District Nazim Mohammad Asim Khan on Tuesday halted the disbursal of funds to councilors as a 'punishment' over a protest against the provincial government. During a session of the District Council, PTI councilor Noor Wali Khan and PML-N councilor Rehamdil Khan protested over the unlawful orders of the district Nazim to halt tenders of the...

A Pakistani activist who mysteriously disappeared in January last year has now contacted his family and is expected to return home soon, his brother said on Thursday. Social activist Samar Abbas disappeared while visiting the capital, Islamabad, along with four other men who were picked up from different cities in the span of a few days. “He is...

Later this month, Egyptians will go to the polls to reelect Abdel Fatah al-Sissi to his second term as president. An all too familiar scenario is playing out: Sissi is the only viable candidate. His sole challenger, Mousa Mostafa Mousa, is the head of a party that had endorsed Sissi before entering its own candidate at the last minute. Other...

Dozens of Palestinian journalists on Monday staged a demonstration outside the UN’s Gaza City office to protest Facebook’s practice of unilaterally blocking Palestinian Facebook accounts. Demonstrators held banners aloft, reading, “Facebook is complicit in [Israel’s] crimes” and “Facebook favors the [Israeli] occupation." According to Salama...

A small number of Iranian women, risking arrest to protest compulsory head scarves, have rekindled debate about Iran's so-called hijab rule. The Islamic scarf, or hijab, is one of the pillars of the Islamic republic and among its most visible symbols. It became compulsory after the 1979 revolution, after which Iranian women were required to...

This year, Malians will vote in nationwide elections amid discontent over continued insecurity and poverty. Popular anger has found a focal point in a diminutive figure who goes by the name of Ras Bath. Without running for office himself, Ras Bath is an influential figure to watch. Mohamed Youssouf Bathily, who everybody calls Ras Bath,...

Bacha Khan’s background as a Muslim and a Pashtun made his non-violent struggle appear unique. In a way, he was able to change the common discourse that Pasthans are short-tempered people. Bacha Khan famously proclaimed that “we would have fared ill if we had not learnt the lessons of non-violence. We are born fighters and we keep the tradition...

At first, the killing last month of Naqeebullah Mehsud — an aspiring model shot by the police in Karachi who claimed afterward that he was a Taliban militant — seemed merely the latest in a long series of abuses carried out by the authorities against ethnic Pashtuns in Pakistan. But Mr. Mehsud’s case has proved different. The 27-year-old’s...

A spate of defiant Iranian women have taken to the streets of Tehran to protest against compulsory veiling. Photos of their demonstrations have been widely circulated online under the hashtag #دختران_خیابان_انقلاب (translated to #Girls_of_Enghelab_Street). At least two women (of the six women appearing in the photos above) have been arrested....

Anti-riot police fired tear gas and beat protesters with batons Tuesday as hundreds of Sudanese demonstrated against soaring bread prices near a presidential palace in Khartoum, an AFP correspondent said. Bread prices have more than doubled after a jump in the cost of flour due to dwindling wheat supplies, after the government decided to stop...