A Forum on Islamic and Middle Eastern Politics
RAMAZAN KILINÇ, 7 MAY 2019 On May 6, Turkey’s Higher Electoral Council canceled the mayoral elections in Istanbul and ordered the rerun of the race on June 23. This decision wiped away the humiliating defeat of the governing Justice and Development Party in Istanbul. Turkey had already been in the path to authoritarianism under the presidency […]
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RAMAZAN KILINÇ, FEBRUARY 16, 2019 Mohammad Hassan Khalil is coming to the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where I teach, to give a talk on his latest book, Jihad, Radicalism, and the New Atheism. I wanted to have a very brief interview with Dr. Khalil about his book before his talk in Omaha. I hope to […]
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RAMAZAN KILINÇ, 14 FEBRUARY 2019 In January 2019, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had a Middle East tour with the goal of forming an alliance that could contain Iran in the region. He vowed to “expel every last Iranian boot” from Syria and decrease Iran’s role in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen. For observers of […]
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RAMAZAN KILINÇ 18 JANUARY 2019 Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Egypt and gave a speech at American University in Cairo. Secretary Pompeo criticized President Obama’s foreign policy in the region by referring to his famous speech, “A New Beginning,” given in Cairo after he became the president in 2009. He blamed Obama of retreating American presence […]
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RAMAZAN KILINÇ 23 NOVEMBER 2018 On October 19, Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Sudais, the imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca and the highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia, delivered a sermon and declared the Saudi crown prince Muhammad bin Salman as a renewer of religion whom all Muslims should obey. This move was in reaction to the […]
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RAMAZAN KILINÇ 14 NOVEMBER 2018 On 12 November 2018, the Amnesty International withdrew its most prestigious human rights prize from Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s chief of government, accusing her of perpetuating human rights abuses against the Rohingya Muslim minority. In the past, Suu Kyi was put on house arrest for several years by the military regime […]
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RAMAZAN KILINÇ 30 AUGUST 2016, BERKLEY FORUM If it had succeeded, the July 15 coup would have turned Turkey into a military authoritarian regime. It might have even led Turkey into a spiral of violent political instability for several years to come. The failure of the coup saved Turkey from a possible military authoritarianism and […]
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RAMAZAN KILINÇ 5 DECEMBER 2015, OPEN DEMOCRACY On Sunday, November 1, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) regained its majority in the parliament, winning the 49 percent of the votes. The party secured 317 seats in a 550-member parliament to continue its single-party government for another term, after losing it in the June 7 elections. Despite […]
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RAMAZAN KILINÇ 1 NOVEMBER 2015, OMAHA WORLD HERALD The writer is an assistant professor of political science and director of the Islamic Studies Program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Are Muslims part of the American mosaic? This question requires us to address a dilemma for many American Muslims: searching for purity in one’s faith […]
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RAMAZAN KILINÇ 24 MARCH 2014, OPEN DEMOCRACY Turkey blocked Twitter late at night on March 20. This was a culmination of a series of authoritarian moves since last summer. In summer 2013, the government harshly responded to the popular protests that grew after a group of people organised demonstrations to prevent Istanbul city government from […]
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