Saudi Arabia

acquitted sam walton rev daniel woodhouse

Would Muslims have been acquitted for breaking into BAE and trying to disarm Saudi-bound fighter planes?

October 29, 2017
Archbishop Cranmer
339 Comments

Methodist minister the Rev'd Daniel Woodhouse and Quaker activist Sam Walton have been acquitted after breaking into a BAE Systems factory in Warton, Lancashire, armed with a hammer inscribed 'They shall beat their swords into ploughshares' (Isa 2:4) and 'Choose…

Trump’s UN “hate speech” tells the world a few home truths

September 20, 2017
226 Comments

UN Secretary-General António Guterres doesn't like divisive political discourse: he prefers consensual dialogue about climate change; exhortations to build bridges rather than walls; measured denunciations of Israel rather than the…

Trump’s Saudi Islam speech will not bind Islamic State’s progenitors

May 22, 2017
83 Comments

Donald Trump goes to Saudi Arabia and the world awaits his much-trailed Islam speech. And what a mighty fine speech it was. The President of the United States boldly reiterated…

Trump and torture: you don’t fight Islamist fire with the embers of Christian virtue

January 26, 2017
460 Comments

President Donald Trump wants to keep his country safe from Islamist terrorists. He'd also like to destroy ISIS and wipe them off the face of the earth. In pursuit of…

You will hear of wars, assassinations and terrorist atrocities… Joy to the world

December 20, 2016
209 Comments

Christmas carnage in Berlin as Islamic State manage to get someone to plough a 27-ton HGV into a market, killing 12 and injuring 50. Weeping and wailing; mulled wine all…

Global persecution of Christians more extreme than ever

January 13, 2016
317 Comments

This week many in the church and a few in the media have their eyes on Justin Welby and the Primates meeting in Canterbury, waiting to see if the…

Parliament's vote to bomb Syria has already won the moral victory against ISIL

December 3, 2015
187 Comments

As I began writing this within an hour of the Commons vote, 4 RAF Tornadoes were already on their way to bomb Syria. This is it; the UK is now…

Marsha Levine – the Cambridge academic who refused to answer Israeli child's question, citing BDS

December 2, 2015
222 Comments

Dr Marsha Levine was a fellow and senior research associate in the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at Cambridge University, which "serves as an interdisciplinary hub aiming to provide…

Helen Mirren: "I love Israel – I think it's a great, great country"

October 30, 2015
0 Comments

In 1967, shortly after the Six-Day War, Helen Mirren worked on a the HaOn kibbutz on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. She hitch-hiked throughout Israel, and slept…

Corbyn's moral mission for a kinder, more inclusive politics

September 30, 2015
185 Comments

A bit doddery and oafish, Jeremy Corbyn stumbled and stammered through his first Conference speech like a 1950s grey-bearded puritan. He was robed in a bright red tie, though…

Saudi Arabia to crucify Ali Mohammed al-Nimr – because they don't like his uncle

September 19, 2015
188 Comments

Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth (to cause) corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified…

Aylan Kurdi's drowning reveals our hypocrisy towards Europe's refugee crisis

September 3, 2015
303 Comments

So far this year an estimated 2,643 people have died attempting to cross the Mediterranean in a desperate search for a new life free from war, persecution and suffering.…

Iran nuclear deal: Obama is fulfilling Shia 'End Times' prophecy

July 16, 2015
174 Comments

The Iran nuclear deal thrashed out between Tehran and Washington has heartened 99% of the world. It was a triumph for diplomacy; the vindication of politics; a welcome and…

No, Baroness Anelay. Freedom of belief is a fundamental right

June 24, 2015
153 Comments

Religio-political blogging is a pretty much a thankless task. You air your opinions in public in the hope that others will take note, listen and learn. If just a…

Benjamin Netanyahu promises legitimacy, peace and security

March 19, 2015
403 Comments

The Archbishop of Canterbury made a pronouncement last year which was somewhat unusual in modern Anglican geo-political quibbling and hedging. The statement is still on the Lambeth Palace website,…

Let’s stop reviling Islam with ‘Islamism’, and call the cult what it really is

March 8, 2015
371 Comments

Rather like the Naming of Cats, the classifying of Islamic sects is a difficult matter, and it’s certainly not just one of your Eid-Al-Fitr games. As we’ve witnessed the…

Mehdi Hasan: "No Reformation in Europe without Muslim theologians"

January 19, 2015
216 Comments

Mehdi Hasan delivered an oratorically brilliant if rather sanctimonious speech at the Oxford Union in May 2013, which now rings in the head like tinnitus in the wake of…

"If 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France"

January 13, 2015
484 Comments

The words of French Prime Minister Manuel Valls echo down the centuries of anti-Semitic Europe, where Jews have been marginalised, persecuted, reviled, expelled and turned to ash in the…

Sophie Wessex and the fashionable burqa

December 30, 2014
99 Comments

The Countess of Wessex is Patron of the London College of Fashion, in which capacity she hosted an event at Windsor Castle where she met representatives from the Islamic…

Douglas Alexander champions a Global Envoy for Religious Freedom

December 22, 2014
105 Comments

"Yet, at this time of great peril, I deeply regret that the British Government seems to be stepping back, rather than stepping up," writes Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander…