Hasmik Hakupian, the Armenian woman, converted to Islam, said Shahadatain in the presence of Amol’s Friday prayer leader in North Iran.

 after becoming Muslim, she changed her name to Fatima.

“In the last few years, I’ve been participating in educational Quranic classes with my friends. The spiritual atmosphere of these classes was introduction for me to convert to Islam”, Fatima said.

“The most important element of my accepting Islam was participating to mourning of Ahlul Bayt and presentation in holy shrines of Ahlul Bayt (PBUH)”, she added.

“Despite propagandas in West, Islam does not restrict women” Fatima said at the end.

In a meeting with high-ranking members of the Islamic system, the Leader said all elements of the government should work together in order to assist the Ahmadinejad administration in providing people with service.

“In the current situation, faced the fifth development plan, the officials are dealing with many obligations, which requires coordination and harmony,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.

The remarks came as the Parliament (Majlis) and the government are moving to iron out the details of the subsidy reform plan approved by the lawmakers.

Imam Khamenei said “harmony” and “unity” can be achieved even at a time, when there are different views on a subject.

“The meaning of harmony amongst officials is not overlooking different tastes; [as they] along with scientific and expertly discussions pave the way for progress,” the Leader said. “But these different views should not result in impeding the progress or sidetracking from its path.”

On the subsidy bill, Ayatollah Khamenei asked the Parliament and the government to remove obstacles in the way of implementing the plan.

The officials of the Islamic establishment should realize their important responsibility, the Leader said. “We should act in a way that we can answer before God for our actions.”

The New York City Bar is featuring a program that will examine Shariah, the law of Islam on Wednesday, April 21, at the NYC Bar, 42 West 44th Street in New York City. The session will run from 6:30 until 9:00 p.m.

Attendees will learn that before the Common Law of England and the Civil Law of France, even before the Law Merchant, there was the Shariah, the law of Islam. The program will address its key features and how they relate and compare to the bodies of law attorneys already know. The speakers will explain the development of Islamic Law from the revelation of the Quran through 1,000 A.D.

The topics include an explanation of the Sunni-Shi’a schism, the basic tenets of Islamic Law (Shari’a) and jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh), the similarities and differences from prior Roman Law and post-Enlightenment Western law, and the basic elements of modern Islamic finance.

The moderator for this program is Robert Michael, chair, Subcommittee on Islamic Law, Committee on Foreign and Comparative law, at-large member, Council on International Affairs. Other speakers will be announced shortly.

RIYADH: Authorities in Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia have arrested several Shia community leaders in the Eastern Province for hosting Shias worship services in their homes, an activist said Tuesday. 

According to Ahlu Bayt News Agency (ABNA.ir), a 30-year old school teacher was detained on Monday in Al-Khobar, where three other Shias were arrested a week earlier for private services on the Ashura holiday last December, said Ibrahim Mugaiteeb of the Human Rights First Society. 

The arrests follow more than a year of tensions in the Eastern Province over permits for new Shia mosques in the region. 

Authorities have shut down several makeshift Shia mosques and refused a mosque permit for the 20,000-strong Al-Khobar Shia community, according to Mugaiteeb. 

“They cannot have their own mosques, and they can’t pray in a Sunni mosque,” he told AFP. “They are not allowed to have prayers in the streets.” 

He said that three of those arrested were from the same al-Maki family: Hassan Ali al-Maki, the teacher arrested Monday, Abdullah Fahad al-Maki, 73, and Hassan Ali al-Maki, 45.

The fourth man was Mahdi Ahmad al-Khodhair, 64, and all were arrested March 29, Mugaiteeb said.

Mainly concentrated in the Eastern Province, Shia’s constitute around 10 percent of the population of Saudi Arabia.

The violence is stoking fears that security in Iraq could dissolve as the country’s political leaders scramble to secure enough support to form a government after last month’s elections failed to produce a clear winner.

Monday’s shooting happened around 2:30 p.m. some 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Baghdad, police commander Maj. Aziz al-Amarah said. The gunmen shot four children — aged 11, 10, 9 and 6 — and their parents. Two teenage daughters escaped.

“I was with my sister upstairs when three men knocked on the door,” 18-year-old Amina said. She said the gunmen asked her father about someone, and he responded that he had no link to him.

She and her 16-year-old sister fled to the next house when the shooting started, Amina said.

The killings come after two other recent bloody attacks.

Col. Ben Danner, a U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said the attacks on Friday and Sunday have no connection to the sectarian bloodshed that plagued Iraq in 2006 and 2007.

“These were not sectarian attacks,” Danner said, saying investigations indicate the killings in a village were part of a revenge attack on those who supported the Iraqi security forces. Sunday’s suicide bombings, he said, were a terrorist attack and not sectarian

Police raided the house where the Iranian citizen was in custody, rescuing the abducted person.

The abductors had asked for $50,000 from relatives of the individual they held in order to release him, police said.

The young man had come to Zaranj city in Nimrouz from northwestern Iran two years ago. He was held captive in a house over the past two years.

One of the abductors has been arrested after the raid. The released person will be handed over to the Iranian consulate in Herat city.

Most of the abductions in Nimrouz province are due to poor economic conditions rather than for political motives.

The Iran Faraz oil tanker was sailing from the southern Iranian port city of Bushehr to Izmir in Turkey when it came under attack by four pirate boats.

Pirates fled when Iran’s Navy ships in the area started to chase the boats, Mehr said.

Iran Faraz continued its journey towards Izmir after the incident, the report added.

The Iranian Navy has been conducting anti-piracy patrols in the key commercial shipping lane since November 2008. The last Iranian fleet was dispatched to the pirate-infested waters last month.

Somalia’s nearly 5,000-kilometer-long coast has been the scene of 215 pirate attacks on ships crossing the waterway in 2009.

In 2009, $48.4 million was paid in ransom for the release of a total of 46 hijacked vessels.

According to officials, Afghan forces backed by foreign troops attacked a group of Taliban fighters in the restive Bala Murghab district of Badghis province late Monday. Over 40 insurgents were killed while 4 members of the Afghan National Army suffered injuries in the attack.

The report added that three local Taliban leaders, known as the heads of Taliban Council in Bala Murghab, were among the dead. A number of Taliban militants have also been wounded.

Meanwhile, a large number of civilians have fled with their relatives to neighboring regions in order to escape the fighting and possible death.

Bala Murghab has recently been turned into one of the main Taliban strongholds in relatively secure western Afghanistan.

The detainees were held in a central prison in the western province of al-Hodeidah, said the ministry.

“The release of the 54 Houthi followers came upon high-level governmental directives,” the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.

The Yemeni government and Shia Houthi reached a ceasefire agreement on Feb. 11 on ending sporadic battles in northern Yemen which had started since 2004.

The Yemeni government accused Houthis of seeking to re-establish the clerical rule overthrown by the 1962 Yemeni revolution which yielded the Yemeni republic.

Meanwhile, in the southern troubled province of al-Dhalee, the center of independence-seeking Southern Movement, some 18 suspected followers of the Southern Movement were released on Monday by the security authorities.

The Interior Ministry said “the 18 southerners were detained on March 27 for involving in armed riots, anti-government activities and raising anti-unity flags in a funeral procession for a man killed in a separatist protest earlier last month.”

Northern and southern Yemen were unified in 1990 according to a deal between the People’s General Congress and the Yemeni Socialist Party. However, the deal fell apart, leading to a crisis between the two allies, which developed into a civil war in 1994.

Nowadays, voices rise in South Yemen where secessionist sentiments are simmering, calling for disengagement from the north and the restoration of the southern state.