SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) - Hundreds of Egyptians have taken to the streets to protest against President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, whose political wing controls the post-revolution's first elected government. Protesters battled police in several Egyptian cities on Saturday, with at least eight people reported injured, after rallies to mark the anniversary of a key opposition movement turned violent. In the capital, Cairo, police fired tear gas at hundreds of protesters outside the Superior Court, which also…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Hundreds of thousands of people have held protests in Bangladesh to demand that the government introduce an anti-blasphemy law that would include the death penalty for bloggers who insult Islam. Protest organisers called Saturday's rally the "long march", with many travelling from remote villages to the capital, Dhaka's Motijheel area that became a sea of white skull caps and robes. Supporters of Hefazat-e-Islam, an Islamist group which draws support from tens of thousands of…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Coinciding with the commemoration of the martyrdom of Hazrat Fatima (PBUH), a Thai lady embraced Islam at the Imam Reza holy shrine. Mrs. Bimbao Kambing, 50, uttered the two declarations of Faith in Islam in order to declare her conversion from Christianity into Islam. She also changed her name into Maria. She said, "I've been coming to Iran and watching how Muslims pray and hold their own rituals and mourning ceremonies, so, that attracted me…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement has planned mass rallies on Saturday to mark its fifth anniversary and protest against President Mohammed Mursi, Egyptian media has reported. Despite supporting Mursi during elections last June, the group said Saturday’s protests, dubbed the “Day of Rage,” are to express “dissent” against the president’s latest moves rather than celebrating, reported Ahram Online. “We supported President Mursi when he ran for presidency. Now, after he issued his constitutional declaration,…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – In a protest against topless feminist activists staged in front of mosques across Europe, a group of Muslim women has launched an online campaign to celebrate their hijab and object to the way they are depicted in the west. "Muslimah [Female Muslim] pride is about connecting with your Muslim identity and reclaiming our collective voice,” the event organizer Sofia Ahmed, wrote on Facebook, Aljazeera reported. “Let's show the world that we oppose Femen and…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Member of Hamas political bureau Ezzat Resheq rejected statements of U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland in which she said that U.S. will not hold dialog with Hamas before its commitment to meet the international Quartet demands. Nuland said on Thursday that the international Quartet demands are represented in rejecting terrorism, recognizing Israel, and recognizing the agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinians. The Hamas leader stressed his complete rejection of these statements, which he…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- The main UN humanitarian agency for Palestinians said it was suspending operations in the Gaza Strip after demonstrators angered by aid cutbacks stormed its headquarters. Some 800,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of Gaza's population, depend on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the shuttering, announced on Thursday, could exacerbate hardship caused by Israeli and Egyptian controls on the isolated enclave's borders. The distributions cutoff will affect up to 25,000 refugees every day, the agency…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Gaza's Hamas government on Friday urged the United Nations to reconsider its suspension of food aid for Palestinian refugees, imposed after protesters stormed a UN depot. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, stopped food deliveries after dozens of Gazans forced their way into the field office on Thursday, demanding reinstatement of a monthly cash allowance to poor families which was halted from April 1 due to budget cuts. "This is an unjustified step…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –France's highest appeals court has struck down a decision to release Georges Abdallah, 62, jailed in French prisons for 29 years, calling the Lebanese prisoner's request for parole "irreceivable" on legal grounds. He was granted parole on 21 November 2012, but the prosecution appealed the decision, and France has come under mounting pressure from the US and Israel to block his release. "We don't think he should be released and we are continuing our consultations…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –On the following of demanding the death sentence for Sheikh Nimr Baqir Al-Nimr by Saudi Attorney General, Grand Ayatollah Alavi Gorgani issued an important statement. The statement calls the action of Saudi Judiciary an inequitable action for all Muslims both Shia and Sunni and states: “I urge Muslims and freedom seekers of the world particularly Muslims in Saudi Arabia to protest against the Saudi administration”. Full text of the statement is as follows: بسم الله…