The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on March 4 began the trial of 94 people charged with plotting to overthrow the government. The group of defendants includes unnamed doctors, academics, lawyers and other professionals arrested over the past year and accused of forming a secret network with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and designs to raise money in a plotted coup against the UAE's ruling families. International human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticized the charges and raised concerns regarding the transparency and fairness of the trial. Most of the defendants are members of the conservative Reform and Social Guidance Association (al-Islah), a nonviolent Islamist political association.

The International Crimes Tribunal Bangladesh (ICTB) on Feb. 28 sentenced to death Jamaat-e-Islami party (JI) leader Delwar Hossain Sayeedee. Following the death sentence, violence between police and activists from Sayeedee's party ensued throughout the country resulting in at least 30 deaths while more than 300 were wounded. Sayeedee was found guilty by the court for mass killing, rape, arson, looting and forcing minority Hindus to convert to Islam during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. He is the third senior party official convicted by the international tribunal. Defense counsel stated that he will appeal the sentence. Sayeedee is a former member of Parliament in the National Assembly of Bangladesh and one of the leaders of the JI Bangladesh. He has been charged with 20 crimes contained in the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act of 1973, including genocide, arson, rape and torture.

Twelve men charged with the murder of a prominent Islamic scholar, including Shabaab's purported leader, were sentenced to death after a court found them guilty in Bosaso, commercial capital of Somalia's autonomous enclave of Puntland. The Puntland North Eastern regional Military Court sentenced the 12, including Shabab chief Ahmed Abdi Godane, to death by firing squad. Under Puntland law, all terrorism cases are held at military courts. Sheikh Ahmed Haji Abdirahman, a cleric, professor and doctor, was shot dead as he was leaving a mosque near his home in Bosaso in December 2011. The killing sparked an international outcry from the Somali diaspora around the world. The deceased Sheikh Abdirahman's friend and colleague Sheikh Abdiqadir Nur Farah—who spoke out against Shabab after Abdirahman was killed—was recently killed in Puntland's political capital Garowe while praying at a mosque. (Garowe Online , Feb. 27 via All Africa)

Hundreds of Islamists demonstrated in Aman, Jordan, after Friday prayers Feb. 22 to demand faster political reform after an election weeks earlier that produced a mostly pro-government parliament. Muslim Brotherhood followers marched from the main Husseini mosque to downtown Amman in the first such protest since the Jan. 23 ballot. The group boycotted the vote, saying electoral rules were loaded against it. Protesters chanted: "Reform is what is required; Justice and freedom and not these sham elections and deputies." (Daily Star, Lebanon, Feb. 22)

Radio France International (RFI) and French newspaper Libération claim that their reporters discovered, in the ransacked offices of the ORTM national TV station in Timbuktu, a document in which AQIM commander Abdel Malek Droukdel outlines his strategy for Mali. The news website Algérie 1 also publishes excerpts from the 79-page hand-written document dated July 20, 2012, entitled "Roadmap Relating to Islamic Jihad in Azawad." The document is portrayed as revealing a moderated vision of an Islamic state that could win the support of the Tuaregs while hiding the actual role of AQIM.

More than 3,000 Tunisians, led by the father of assassinated opposition figure Chokri Belaid, marched through the capital Feb. 23 in a protest against the government's "slow" investigation into the slaying. The case has become a focal point for widespread grievances against the ruling Islamist party and the country's economic state. (AP, Feb. 23) Tunisian authorities say they have arrested an unspecified number of suspects in the killing, but Belaid's family says members of the ruling Ennahda party were behind the assassination, and are being protected. (Middle East Online, Feb. 21)

Thousands of people massed on Feb. 8 in Tunis for the funeral of slain opposition leader Chokri Belaid, with the city shut down in a general strike called by the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT). "With our blood and our souls we will sacrifice ourselves for the martyr," shouted the mourners, who included some prominent politicians. Chants also denouned the ruling Ennahda party as "assassins." Police fired tear-gas and warning shots as clashes erupted. Strikes and clashes were also reported in other cities, with police firing tear-gas on protesters in Sousse and the mining town of Gafsa. Two days of protests across the country have left scores injured and a police officer dead. (Middle East Online, Middle East Online, Al Jazeera, AFP, The Lede, Feb. 8)

Tunisia's Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali announced that he will dissolve the Islamist-led administration and form a new "technocrat government" as protests rocked the country Feb. 6 following the slaying of opposition leader Chokri Belaid. The headquarters of the Ennahda party, which rules in a fractious coalition with secularists, was set ablaze as Belaid's body was taken by ambulance through Tunis from the hospital where he died. Police fired tear-gas on some 20,000 protesters at the Interior Ministry, who chanted for the fall of the government. Despite calls for calm from the administration, thousands also took to the streets in Mahdia, Sousse, Monastir and Sidi Bouzid—the cradle of the revolution, where police fired tear-gas and warning shots as protesters set cars and a police station on fire.