Religious controversies

Salman Rushdie is "on the road to recovery," his agent confirmed Sunday, two days after the author of "The Satanic Verses" suffered serious injuries in a stabbing at a lecture in upstate New York.

Salman Rushdie, who spent years in hiding after an Iranian fatwa ordered his killing, was on a ventilator and could lose an eye following a stabbing attack at a literary event in New York state on Aug. 12. 

The British author of "The Satanic Verses", which sparked fury among some Muslims, had to be airlifted to hospital for emergency surgery following the attack.

Some 50 Afghan women, leaving their hair half-covered with a headscarf and wearing purple scarfs around their necks, marched to the Presidential Palace in Kabul on Sept. 4, chanting slogans against the Taliban, saying, "We are not afraid."

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A governor in Somalia's Puntland has been killed in a suicide bombing claimed by the Al-Shabaab jihadist group, AFP reported on March 30.

Abdisalan Hassan Hersi, governor of Nugaal region, succumbed to his injuries after being rushed to hospital in Garowe, the capital of Puntland where the blast occurred on March 29.    

The German suspect in a deadly attack targeting a synagogue has admitted to the shooting rampage and confessed that it was motivated by anti-Semitism and right-wing extremism, federal prosecutors said on Oct. 11.    

Unity, inclusiveness, dialogue and a comprehensive strategic vision are the only ways to overcome rising trends of xenophobia, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism across the globe, Turkey's foreign minister said on May 17.

It was the first time Thomas Haldenwang, president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, or BfV, had hosted his agency's traditional symposium, reported DW. 

An American with anti-Semitic views started shooting at a synagogue in California on Saturday, killing a woman and injuring three, police said. John Irurnest is 19, and before the attack he posted a public letter in a social network stating that he was inspired by his actions of killing 50 people in mosques in New Zealand and the lethal attack on the Pittsburgh synagogue last year.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on March 22 called for a global fight against rising Islamophobia like the one against "anti-Semitism after the Holocaust" following the deadly attacks on two New Zealand mosques.

A Christian woman acquitted after eight years on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy was released but her whereabouts in Islamabad on Thursday remained a closely guarded secret in the wake of demands by radical Islamists that she be publicly executed.