Free Republic

Why is this man still in jail? Why was this man forced to spend seven years in solitary? Why is still confined, languishing, festering in jail for a total of twenty five years? Solitary confinement is the most barbaric of punishments. Few people can withstand this form of torture without becoming very ill, both physically and mentally. Am I talking about the Soviet Gulag? Or about some hell-hole in Afghanistan or Iran? Last year, The New Yorker ran a piece about solitary confinement. The article concludes that this punishment amounts to torture, that it can even induce “acute psychosis with...

LONDON - A British Muslim academic called on Friday for "faith specific" health care for the country's largest minority faith community. Writing in the British Medical Journal, Professor Aziz Sheikh of Edinburgh University argued that Britain's 1.6 million Muslims have the poorest health profile of any minority. "There are few faith-centred initiatives aiming to improve health outcomes for our largest minority faith community," he wrote. "This reflects the general failure among academics, policy-makers and clinicians to appreciate the particular needs faith communities may have." Sheikh said the state National Health Service should implement a system to record the religious affiliation...