Free Republic

A 60-year old Saudi man has agreed to postpone his marriage to a 10-year old girl after protests from a human rights group. The elderly man decided to take a second wife in a challenge with the girl’s father, who said he was afraid of his first wife and dared him to take a second one. But the man agreed to postpone his marriage after the Saudi National Human Rights Association sent a letter to the Emir of Hail, a city in northwestern Saudi Arabia, AlArabiya.net reported on Sunday, citing Saudi newspaper Al-Madina. The report did not say for how...

ranian police will crack down on women in Tehran flouting Islamic dress codes with winter fashions deemed immodest, such as tight trousers tucked into long boots, an officer was quoted as saying on Saturday. "Considering the start of the cold season and its special way of dressing, police will start early next week a drive against women who wear improper dress," Tehran police chief Ahmad Reza Radan was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

His face covered by a balaclava, an official brandishing a cane repeatedly lashes the back of a man found guilty of breaking Iran's morality laws. Two police officers hold the legs of 25-year-old Saeed Ghanbari and another his arms to ensure there is no escape from the punishment of 80 lashes handed down by a religious court. Traffic was brought to a halt in Qazvin, 90 miles west of the capital Tehran, as more than 1,000 men gathered behind barricades to watch the public flogging.

Villagers attacked Taliban rebels who had blockaded a road and were confiscating music cassettes from passing cars in southern Afghanistan, officials said on Tuesday. Two militants and a villager were killed. After seizing and breaking the cassettes, the insurgents informed travellers that music is forbidden by Islam, said Abdul Wasai, the government chief in Spin Boldak district, where the fighting occurred on Monday. The Taliban used the same claim to justify destroying thousands of music cassettes and videos while the militia held power from 1996 to 2001. Ten militants had seized dozens of cassettes from travellers before the villagers attacked,...