Tehran: A member of Iran's constitutional watchdog group insists that women cannot be presidential candidates, a report said Thursday, effectively killing the largely symbolic bids by about 30 women seeking to run in the June 14 election. Even before the comments by Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, chances for a woman candidate in Iran's presidential election were considered nearly impossible.
Women also have registered as potential candidates in past presidential elections, but the group that vets hopefuls appears to follow interpretations of the constitution that suggest only a man may hold Iran's highest elected office. Women, however, are cleared to run for Iran's parliament and have served as lawmakers.
The semiofficial Mehr news agency quotes Yazdi as saying the "law does not approve" of a woman in the presidency and a woman on the ballot is "not allowed." The Guardian Council, where Yazdi is a member, vets all candidates for the presidency and parliament.
A total of 686 people have registered to replace President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who cannot run for a third mandate because of term limits. The final list will be announced Tuesday, with only a handful of names expected on the ballot....
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08:13 PM, May 17, 2013
Islamabad: Pakistani religious scholars on Thursday issued a 'fatwa' that declared voting in the country's upcoming general election was "compulsory under Islamic injunctions", a senior religious leader said. Over 300 clerics from different schools of Islamic thought issued the decree in Islamabad nearly two weeks ahead of the May 11 general elections, Pakistan Ulema Council chairman Allama Tahir Ashrafi said. The edict was in marked contrast to the stance taken...
04:06 AM, Apr 26, 2013
The British government on Wednesday lost the latest round of its long-running legal battle to deport radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada, who is wanted in his native Jordan after having been convicted of terrorism charges in 1999. ...
09:15 PM, Mar 27, 2013
At least 42 people were killed, including a senior Muslim cleric, and over 80 wounded in an explosion at a mosque in downtown Damascus on Thursday. A suicide bomber set off an explosive device at the mosque during a religious lesson being given by Sheikh Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti, a top Sunni Muslim preacher and long time supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, state-news agency SANA reported Thursday. ...
07:40 AM, Mar 22, 2013
Muhammad Tahir-Ul-Qadri the Islamic cleric, who is pushing for electoral reforms in Pakistan, said that his political party would boycott the forthcoming general elections in the country. ...
07:54 AM, Mar 18, 2013
Senior Iranian clerics have criticized President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for consoling Hugo Chavez's mother with a hug. ...
04:43 PM, Mar 12, 2013
Keith O'Brien, who resigned last week as Britain's most senior Roman Catholic cleric after claims of sexual impropriety, admitted on Sunday that his conduct had "fallen below the standards expected of me". ...
10:25 AM, Mar 04, 2013
The royal family has taken up the case of child abuse by a Saudi celebrity cleric who confessed to the beating death of his 5-year-old daughter. ...
12:59 PM, Feb 13, 2013
Online activists in Saudi Arabia are calling for harsher punishments for child abuse after reports that a prominent cleric received only a light sentence after confessing to the beating death of his five-year-old daughter. ...
11:40 PM, Feb 03, 2013
Pakistan government on Thursday reached out to fiery cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri, who has been camping outside Parliament along with thousands of protesters for the fourth day in a row demanding the government's resignation and dissolution of the national and provincial assemblies. A four-member committee, formed by the government, held talks with Qadri. ...
09:46 PM, Jan 17, 2013
Thousands of people in Pakistan are out on the streets supporting pro-army Sufi cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri's call for a crackdown on government corruption and an indefinite delay in elections. Protestors are threatening to stay on streets till their demands are met. ...
01:06 PM, Jan 16, 2013
Police fired in the air and used teargas to disperse followers of influential cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri who gathered for a protest in the Pakistani capital Islamabad after they clashed with security forces. Footage on television showed policemen in riot gear firing in the air and using batons to push back dozens of supporters of Qadri, who lobbed stones at them. ...
12:10 PM, Jan 15, 2013
Thousands of Pakistanis shouting slogans like "we want change" thronged the streets of Islamabad in support of Sufi cleric Muhammad Tahir-Ul-Qadri's anti-government demonstrations on Monday. Flag-waving citizens braved tear gas shells fired by the police and called for a crackdown on corruption, backing Qadri's call for an indefinite delay in elections. ...
09:05 AM, Jan 15, 2013
A leading Islamic cleric in the Gaza Strip has ruled it a sin to violate the recent cease-fire between Israel and the Hamas militant group that governs the Palestinian territory - according a religious legitimacy to the truce and giving the Gaza government strong backing to enforce it. ...
01:27 AM, Nov 26, 2012
Jaipur: A wedding in Rajasthan's Barmer town, over 550 km from Jaipur, witnessed high drama Friday when the maulavi (priest) refused to perform the marriage rituals after he saw women from the groom's side dancing in public. The maulavi objected to the dancing as he claimed that women were not allowed to dance in marriage processions in the area. The maulavi left without performing the wedding rituals. Later in the...
09:01 AM, Nov 10, 2012
Hyderabad: Police have arrested three people including a bridegroom and a Muslim cleric who used to solemnise marriages following a sting operation on contract marriages by IBN7. The Muslim cleric has been suspended by the Minority Commission and the police are also investigating the role of some others in the case. The cleric and his associates used to target girls from poor families and get them married for a few...
12:14 PM, Nov 05, 2012
Cairo: Some anti-American Muslim clerics have cast the deadly Superstorm Sandy as divine punishment for a film mocking the Prophet Muhammad or for other perceived ills of American society. The remarks by some on the fringe brought a backlash from other Muslims who said it was wrong to relish the suffering of others. In Egypt, one radical cleric described the hurricane as revenge from God for the crude, anti-Islam film...
02:21 AM, Nov 02, 2012
New York: A radical Islamist cleric facing terrorism charges will be outfitted with new prosthetics after US authorities refused to allow him to wear metal hooks in place of his missing hands when he is outside of his jail cell, his lawyer said on Friday. The Egyptian-born preacher, Abu Hamza al-Masri, who is missing both hands and his right eye, appeared in Manhattan federal court for the third time since...
11:47 AM, Oct 27, 2012
Islamabad: A Pakistani cleric who falsely accused a minor Christian girl of blasphemy by framing evidence against her was freed from jail today after he was granted bail by a court in the federal capital. Khalid Chishti was detained on September 1 on a charge of blasphemy for desecrating the Quran and planting evidence that was used against the girl Rimsha Masih. He was arrested after his deputy Maulvi Zubair...
02:19 AM, Oct 13, 2012
New York: Radical Islamic cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, who was flown in from the UK along with four other terror suspects, will remain in detention till his formal arraignment on October 9, a US court has ordered. Hamza, who had fought extradition to the US for years and made his initial appearance in a federal court in New York on Saturday, will be charged for plotting to take hostages and...
08:05 AM, Oct 07, 2012
