Word: shari
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...secret police. Known as the KGB before the fall of the Soviet Union, the agency's harsh security tactics in the isolated Caucasus Mountains have incensed the local separatists who have been fighting for years to turn parts of the country into an Islamic caliphate governed by strict Shari'a law. (See pictures of the suicide bombings in Moscow...
...tourism officials of Aceh. Their job - promoting the beaches, jungles and rich culture of an unspoiled and underexplored Indonesian province - should be easy. But just as Aceh recovered from a decades-long civil war and a devastating tsunami, along came the Wilayatul Hisbah (vice and virtue patrol) to enforce Shari'a, or Islamic law. Its officers have raided unisex beauty salons, harassed women without headscarves and publicly caned gamblers and drinkers...
...does one reconcile Shari'a law with the freewheeling demands of modern tourists? One answer, say tourist officials, is to emphasize faith rather than fundamentalism. Acehnese are famously devout - their province is often called the "Veranda of Mecca." Banda Aceh's tallest building is one of the minarets of the black-domed Grand Mosque, and the city still moves to the rhythms of five daily prayers. A campaign is now under way to promote it as "Indonesia's Islamic tourism city...
...Shari'a police continue to do their image - and Aceh's - no favors. In January, three officers were charged with raping a local 20-year-old student in their custody, prompting calls from rights activists for the force's disbandment. Even so, for most regional and long-haul tourists, Shari'a and its enforcers are not the barrier. Rather, it is a lack of even half-decent hotels outside Banda Aceh, and Jakarta's apparent reluctance to grant immigration officials in this once independence-minded province the right to issue visas on arrival, as Bali has done for many years...
...that the outsiders of the establishment have heavily invested in this day, we must turn our backs on it." Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei echoed those sentiments, issuing a statement on his website Sunday in which, in reference to the celebration, he wrote that it has "no basis in shari'a [Islamic law] and creates a lot of harm and corruption, [which is why] it is appropriate to avoid...