“Syria has largely disappeared from the internet.” So said services such as Google and Umbrella Security Labs (a component of OpenDNS Inc.), which both documented a “significant drop in the traffic from Syria” around 3 p.m. EDT on Tuesday.  As of 3pm Wednesday, some activists reported connectivity is beginning to be restored....

Iran is one of the world’s worst violators of religious freedoms, according to a recent report from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.  The report identifies Iran as a “tier 1 country of particular concern” when it comes to persecuting people of faith. Already poor religious freedom conditions...

Human rights groups are blasting Iran for a wave of executions that this week saw four prisoners hanged in the western city of Kermanshah, two of them women. Kermanshah has become a central location for the Iranian regime’s public and prison executions. Iran has one of the world’s worst records...

Human rights and civil liberties groups are blasting Turkey after a Turkish court convicted one of the country’s top composers on charges of denigrating Islam. Pianist Fazil Say – a noted critic of the ruling Islamist government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan – was given a suspended sentence for making...

Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef – arrested last month for insulting Islam and the country’s Muslim Brotherhood-linked President Mohamed Morsi – triggered a new round of controversy over the weekend with a sketch in which he compared the Muslim Brotherhood to the Nazis. In his Saturday sketch, Youssef, who is regularly described as...

Hamas is beating, arresting, and forcibly cutting the hair of men who have “immodest” haircuts, part of a campaign to enforce Islamic styles in the Gaza Strip: The human rights group says the men were beaten and forced to sign an agreement to keep their hair short. They are also...