A few reports from the "Religion of Peace," this week.

Mother-in-law kept her sons' three wives locked up like slaves or dogs.

When I first saw this headline, I assumed this was a story from Pakistan or Afghanistan or India, but no, this happened right here in the UK, is free country, where women are equal under the law and are protected by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Right here in the UK, three young women were brought to this country to be married and ended up being beaten, confined to their mother-in-law's house and treated like slaves.

A mother locked up her three daughters-in-law and treated them as slaves for more than a decade, a court heard yesterday.

Naseebah Bibi, 62, is said to have ruled the women by fear - beating and slapping them if they disobeyed her, threatening to break their legs and denying them food.

Their ordeal only came to light when one wife managed to break free and ran into the street to alert a neighbour.

The court was told that Tazeem Akhtar, Nagina Akhtar and Nisbah Akhtar had arrived in Britain over several years after arranged marriages to Bibi's sons Nahim, Fahim and Nadeem in Pakistan.

Instead of living with their husbands and raising families, the women were put to work by their mother-in-law cooking and cleaning and using an industrial sewing machine.

Daily Mail April 1st (Read more here)

And sadly, it's not an April Fool's joke! It's all too true!

Rape in marriage to be legal in Afghanistan?

And in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai proposes a new law that would make rape in marriage legal and ban women from leaving their homes without their husband's permission.

"Critics worry the legislation undermines hard-won rights for women enacted after the fall of the Taliban's strict Islamist regime.

The law – which some lawmakers say was never debated in parliament – is intended to regulate family life inside Afghanistan's Shiite community, which makes up about 20 per cent of this country of 30 million people. The law does not affect Afghan Sunnis.

One of the most controversial articles stipulates the wife "is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires."

"As long as the husband is not travelling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night," Article 132 of the law says. "Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband."

Daily Telegraph April 3rd (Read more here)

China: Muslims riot after traffic incident

They don't seem to be very sure what happened because seemingly there are several widely varying versions of the story. A Muslim male was hit by a bus and killed. A Muslim male was traveling in a taxi that was in an accident with another vehicle, was badly injured and is in hospital. But hey! Why miss a good opportunity for a riot?!!! Whatever happened, there was a Han Chinese driver at fault and that calls for a riot!!

Hundreds of ethnic Hui Muslim people in Luohe, Henan province, attacked the government headquarters and paralysed traffic in a protest against the local authorities' alleged mishandling of an accident in which a Hui villager was injured, a Hong Kong-based rights organisation said yesterday.

The Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy quoted officials with the Luohe city government, including local traffic police, as saying that up to 1,000 Hui had laid siege to the building and blocked three of the town's four main bridges since Tuesday.

The report said a Hui man, a pedestrian, was killed last month when he was hit by a bus driven by a Han Chinese.

The suspect was reportedly released after several days' detention. The Luohe Public Bus Company, for which the driver worked, offered relatives of the victim 200,000 yuan (HK$227,000) in compensation. The relatives were demanding 1 million yuan.

But a local source gave the South China Morning Post (SEHK: 0583, announcements, news) a different version of the accident, saying the victim, a 20-year-old Hui man, did not die. He said the victim's face was injured when a taxi, not a bus, in which the victim was a passenger and which was driven by a Han Chinese, collided with another vehicle.

The victim's relatives and friends had turned to the local government for help after the taxi company refused to offer any compensation, the source said.

But local authorities decided to take no action."

South China Morning Post April 3rd (Read more here.)

Saudi religious police arrest famous actors because men and women were performing together.

The muttawa raids a hotel where a popular television series was being filmed. The actors have been released on bail, and one woman has been subjected to a moral education session. There is sharp division in the country between the fundamentalist religious leaders and those who want more freedom.

Riyadh (AsiaNews/Agencies) - A blitz by the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the religious police, or muttawa), who early in the morning of March 30 raided a famous hotel in Riyadh and took away the actors and production staff for a television series.

Three actors and one actress were taken to the local police station, and later released on bail. According to a local newspaper, they are the famous Omani actor Ebrahim Al Zidjali, the actors Ali Saad and Fawaz Al Jaser, and the actress Sahar.

Local sources explain that the religious police intervened because scenes were filmed at the hotel in which male and female actors were on the set together. For this reason, Sahar was also taken to a center of the Commission where female officers explained to her the consequences and dangers of being with men in public places.

Asia News April 2nd

Italian authorities carry out raids against "Islamist radicals" across country

Rome, 2 April (AKI) - Twenty-six foreigners suspected of links to international terrorism as well as aiding and abetting illegal immigration are being investigated by Italian police, after raids carried out on Thursday in various Italian cities.

The raids were carried out in properties around the northern cities of Vicenza, Venice, Padova, Brescia, Como, Cuneo and Trento, the central city of Florence and the southern city of Caserta.

The anti-terrorism and organised crime investigators in March 2007 began probing alleged Islamic fundamentalists attending the Via Dei Mille mosque in Vicenza in the northern Veneto region.

The mosque was led by a Yemeni imam, who is also being investigated for terror links.

However, most of the 26 foreigners arrested are Algerian.

Three of them, who lived in Naples, are though to be Islamist radicals sympathetic to the radical 'Takfiri' ideology.

The three radicals had already been involved in falsifying documents to aid jihadist groups.

Takfiris believe contemporary Muslim society has reverted to a state of unbelief ('kufr') and thus considers legitimate both rebellions against the state and acts of violence against Muslim citizens.

Adn Kronos April 2nd

And finally, suffer the little children.