SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNQ (Shia International News Association) -RIYADH: Saudi Police have arrested 176 people, including 15 women, for holding an illegal protest to demand the release of Islamist prisoners, the official SPA news agency reported. The agency, quoting a police spokesman, said protesters were arrested "after refusing to break up a gathering outside the offices of the investigation bureau and the prosecution in Buraida," in central Saudi Arabia yesterday. The spokesman accused the protesters of acting on behalf of "deviant groups" — a term…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Rejecting growing hijabophobia in Lagos schools, a leading Islamic organization has planned a protest at governor’s office, urging him to end victimization against Muslim pupils as an infringement on the constitutional rights of pupils. “What is happening in some public schools in the state is no more acceptable,” Zhikirul-lahi Sulaiman, Assistant -General Secretary of Muslim Students Society (MSS), told Leadership newspaper. “It is clearly an infringement of the rights of the students and so…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –A new report has revealed that Saudi Arabia has supplied foreign-backed militants in Syria with large cargos of infantry and heavy weapons through Jordan. Citing anonymous American and Western officials, The New York Times newspaper reported on Monday that "the weapons began reaching rebels in December via shipments shuttled through Jordan."  One Western official said "thousands of rifles and hundreds of machine guns" and an unknown quantity of ammunitions were among the weapons shipped to Syria.  The…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – A controversial Saudi cleric used Twitter to publicly insult the recently-appointed female members of the Shura Council. Derogatory terms such as "prostitutes" and "the filth of society" were used to describe the highly-achieved female academics and technocrats who were only sworn into the Council a few days after a highly-acclaimed Royal Decree was issued by King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz. The tweets quickly became widely-spread through the social media network and rapidly developed their own…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Thousands of Sunni Muslim Iraqis have continued to protest in the city Ramadi against the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Demonstrations following Friday Muslim noon prayers also took place in the capital city of Baghdad, the northern city of Mosul, and the central city of Fallujah. "Protesters were all united under the same theme for this Friday’s protest: 'Iraq or Maliki'," Al Jazeera’s Jane Arraf, reported from Baghdad. Protests have been ongoing for weeks,…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Thirty Saudi women have taken seats in Saudi Arabia's Shura Council, for the first time in the conservative kingdom's history, as they were sworn in before King Abdullah at his palace in the capital, Riyadh. The women took their seats in the same room with their 130 male colleagues and were sworn in collectively, state television said on Tuesday. "The development we are woring at must be gradual," King Abdullah said in a brief statement…

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SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association)- Unknown gunmen opened fire at a prison and police targets in Saudi Arabia’s Shia-populated Eastern Province, wounding a woman and her child, police and rights activists said. The gunmen carried out three separate shootings in two Shia towns on Saturday, provincial police spokesman Ziad Al Rukaiti said. “The prison in Qatif came under fire from an unknown source,” said Rukaiti, referring to the prison in the Shia town of Awamiya in the Qatif district. Rukaiti said the…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Relations between the UK and Saudi Arabia will suffer if what are said to be highly damaging allegations about business deals surface during a London trial, lawyers for two Saudi princes have warned the high court. The resort to political justifications – among other reasons – for suppressing the disputed claims is revealed in a ruling delivered on Wednesday by Mr Justice Morgan. The judgment upholds, in principle, requests by the Guardian and Financial…

On the surface it is claimed that Saudi Arabia is investing billions of dollars to benefit from the outcome of the research works but looking closely at the situation reveals this may not be that beneficial to Saudi people. Currently all the academic and research centres inside Saudi Arabia are built and managed by Americans or their western allies. SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – As the funding for many research centres throughout the USA is drying up due to…