Meriam Ibrahim Yahya is incarcerated and shackled in Sudan's Omdurman Women’s Prison. Her twenty month old child and her new born baby are with her. Charged with apostasy earlier this month, she faces flogging and then death by hanging.
In countries where there are no apostasy laws, blasphemy laws are frequently used to persecute and punish apostates. Rahila Gupta reports on how the dangers of apostasy in Muslim majority countries is making British courts more open to granting asylum.
Defenders of Pakistan's blasphemy laws say the rule of law prevents rule by mob. The May 7 murder of human rights lawyer Rashid Rehman - to prevent him from defending a young professor accused of blasphemy - shows the hypocrisy of such a defence, says Meredith Tax.
South Africa is one of the world’s most unequal countries, home to a generation of disenchanted ‘born frees’. The ANC’s recent electoral victory stems not from being the party of Liberation but of the Welfare State. Ché Ramsden reports.
Wole Soyinka believed that one of the best ways to comprehend the kind of horror that is happening in Nigeria is to remember the experience of other nations in the region confronted with jihadist groups much like Boko Haram. Mahfoud Bennoune confronted the same questions in Algeria in the 1990s.
Hundreds of thousands of children in the UK are brought up by family members who are not their parents. These ‘kinship carers’ - overwhelmingly women - save the taxpayers billions, but with little support from social services often endure poverty, ill-health and isolation.
Women Together played a crucial role in the peace process. As violence and tension mount again, Anne Carr argues that women must be leading peacebuilders, driving a Civic Forum to be a central voice for peace. Part 2 of a two part piece (see Part 1).
The right-wing in Spain is getting back into its stride. Will the electorate use the opportunity of the imminent European elections to point out that being lied to by politicians and treated to unacceptable delays by the courts may not represent the type of modern democracy that many want to live
Women Together brought Catholic and Protestant women into talks and cooperation in the 1970s, standing in solidarity against the government and paramilitary groups to help end the violence in Northern Ireland. Anne Carr describes their peacework. Part one of a two-part piece (see Part 2).
The mood was cheerful as the international Non-Proliferation Treaty conference ended in New York last Friday, but the atmosphere was sustained at the expense of tackling the real world nuclear challenges. Rebecca Johnson reports from the conference, and examines what role the NPT really plays in t
The attempt by British police to get Muslim women to inform on their friends and relatives as part of a counter-terrorism programme, repeats the police errors of the past and endangers any woman involved, says Yasmin Rehman
The full engagement of women at all levels of negotiations is essential in order to promote nonviolent solutions that address the causes of conflict and build peace and justice. Sue Finch and Liz Khan report from the European Women in Black conference in Belgium on a critical moment for Europe’s f
