The Liberty Blog

Iran - the monolithic Twelver Shia Islamic republic, right? Not so much: Iran is also home to a variety of Sunni Muslims (found mostly along both Iran’s northwest and northeast borders and the Persian Gulf coast), Azeri, Armenian, and Assyrian Christians (within Iran’s northern and northwest sections), small Zoroastrian and Bahi’i communities (sparsely scattered throughout Iran) and a still existing community of Jews that have been a part of the Iran cultural mosaic more... (2 Comments)

The Assyrian community within the Middle East is a majority-Christian community generally spread out among the countries of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. The Assyrians as a people mostly live within Iraq and generally regard themselves as one of the most absolute indigenous people within the Middle East ethnic mosaic – direct descendants of and heirs to ancient Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire whose power flourished several times in what is now northern Iraq (near more... (2 Comments)

Today’s article is written on the great modern country of Turkey while pondering the probable feelings of my Turkish citizen friends – both Turks and Armenians. I am pondering their probable feelings in light of the U.S. House of Representatives now staid resolution of declaring the World War I –era actions of the then Ottoman Empire against the empire’s Armenian citizens as genocide. Both the Turkish government’s and military’s reaction to more... (16 Comments)

Greeting Readers: I am very pleased to announce an ‘International Religious Liberty Issues Series’ (!). Each week there will be an weblog dedicated to an international religious liberty issue that is matrixing with the current events in our world. The series will focus on the well-heard of world regions at large (Africa, South America, Europe, Middle East, South and East Asia, Oceania and the Pacific) but will focus on the little known particularities and issues within each region. more... Comments Off