq Ramadan has two reservations: Canada must stop thinking of itself as peripheral to the debate and…
Waitress Venessa and her partner Hussein, a florist, recently learned that their application for marriage has been rejected by French authorities Since July 24, 2006, foreigners who marry to a French national were no longer guaranteed a residential permit. For Venessa and Hussein, they have had the misfortune that the agent reviewing their case was…
Laleh Bakhtiar, an Iranian-American scholar, had already spent two years working on an English translation of the Koran when she came upon Chapter 4, Verse 34. The hotly debated verse states that a rebellious woman should first be admonished, then abandoned in bed, and ultimately beaten – the most common translation for the Arabic word…
Islam does not require women to wear veils, Queen Rania al-Abdullah of Jordan has said in an interview, calling on Muslim moderates to “make their voices be heard.” “Islam neither requires one to be practising, nor to dress in one way or another,” the stylish 36-year-old queen told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera during…
