About Hugh Fitzgerald: What Mustafa Akyol **ACTUALLY** Said

We have, in fact, let many grievous assaults on good people pass without comment. Most of them have been made on one of our Senior Fellows, who has taken the position that personal attacks on her should not meet with response, as any response might be a distraction to those doing, admittedly, other good work. Thus, many bloggers, and the administrators of web pages that host their screed (and do nothing about it and do some of the execrating themselves), have escaped the public scrutiny and protest which they have richly deserved. I do not promise that in the future I will be honoring my commitment to let these aggressions rest. Why the change in policy? In just one thread on one of these websites, Jihad Watch, both our analyst and a young Turkish journalist and Islamic theorist were subjected to what I certainly consider overtly dishonest dealings, and not for the first time for either: Opinions which our analyst does not hold were attributed to her by a poster using the handle Great Comet of 1577, necessitating (again, unfortunately, not for the first time) a long, detailed response. But it is a post by "Hugh Fitzgerald" (likely a pseudonym), a manager of and frequent author on the Jihad Watch website, that is the subject of this column. In this post, Mr. Fitzgerald admits that he is pretending to be Mr. Akyol and writes a post in Akyol's name of what he surmises Mr. Akyol would say. Of course, Mustafa Akyol has never said and never shall say anything of the sort that Hugh Fitzgerald wrote. We consider such "putting words into the mouths of others" an act of intellectual dishonesty—and a dangerous one, as Mr. Akyol can be falsely quoted from this post. As many writers on the Jihad Watch website — among them Robert Spencer himself and Serbian writer Srdja Trifkovic — should know, having the writings of others falsely attributed to oneself is at the very least distressing; it can be costly and threatening. Morgaan Sinclair tells us that when a Montenegrin newspaper attributed to Srdja Trifkovic something he had not said — something so inflammatory he could have been killed for it — the brave lad made an appearance in Montenegro to refute the claim. Good for him. And recently, CAIR representative and incorrigible liar Ibrahim Hooper attributed a statement to Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer that he had not made — a scandalous statement that had actually appeared on Mr. Spencer's own site but had been made by an anonymous blogger. This statement can likely never be expunged, even after the extraordinary efforts made by Mr. Spencer's friends, including Gracen Fellow Morgaan Sinclair, who wrote a lengthy piece for BNN in an effort to help. One would think then, the management of Jihad Watch would know better than this. However, in deference to the fact these people apparently want this post to be viewed as "humor" (oh, yes, very funny), I will let them make the rules on this one — but they will have to live by the rules they have publicly forced on others. Therefore, I shall soon be publishing a "response in kind" on this web page — and on all three of the Gracen Intelligence private sites — and I shall expect, if not demand, that my comedic roast of Hugh Fitzgerald be met with the peals of gay laughter and knee-slapping paroxyms of warm camaraderie with which Mr. Fitzgerald apparently expects us to respond to the ridicule of a friend and colleague. Stay tuned to your digital telly, for my boomerang of Hugh Fitzgerald's razzing of Mustafa Akyol at the expense of the truth is forthcoming.

Mr. Akyol's English-language Website may be found at www.thewhitepath.org
Mr. Akyol is Op-Ed Editor of Turkish Daily News, Turkey's largest English-language daily.

authority

January 30, 2007

The Hrant Dink Murder and Its Meaning

[Originally published in First Things website]

On January 19, 2007, a journalist named Hrant Dink was shot dead by a seventeen-year-old militant on one of Istanbul’s busiest avenues. In just thirty-two hours, the Turkish police caught the reckless killer, who confessed his crime quite proudly. “I shot the Armenian,” he said smugly, “because he had insulted Turkishness.”

Hrant Dink was a member of Turkey’s seventy-thousand-strong Armenian community. But he was not just any member. As the founder and editor of the weekly Agos, the bilingual Turkish/Armenian newspaper, he was certainly the most prominent Armenian public intellectual in the country. He was, like many Turkish democrats, critical of the authoritarian measures of the state, with a particular emphasis on the taboos about the Armenian tragedy of 1915. Mr. Dink, like many others, believed that the tragedy was indeed a planned genocide. (The Turkish view, on the other hand, is that hundreds of thousands Armenians did indeed perish in 1915, but so did many Turks and Kurds, and what happened should be defined as intercommunal violence, not as a campaign of extermination.)

Yet, while Mr. Dink continued to make his case in the face of reaction from Turkish authorities and nationalist groups, he also criticized the anti-Turkish stance in some circles of the Armenian Diaspora. Turks were not bad people who deserve to be seen as the enemy, he insisted; they just needed to be informed about the other side of the story.

Mr. Dink’s principled stance placed him right in the center of the ideological war between those who strive to create an open and democratic Turkey and those who want to avoid it. The dividing line between these two camps is not religion, as some would presume, but nationalism. The proponents of the latter ideology, which is strong both in the state bureaucracy and in society at large, are particularly against the democratic reforms inspired by the European Union accession process. They want their good old Turkey, in which the all-powerful state oversees society, and civil liberties are sacrificed for its narrow definition of “Turkishness.”

Mr. Dink’s killer, Ogun Samast, is just one of the many chauvinistic young militants inspired by the most radical version of the cult of Turkishness. One of his predecessors is Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot Pope Jean Paul II in 1979. Another one is the sixteen-year-old militant from Trabzon–which is also Samast’s hometown–who killed Father Andrea Santoro last year. And of course these young apparatchiks have their elder “brothers,” who indoctrinate, train, and arm them.

The relationship between this hysterical type of Turkish nationalism–or, to use a more appropriate term, Turkish fascism–and Islam is worth clarifying. There are of course many militant Islamists in the world today, but Turkish fascists are not among them. In fact, they are clearly distinguished from and often at odds with Turkey’s Islamic circles, some of which are strong proponents of democratization and the EU bid. The fascists defend Islam and use it in some of their slogans, to be sure, but this is because they see religion as an important component of the Turkish identity. They hate the “infidel” Jews, Armenians, or Americans, but they detest Muslim Kurds and Arabs, too. Indeed, some of their most extreme factions don’t like Islam because of its trans-nationalism; instead they yearn for the pagan faiths of the pre-Islamic Turks.

Threats and violence have been the traditional tools these fascist cadres use to silence the intellectuals they hate–including liberal novelists such as the recent Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, and the Sufi-inspired Elif Safak. With the murder of Hrant Dink, they probably wanted to give a warning to them all. But the reaction of Turkish society to this political assassination suggests that their plan has backfired. Right after Dink’s murder, thousands of people gathered in front of his office to protest the crime. Their maxim was dramatic: “We are all Hrant Dink.” And the Turkish media, save for a few extremist dailies that support the fascist line, published heartfelt praise for Dink and grave condemnation of his murder.

Moreover, Hrant Dink’s funeral turned into an unprecedented rally against fascism in Turkish society. About one hundred thousand people from all walks of life and faiths marched in the wide avenues of Istanbul, creating a scenic river of bodies. The motto of the day was “We are all Armenians.”

In the following days, this motto was criticized by some nationalist figures as “going too far.” To gauge public opinion, the mainstream daily Hurriyet launched an online poll to which more than 450,000 people replied. To the question “Is it rightful to say ‘We are all Armenians’ to protest the Dink murder,” nearly half the respondents said yes.

All this implies that there is an important trend in Turkish society toward embracing its historical “others.” The “others” note this, too. In his piece published in the Turkish Daily News, the former prime minister of Armenia, Armen Darbinyan, wrote, “Armenians in Armenia did not anticipate such a sincere manifestation of solidarity” in Turkey for Hrant Dink. “This leaves no doubt that a core transformation in the worldview of today’s Turkey has occurred,” added Mr. Darbinyan, “[which] should become a turning point in the relations between Turkish and Armenian nations.”

He is right. These two great nations, which lived peacefully side by side for centuries until the curse of modern nationalism, should seek reconciliation. An Islamic principle reads, “From every evil, there emerges a good.” Perhaps the good emerging from the evil murder of Hrant Dink might be the chance to build that mutual understanding. Had he lived, that would have been his advice to us all.

Ahmed al-Shayea Teaches a Hard Lesson ... and We Thank Him for That

Typical of radical imams, they send others—not themselves—to die. Though he had committed to becoming a shahid (martyr), this young Sau'di didn't know the truck he drove was rigged to explode and it wasn't he who punched the detonator. He survived the attack, maimed for life.

"Today, he says, he has changed his mind about waging jihad, or holy war, and wants other young Muslims to know it. He wants them to see his disfigured face and fingerless hands, to hear how he was tricked into driving the truck on a fatal mission, to believe his contrition over having put his family through the agony of believing he was dead."

http://patdollard.com/2007/07/28/there-is-no-jihad-we-are-just-instruments-of-death/

There is No Jihad. We Are Just Instruments of Death.

The last time Ahmed al-Shayea was in the news, he was in the hospital at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, being treated for severe burns from the truck bomb he had driven into the Iraqi capital on Christmas Day, 2004.

Today, he says, he has changed his mind about waging jihad, or holy war, and wants other young Muslims to know it. He wants them to see his disfigured face and fingerless hands, to hear how he was tricked into driving the truck on a fatal mission, to believe his contrition over having put his family through the agony of believing he was dead.

At 22, the new Ahmed Al-Shayea is the product of a concerted Saudi government effort to counter the ideology that nurtured the 9/11 hijackers and that has lured Saudis in droves to the Iraq insurgency. The deprogramming, similar to efforts carried out in Egypt and Yemen, is built on reason, enticements and lengthy talks with psychiatrists, Muslim clerics and sociologists.

The kingdom still has a way to go in cracking the jihadist mind-set. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and Saudis make up nearly half of the foreign detainees held in Iraq, according to Mouwaffak al- Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser. They number hundreds, he said this month following a visit to Saudi Arabia. Dozens more are fighting alongside al-Qaida-inspired militants at a Palestinian camp in Lebanon.

Several hundred prisoners, as well as returnees from Guantanamo, are thought to have passed through the rehabilitation program.

Al-Shayea says his change of heart began when he was visited by a cleric at al-Ha’ir Prison in Riyadh following his repatriation from Iraq.

He says he put two questions to the cleric: Was the jihad for which he traveled to Iraq religiously sanctioned? And were the edicts inciting such action correct in saying the militants should not inform their parents or government of their intentions?

No and no, came the reply.

“I realized that all along I was wrong,” al-Shayea told The Associated Press in a two-hour interview at a Riyadh hotel before returning to an Interior Ministry compound that serves as a sort of halfway house for ex-jihadists rejoining Saudi society.

“There is no jihad. We are just instruments of death,” he said.

Saudi Arabia’s campaign against terrorism began in earnest after al- Qaida-linked militants struck three residential expatriate compounds in Riyadh in May 2003, killing 26 people.

The government says it cracked down on charities suspected of using donations to finance terrorism, banned mosques from holding unlicensed religious sessions and warned preachers against inciting youths to jihad. Officials as well as the government-guided media began to clearly and unequivocally refer to suicide bombings as terrorism.

The Interior Ministry sponsored programs on government-run TV stations showing repentant jihadists warning youths against joining al-Qaida and clergymen trying to correct misconceptions about jihad and dealing with non-Muslims. Al-Shayea has appeared on Al-Majd, a Saudi religious TV channel.

Three years ago it set up the prison program.

“The aim is to reform the youths, to listen to them and talk to them,” said Ahmed Jailan, one of the clerics. “We also try to instill a sense of hope in them by telling them they still have the chance to make up for what they lost if they follow true Islam.”

The prisoners later appear before a panel of judges who decide whether they can move from prison to the Interior Ministry compound, where activities include reading, civic and religious courses, sports and family visits. They get help finding jobs and wives, and after release they get free medical care, monthly stipends and sometimes cars.

At the time he was first approached to join the insurgency, al-Shayea was already becoming a devout Muslim in his ultraconservative town of Buraida. He grew a beard, prayed five times a day and stopped listening to Arabic love songs he used to enjoy. He was 19 and jobless.

Then he was contacted by a school friend whom he doesn’t identify.

“My friend started telling me about Iraq, how Muslims are getting killed there and how we should go there for jihad,” said al-Shayea. “He told me there were fatwas (edicts) and DVDs issued by Saudi and Iraqi clergymen that called for jihad.”

“We didn’t think of jihad as something that would lead to our death. It was a fight against occupiers,” said al-Shayea.

Finally the friend told him he was going to Iraq, and invited al- Shayea to join him.

He was told to shave his beard and pack Western clothes to avoid looking like a would-be jihadist. He got a passport and an airline ticket to Syria. And he managed to save $1,600—travel fees, he was told, that would go to smugglers, weapons training and al-Qaida’s coffers.

On a cool November night toward the end of the holy month of Ramadan, he donned a black T-shirt and jeans and told his parents he was going camping in the desert with his friends.

He and his friend flew to Syria, a favored transit point for Iraq- bound fighters because Syria doesn’t ask visiting Arabs for visas, and its 360-mile border with Iraq is thinly policed. A network of al-Qaida operatives sheltered him in Damascus, Aleppo and the border town of Abu-Kamal, and about two weeks later he and 23 other men were smuggled into Iraq.

Four Iraqi teenagers guided them to the Iraqi border town of al-Qaim. They saw Syrian border guards in the distance who fired in the air. “They didn’t try to stop us. We were already in Iraq,” al-Shayea said.

At al-Qaim, the men were split into two groups. Al-Shayea said his group of 12 met an al-Qaida leader who had direct links with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida chief in Iraq who was later killed by a U.S. airstrike. He took the men’s money and gave each $100.

“Then he asked us a question: ‘Those who want to carry out martyrdom (suicide) attacks, raise your hands,’” said al-Shayea. “No one did.”

Al-Shayea’s group then spent a week at the Sunni fundamentalist stronghold of Rawa before al-Shayea and another Saudi man were taken to Ramadi and finally Baghdad.

Al-Shayea met his new “emir,” or leader, an Iraqi who told him his first assignment was to take a fuel tanker to a Baghdad neighborhood to be collected by others.

“I felt scared. I didn’t know Baghdad at all, and I also didn’t know how to drive heavy vehicles,” he said.

Also, he says, he was never told that the truck would contain 26 tons of butane gas, rigged to explode outside the Jordanian Embassy.

“That evening, we performed the last prayer of the day and had dinner—a dish of chicken and aubergines,” said al-Shayea. “The emir gave me a crude map of my route.”

Two al-Qaida militants drove with al-Shayea, but then jumped out 1,000 yards from where he was supposed to park the truck and fled in a waiting car.

“I felt something bad was about to happen,” he said.

The farther he drove, the more nervous he got until, 60 feet from the embassy, an explosion—believed triggered from afar—turned the back of the tanker into a fireball.

“I saw the fire and I started to scream and pray,” he said.

“I looked around me and I saw everything had melted. My hands had turned black. I jumped from the window and started running without thinking of what I was doing.”

The blast killed nine people.

Thinking he was an innocent victim and a Shiite by his fake ID card, passers-by took al-Shayea to a Shiite-run hospital. There he kept silent for several days until he finally told his doctors the truth.

The world’s first encounter with al-Shayea was on footage of his interrogation which was sent to Arab TV stations. Back in Buraida, his parents saw their son, face charred, head heavily bandaged, but alive. They were stunned. They had been notified he was dead and had held a wake for him.

Al-Shayea said he told his interrogators where to find a senior al- Zarqawi aide in Baghdad, revealed all he knew about al-Qaida, and denounced al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden as killers of innocents.

He says he hasn’t seen nor heard from the friend who accompanied him since they parted soon after entering Iraq.

Today his hair has grown back, he sports a thick black beard and he can move without difficulty. He credits the medical care he received, including 30 operations, at the hospital of U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison.

He says that when he was handed over to the Americans a couple of days after his interrogation at the Iraqi Interior Ministry, he was scared because he had heard about the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.

“But the care with which the American officers carried me down to the car when they came to take me made me relax,” said al-Shayea. “One spoke Arabic and tried to put me at ease.”

After almost six months of medical care and interrogations during which al-Shayea said he was treated well, he was visited by three Saudi officers.

“They told me they were there for my sake,” said al-Shayea. “They allowed me to write a letter to my parents.”

They also asked him if he would tell his story publicly. He says he replied that he would have volunteered to do so even if they hadn’t asked.

A couple of weeks later, in mid-2005, al-Shayea was flown home. His parents were at the airport. “I took my dad in my arms, crying, and kept asking for forgiveness,” he said.

He spent a couple of months in the hospital and then was moved to al- Ha’ir Jail where he says he was given a TV set, newspapers and plenty of food. He also read a lot of books. One of them—which he says he would never have imagined he would read—is the Arabic classic “One Thousand and One Nights.”

authority

Karzai Pardons a Child and Sends a Message

Gracen Commentary: It's likely Karzai will be widely criticized for this move, but we applaud it. It sends just the right message about a phenomenon that is all too common: Muslim parents send their children to a madrassah hoping they learn the tenets of a faith and the following occurs: (1) The child is isolated from the parents and all women (see forensic psychiatrist Dr. Jerrold Post on the impact of removing male children from female contact at an early age). (2) The madrassah refused the parents access to their own child, effectively kidnapping the boy. (3) An attempt was made to indoctrinate the boy, and when that failed he was threatened with death. (4) Typical of radicals, they used a child rather than being willing to die themselves (total cowards). Children are increasing used as proxies for adults in terrorist attacks or as human shields. (5) Karzai calls these people the enemies of Islam, and that is perfectly true. (6) Karzai nails Waziri tribesmen and Taliban for two crimes here: child abuse and making war on Afghanistan. And (7) Karzai forgives him, probably a controversial pardon, but because this kid is out front and apologizing, he deserves a pardon. It's also a message to the other children who might want to bail out of radical Islam—and a powerful message to parents to either get more involved in their children's education or get them out of madrassahs altogether. And then there is the matter of one child's redeemed life, in itself of inestimable value. So Gracen Intelligence applauds Hamid Karzai, and hopes he will start arresting radical Islamist imams and closing bad madrassash. However, with the mullahs controlling the Afghan judiciary (thanks to a repugnancy clause we allowed to happen), that's not likely to happen. Hint: Islamists always target the judiciary. It's the fastest, easiest way to control the population. — Morgaan Sinclair for Gracen Intelligence


Karzai pardons 'suicide bomb' boy

President Karzai said that Rafiqullah was not to blame

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has pardoned a 14-year-old boy caught wearing a suicide vest on his way to assassinate a provincial governor.

Rafiqullah had crossed the border from Pakistan and intended to kill Arsala Jamal, governor of Khost province.

Mr Karzai said Rafiqullah had been deceived by the "enemy of Islam" while attending a religious school.

Pardoning him at the presidential palace, Mr Karzai said: "I forgive him and I wish him the best of luck."

Suicide videos

The president said: "Today we are faced with a fearful and terrifying truth, and that truth is the sending of a Muslim child to carry out a suicide attack.

"[His parents] sent him to study at a madrassa (religious school). The enemy of Islam deceived him."

You are now free and forgiven by the people of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai

Rafiqullah's father, Matiullah, said he had been unaware of his son's actions and agreed the boy had been deceived by teachers.

He said when he had asked about his son he was not given an answer.

"I am very happy to have my son back," said Mr Matiullah, who is from South Waziristan.

Rafiqullah said: "I am very happy that I am pardoned and released."

Rafiqullah said he was trained to drive a car and shown suicide attack videos at the madrassa in Pakistan.

He crossed the border and was met by a man who gave him a suicide vest. Rafiqullah said he did not want to carry out the attack but the man threatened to kill him.

He was caught last month wearing the vest on a motorbike in the city of Khost.

Militants have launched a number of suicide attacks against Afghan, Nato and US-led forces over the past two years.

A number of would-be attackers held in recent weeks have been teenagers.

Afghanistan has urged Pakistan to do more to prevent militants from crossing the border to carry out attacks.

In a message to Pakistan, Mr Karzai called for "better relationships, not cheating the children and encouraging them into terrorism and suicide".

With thanks to the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6899608.stm

authority

The Muttawa Take Another Hit (Yes!)

The Crisis of the Wahhabi Regime

Surprising developments in Saudi Arabia.
by Stephen Schwartz and Irfan al-Alawi
07/16/2007, Volume 012, Issue 41
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/854vamro.asp

Long accustomed to abusing their power with impunity, the Saudi mutawiyin or "religious police" (more on that misleading translation in a moment) suddenly find themselves on the defensive. Increasingly challenged by critics, they felt compelled early this year to go through the motions of announcing a "modernization": Warrants would be required for searches, the use of force for moral violations would be banned. In practice, however, nothing changed. And when, this spring, two Saudi men died in custody, events took an unprecedented turn: Controversy erupted in the Saudi media; several mutawiyin members were dragged into court; and the boldest reformers called for dismantling altogether this hated institution. But to make the story intelligible, it is necessary to begin at the beginning--with the uniqueness of Saudi Arabia. In addition to being the only state named after its rulers, and having no constitution except the Koran, this is the homeland of the radical Wahhabi form of Sunni Islam. Wahhabism, the official sect of the kingdom, is a patched-together, relatively recent expression of the faith of Muhammad, and the Wahhabi institutions that support the Saudi order often seem amorphous and opaque. Given the general absence of transparency in the kingdom, this should come as no surprise. But there is no Wahhabi institution more difficult to define than the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Founded in the 1920s, when the Saudi state came into being, as an enforcer of collective morals, this body of at least 10,000 individuals is known to Saudi and other Muslims as the mutawiyin, or "devotees." Although often described in Western media as the "religious police," the mutawiyin have little in common with a police force--they wear no uniform and receive no salary--and are better described as an Islamofascist militia, something akin to the Nazi and Communist rank-and-file party members in lands ruled by those movements. Their mission includes ideological indoctrination in the dangers of "imitating the West" (such as watching television), but they mainly enforce Wahhabi standards of behavior in public. Their constant and degrading interference with ordinary people has brought about growing discontent. If judicial scrutiny is imposed on the mutawiyin, Saudi Arabia will undergo a profound change in its social life. A kind of adjunct to the tens of thousands of state-subsidized clerics, the mutawiyin are a pillar of Wahhabism in the kingdom. They prowl the streets of the main Saudi cities day and night. Jeddah, the commercial capital on the Red Sea, is the notable exception: Local residents claim to have run the mutawiyin out of town. Elsewhere, however, they seek out people they suspect of violating the Wahhabi code of conduct. If a woman walks outside her home in the full body covering known as the abaya but allows a fold of cloth to slip, exposing her ankle or face, the mutawiyin may scold her or strike her. If they suspect that an unrelated man and woman are meeting in public places, the patrollers may detain and harass them, insulting the female for alleged lewdness, and beating the male. If people keep walking when the call to prayer is heard and do not rush into the nearest mosque, the mutawiyin may swarm and assault them for impiety. Given the Islamic ban on intoxication, if the militia are informed that alcoholic drinks or drugs are being used in a private home, they may raid the house and beat and even kill people. If Muslim pilgrims violate the Wahhabi understanding of monotheism by praying at the shrine of Muhammad in Medina, they are likely to be taken aside and roughed up and, if they are foreign, deported. Until now, the mutawiyin have not been called to account for their sometimes drastic deeds. They have no professional standards or training. They are free to assault people and then shove them on their way, making no record of the encounter, having carried out no official arrest, and making no provision for any hearing or further punishment, although offenses deemed particularly grave--alleged adultery, say--may land the suspect before a sharia court. Members enter the mutawiyin from the kingdom's strictest schools and mosques. They are not paid, but are assigned to regular patrols. They wear no identifying uniform except a red-checkered headscarf. They travel in unmarked cars. Instead of a firearm, they carry an asaa, a long stick resembling a riding crop. But they have offices and detention centers, and both the chief Islamic cleric in the kingdom, grand mufti Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheik, and interior minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz (notorious for asserting that 9/11 was the handiwork of Israel), say the mutawiyin are supported by the state. The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has a chief, Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Ghaith, and has lately appointed public-relations representatives, still unpaid. The mutawiyin have benefited from the secrecy surrounding their internal functioning, and their "surprise" tactics help them maintain an atmosphere of intimidation. Their defenders claim the mutawiyin follow a prece dent in the strictest school of Sunni sharia, identified with the 9th-century jurist Ahmad ibn Hanbal, whose followers organized patrols for "prevention of sin." But such patrols remained a marginal phenomenon in Islamic history, often condemned, until the emergence of the Saudi state in the 20th century. The Mutawiyin in Court On July 1, three Saudi judges began a court inquiry into the death last month of a Saudi citizen, Ahmed Al-Bulawi, 50, who had been detained by the mutawiyin in the northwestern town of Tabuk. On July 2, however, four members of the religious militia accused of responsibility for the death, and whose trial had already been postponed once, were released on bail; the previous Friday, mosques in Tabuk had broadcast sermons calling on local Muslims to defend the accused. Al-Bulawi's case represents a microcosm of the mutawiyin's history. His alleged crime consisted of inviting a Moroccan woman who was not his relative and was unchaperoned by another male into his car. His relatives demand that those who caused his death be executed. Local authorities claim that Al-Bulawi died of natural causes, although the lawyer for his family told the media that the victim's remains showed he had been beaten in the face and head. The official medical report has not been released. For what it's worth, the unnamed Moroccan woman has revealed that Al-Bulawi formerly worked as her driver. A little before Al-Bulawi's death, in May, Salman Al-Huraisi, aged 28, died in mutawiyin hands in Riyadh. His home had been raided by militia members looking for alcohol and drugs. The Saudi daily al-Watan (The Nation) reported on June 28 that a lawyer for Al-Huraisi's family had been denied access to a medical report on the fatality, but that Al-Huraisi had died after blows to the eye and head. Some 18 mutawiyin participated in the raid on Al-Huraisi's home, and one of them is now due for trial. Local authorities initially sought to absolve the mutawiyin in the case by throwing a blanket of equivocation over them. Representatives of the governor of Riyadh claimed that the as-yet-unidentified individual accused of the killing was not on patrol when the victim died. The pro-al-Qaeda media enterprise Al-Sahat (The Battlefields) praised this attempt to deflect blame from the mutawiyin as appropriately protecting the militia's status. But some Arabic media insist Al-Huraisi's assailant was a leader of the mutawiyin. As in the past, vagueness about how the mutawiyin operate enables their alleged misconduct. Finally, a 50-year-old Saudi woman known as Umm Faisal ("mother of Faisal"--her full name is undisclosed) has filed suit against the mutawiyin for an incident in 2003 when she, her daughter, and a foreign maid were verbally and physically harassed while waiting in a car for her two sons. The three women were charged with public immorality, in line with Wahhabi teaching that the presence of women in cars amounts to solicitation of prostitution. On July 3, the complaint of Umm Faisal became the first ever civil action in which a representative of the mutawiyin was summoned to court, although, again, the trial was postponed, this time until September. With all this, the kingdom is atwitter about the mutawiyin. It is proof of the entrenched totalitarianism of Saudi society that such small steps as the charging of four militia members for Al-Bulawi's death and the court appearance of a militia member in the Umm Faisal matter are seen by ordinary Saudis as significant developments, potentially heralding a new epoch in the kingdom's life. Naturally, the defenders of the Wahhabi order are intent on the mutawiyin's survival. Prince Nayef has publicly reaffirmed his support, though not loudly enough for Al-Sahat, which complains that the all-male Shura Council appointed by the king has failed to open more mutawiyin centers and authorize payment of members. The Shura Council seems to walk a fine line between popular disaffection with the mutawiyin and extremist pressure; it also rejected reform proposals that the mutawiyin wear uniforms and include female personnel. Predictably protective of the institution is the Wahhabi establishment. On June 21, the newspaper Al-Madina reported that the grand mufti had denounced "unfair" media criticism of the religious militia and called for repression of the critics. The grand mufti is a descendant of Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab (1703-1792), originator of the Wahhabi sect. His position has been hereditary since the Al-Wahhab family contracted a permanent alliance with the Saud clan, who leave religious affairs to the Wahhabi offspring while keeping the reins of state power for themselves. Amid these investigations and declamations, other sporadic and confusing measures have been proposed to ameliorate public dissatisfaction with the mutawiyin. When the case of Al-Bulawi first came to light, it was announced that 380 members of the militia would be trained in "interpersonal skills," surely one of the most bizarre statements yet from the Saudi authorities. The mutawiyin further promised to create a review process for their members' practices. At the same time, however, they rejected questions about their activities put forward by Saudi human rights activists. Moreover, recent examples of outrageous behavior by the mutawiyin abound. At the beginning of June, a certain Fahd Al-Bishi of Riyadh complained to the media that the militia had crashed their vehicle into his family car and harassed him on his daughter's wedding day because they suspected his son of drinking or traveling in the company of women unrelated to him. In March, the mutawiyin burst into Prince Salman Hospital in Riyadh and fought with security personnel while ostensibly chasing a drug dealer. A few days before that, the mutawiyin had been taught a lesson in the restive Eastern Province, whose large Shia Muslim population is subject to continual discrimination. A patrol detained a man who was listening to music, a prime offense in Wahhabi eyes. After the individual was released, he returned with several friends and beat up the mutawiyin. Indeed, by early this year, criticism of the institution had become so frequent that the militia refrained from its usual practice of violently interrupting the Riyadh International Book Fair, which opened in February, to search for banned literature. Many Saudis saw this as another small, positive step by the circle around King Abdullah, who is at odds with Prince Nayef, and is widely believed to seek a break with the past. Throughout this chronicle one sees the contradictory symptoms of a deepening, as yet hidden crisis of the Saudi regime. The state defends the mutawiyin while promising change, but not too much change. People speak out more candidly, but a primitive institution like the mutawiyin continues to get away with shocking acts. Trials are promised, and begin, and then are put off, under the sinister gaze of Nayef. Precisely how events will unfold is impossible to foretell, but it is not too much to say that if the mutawiyin are ever finally held to answer for their long career of oppression, the entire Wahhabi establishment may begin to crumble. Stephen Schwartz is a frequent contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Irfan al-Alawi is a close observer of Saudi affairs based in the United Kingdom.

© Copyright 2007, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

authority

Australia Sounds Terrorism Alert for Indonesia

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22039852-661,00.html

Australia Sees Imminent Attack in Bali & Indonesia from Increased Chatter on Abu Dujana Arrest

Ian McPhedran

July 09, 2007 12:00am

AUSTRALIANS have been told to stay away from Indonesia because of an imminent terrorist attack against Western interests in Bali or Jakarta.

Security agencies detected a sudden rise in "chatter" between known terrorist groups late on Saturday night.

The chatter, picked up by Australian electronic intercepts, indicated an attack - linked to the recent arrest of Jemaah Islamiah leader Abu Dujana - was to take place.

---

Howard warning: Visa system overhaul

Holiday snap: Terror suspect's Sydney link

Britain: 15-year war on radicals

---

"These attacks could take place at any time and could be imminent," the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade warned.

"Australians should consider this information carefully when considering travel to Indonesia."

Australia's electronic spying agency, the Defence Signals Directorate, closely monitors phone calls and radio traffic inside Indonesia.

Australian Federal Police agents in Indonesia have access to the intercepts and other material.

It is understood Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer was shocked when he saw the latest intelligence material and decided to go public, despite potential damage to relations with Indonesia.

Indonesia always complains when Australians are warned to avoid their country, but after the two Bali bombings and attacks in Jakarta the Government is taking no chances.

Mr Downer chose his words carefully to avoid upsetting Jakarta, but the material intercepted on Saturday was so specific that he announced the warning himself.

"We . . . remain very concerned about the possibility of terrorist attacks and that those terrorist attacks could be imminent," he said.

"I think there is a bit of a sense in the community, as we look at this issue of terrorism more broadly, that in the case of Indonesia it's gone away.

"I don't want Australians to be complacent because there hasn't been an attack for a while."

The latest intercepts supported intelligence gathered by AFP working closely with Indonesian counter-terrorist police, and Australian spies from the Australian Secret Intelligence Service working there as diplomats.

Likely targets are the dozens of Western hotels, bars, nightclubs or tourist spots in Bali or Jakarta.

Major hotels in Bali said late yesterday they had yet to be informed by police of any increased security threat or of any need to upgrade security.

But most say that since the 2002 bombing, they have upgraded their general security to meet international standards.

While the travel advice has technically not been upgraded, the Government wants people to cancel travel plans.

And it has warned Australians in Indonesia to exercise extreme caution and avoid places frequented by Westerners.

authority

Serbia Sidelines Roma Rights Campaign

Commentary: We didn't expect Serbia's so-called new emphasis on human rights of all its minorities to last. We are still waiting for Serbia to deal with the vicious anti-Semitism in the actions and on the websites of the so-called Serbian Defense League. And we iterate that under no circumstances should Serbia be allowed to control the people of Kosovo, whom they tried to exterminate. -- Morgaan Sinclair for Gracen Intelligence
__________________________________________________________________

Serbia Sidelines Roma Rights Campaign
http://www.birn.eu.com/en/91/10/3478/

03 07 2007 ‘Decade of Roma Inclusion’ inspires much talk but little action.

By Daliborka Mucibabic in Belgrade

In a Roma settlement on the outskirts of Belgrade, yards from the luxurious Hyatt Hotel, a cardboard shack of about 10 square metres, housing three beds and a stove, is home to a Roma family of four.

One-year-old Zorica Azemovic sleeps in an improvised hammock that stretches across the flea-infested room.

Her father, Miroslav, has barely slept for months, fearing a repetition of the drama when a rat almost bit off his daughter’s ear.

“It was about 10.30pm and Zorica started crying,” he said. “I jumped out of my bed and saw her bloodied ear. She was in hospital for a week and I’ve been awake ever since.”

Rat attacks on children are a routine ordeal for the 200 or so families living in the settlement, close to Belgrade’s main motorway.

Most of the Roma living there have moved to Belgrade from the impoverished southern town of Leskovac and other areas in the south.

“A day’s work in Leskovac is enough to buy you a sack of potatoes or beans, while you can earn up to 2,000 dinars [25 euro] in Belgrade by collecting and selling scrap cardboard; that’s quite an income,” Miroslav said.

The grim living conditions that the Azemovic family puts up with are the norm for many Roma families in Serbia.

Two years ago, Serbia’s Prime Minister, Vojislav Kostunica, signed Serbia up to a regional programme aimed at improving the position of Roma throughout Central and South-east Europe.

The other countries involved in the programme are the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Croatia and Montenegro.

However, governments have taken only token steps so far to live up to the words contained in the declaration, “A Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015.”

Most Roma in Serbia have never heard of the document and know nothing about how they might benefit from it.

“I don’t know what my rights are nor who to talk to,” Azemovic said.

Poor living conditions, a lack of health care and no education are the main problems the declaration is supposed to tackle.

In 2006, the Serbian government duly passed action plans aimed at improving Roma education, health care, housing and employment, allocating special funds for their implementation. The Health Ministry allocated 60 million dinars or 750,000 euros, to Roma health care, for example.

Ljuan Koka, head of the government’s secretariat for implementing the Roma Strategy plan within the Department for Human and Minority Rights, said they had made most progress over education, while efforts to lower unemployment within the community had fallen well short of the target.

“We have been able to set up working groups in various ministries and what we want to do now is to get a clear picture of who’s spending the money and how,” Koka said.

“We don’t have a political agenda, as our project is mainly financed by the OSCE mission in Serbia, while the government has given us the premises to work in,” Koka went on.

Koka admitted the position of Serbia’s Roma community remained far worse than that of the general population. Child mortality among Roma was four times higher the rate among the majority population.

Average life expectancy is only 47, compared to an average of 75 in Serbia as a whole.

Very few Serbs grow up totally illiterate, while among Roma, Koka said, “More than 75 per cent are essentially illiterate; a meagre 0.3 per cent have degrees of any kind”.

These disadvantages impact on their project prospects. Only around 27 per cent of adult Roma are economically active as opposed to almost 70 per cent of the mainstream population.

Apart from illiteracy, lack of documents is a major problem, as this prevents Roma from gaining access to local services.

Many Roma are not even registered as legal residents and have no identification cards, health records and passports.

It also means no one has a clear idea of the size of their community. While the Roma population in Serbia officially stands at 108,000 it is widely believed the real number ranges from 450,000 to 800,000.

In spite of their size, politically, they remain a marginal force. It was only at this January’s elections that candidates representing Serbia’s biggest ethnic minority won two seats in parliament for the first time. These were Rajko Djuric, head of Serbia’s Roma Union, and Srdjan Sajn, leader of the Roma Party.

Djuric said the prevalent anti-Roma sentiment in Serbia reflected the general climate of racism in the country. He blamed the community’s plight on a lack of political will for and said the government still treated Roma problems as a second-class issue.

“The future is bleak for all of us unless Serbia becomes a more democratic society and takes a decisive step to curb right-wing extremism,” Djuric said.

Sajn maintains that if progress is to be made towards meeting goals by the 2015 target date, an effort needs to be made in setting up an institutional framework for the campaign, assembling competent staff and building a non-government sector capable of addressing the problem

“The current funds are being misspent as many people have joined the Roma integration project for their own personal benefit,” Sajn complained.

During the run-up to the January elections, Sajn’s Roma Party promised to provide 500 apartments for the neediest families, find jobs for 10,000 people and allocate 50 million dinars from the state budget to aid Roma students and teachers.

“We have to see concrete results this year and we will only support the government if it clearly defines the measures it intends to take in that direction,” Sajn said.

Koka said the election of two Roma deputies was a step forward but would not resolve their problems alone. “One or two deputies can’t change anything, while they can easily cancel each other out if they end up supporting rival camps in parliament,” he pointed out.

Bozidar Jaksic, a sociologist, said the position of the Roma community was made more difficult by the fact that, like other ethnic groups in Serbia, they tended to rally only behind narrowly defined “ethnic” issues.

“Their diverse culture is their greatest wealth and not a handicap,” Jaksic said.

Jaksic said he saw the integration formula as a cliché, bearing in mind that Roma had lived in the region for centuries; what they needed was not “integration” but emancipation.

“The sole purpose of the integration story is to turn the Roma into something they are not,” he went on.

As the legal successor of the former Serbia-Montenegro state union, Serbia has inherited the old state’s international human rights commitments, which include its obligations to the Roma community.

Serbia is also a member of the European Human Rights and Civil Liberties Convention on protecting national minorities and the European Charter on minority and regional languages.

While in theory these commitments and Serbia’s constitution guarantee Roma rights, in practice, according to Roma journalist Dragoljub Ackovic, discrimination is alive and well and even getting worse.

In some ways, he went on, the position of Roma had markedly deteriorated.

“We even had our own newspaper until 1935 while now we no longer have our own media outlet,” he noted.

The Serbian broadcasting agency had recently banned the Roma Amaro Dom television and Krlo e Romego radio stations, he went on.

Although Roma groups protested to the justice minister, the broadcasting agency insisted the stations did not fulfill basic technical and staffing criteria for the renewal of their licenses.

“All our effort to get air time on Belgrade state television have also been fruitless,” Ackovic continued.

Now the community’s hopes are increasingly pinned on the EU, which Serbia hopes eventually to join.

Countries aspiring to join the European club have to incorporate an anti-discrimination law into their constitutions.

Late last year, a draft bill was presented to the Serbian parliament though it still has not been passed.

Daliborka Mucibanic is a freelance reporter from Belgrade. Balkan Insight is BIRN's online publication.

authority

Finally (Hopefully) the Muttawiyyah Get Some Grief

Saudi Religious Police Face Backlash

Jul 1 01:58 PM US/Eastern By DONNA ABU-NASR Associated Press Writer

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - As the car stopped outside a Riyadh amusement park, two bearded men dragged the driver from the wheel and took the three women on a wild ride of more than an hour, bouncing over sidewalks and finally abandoning them on a darkened street.

The women at first thought they had been kidnapped by terrorists. The two men however, said they were religious police.

It might have gone down as just one more excess of zealousness by the forces charged with upholding Islamic modesty, except that Umm Faisal, the senior of three women, did something that is believed unprecedented in Saudi Arabia: She went to court.

On Monday, four years after the incident, the latest chapter of the legal battle being waged by this 50-year-old mother of five reopens before Riyadh's Grievances Court, which handles damages suits for abuses by government and public figures.

The unusual publicity surrounding Umm Faisal's story comes on top of two cases involving the death in religious police custody of two Saudi men—one arrested for allegedly consuming alcohol, another for being alone with a woman not of his family.

A trial opened Monday against three religious police officers and a fourth man in the death of Ahmed al-Bulaiwi, the man detained for being alone with a woman. Relatives demanded the death penalty against the defendants.

Taken together, the cases threaten to undermine the authority of the force's employer, the powerful, independent body called the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

Since the commission's creation more than six decades ago, there has been no known public legal action taken against its members despite complaints they occasionally overstep their boundaries. The public view has tended to be that whatever their faults, they are acting in Islam's name to defend morality.

But things may be changing.

The National Society for Human Rights, a nongovernment body, has issued a report which, according to the daily Arab News, levels a string of allegations at the religious police: abusive language, unsubstantiated accusations, humiliation of people during interrogation, beatings, unnecessary body searches, forced entry into private homes and coerced confessions.

The report, as well as the extensive coverage the cases have received and editorials calling for the commission's reform, suggest the government may act to regulate the force.

Another setback for the commission came in the appointed Consultative Council, the nearest thing to a parliament in Saudi Arabia. It rejected proposals to build more commission centers and give its members a 20 percent salary raise. While the council's actions are not binding, they reflect a general desire to curb the religious police's power.

"Society has developed and the relationship of other governmental bodies with the people has developed and become more human," said Dawood al-Shirian, a Saudi journalist. "Yet the commission has not changed."

"Society in principle doesn't reject the commission," he added. "But the commission's problem is that it doesn't have a proper job description."

Several media outlets have conducted informal surveys asking Saudis whether the commission should be dissolved. Some have said yes. While the polls may be unscientific, simply asking the question is significant.

Ibrahim al-Ghaith, the commission's head, dismissed the polls, saying the commission is "one of the oldest governmental agencies ... and not a cooperative that can be eliminated because of individual mistakes," according to the Al-Jazira newspaper.

The Saudi government is reluctant to tamper with its religious establishments for fear of angering conservatives and weakening its credentials as custodian of Islam's two holiest shrines. The conservative impulse has lately been illustrated by a request from 14 faculty members of King Saud University's medical school to ban male students from treating women and vice versa, on the grounds that handling bodies of the other sex is un-Islamic.

But there are signs the commission is acting to limit the damage to the religious police's reputation. It now has a spokesman and a legal department to guide its members.

Umm Faisal—her full name is withheld in reports on the case—says she, her 21-year-old daughter and her Indonesian maid went to pick up her two teenage sons from the amusement park in the family's new Chevrolet Caprice.

"I kept asking the men, 'Are you terrorists?' They finally said they were members of the commission," she said. "When I asked what they wanted, they called me names, including adulteress."

Umm Faisal said the men drove so fast and badly that smoke came out of the car.

The men stopped the car, called their friends and asked them to pick them up. The women, who don't know how to drive (and can't anyway, under Saudi law), were left to the mercies of passers-by.

Umm Faisal headed to the police to lodge a complaint. "When questioned, the commission members claimed we were indecently covered," because her daughter's veil didn't cover her eyes, she said.

In early 2004 she filed suit at Riyadh's General Court, but says several judges pressed her to drop it and late last year the case was dismissed.

She then turned to the Grievances Court, which fined one official $540 for mistreating the women and acquitted the other.

Umm Faisal isn't satisfied, and her appeal opens before the court on Monday.

authority

Prayer Vigil for Lina Joy

Gracen Intelligence Commentary:
Either there's "no compulsion in religion" or there's not. It is indicative of the turmoil surrounding this apostasy case that while the story has lost impetus in the Western press it is still daily front page news in Malaysia. This prayer service was attended by the Malaysian Consultative Council on Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST), the women’s rights group Women's Action Society (AWAM), and, most poignantly, Sisters in Islam (SIS), whose courage in standing up is incredibly inspiring. The "re-education" in question here is a form of incarceration involving "Manchurian Candidate"—style psychological pressure and mind control, and should thus be considered a form of torture. It is the position of Gracen Intelligence that it violates absolutely every extant human rights convention on this planet as the cruel and unusual punishment it is — and that the government of Malaysia should be sanctioned by the United Nations for crimes against humanity in allowing religious authorities to punish people out of the freedoms of conscience and religion that are their inalienable rights. — Morgaan Sinclair for Gracen Intelligence

06/15/2007 12:55
MALAYSIA

A Hindu Lina Joy, subjected to Islamic “re-education”
Source: http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=9564&size=A

Some civil groups in Malaysia have organised a prayer vigil Revathi: and Indian Hindu who January last was condemned to 180 days of “rehabilitation” in a centre lead by Muslim authorities.

Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews) – Malaysian civil society is rising against the continued interference of Islamic law in the lives of non Muslim citizens. On June 9 in Kuala Lumpur a night time prayer vigil will be held to draw public attention to the case of Ravathi, a woman of Indian origins who is currently being held in a detention centre after the state refused to recognise her religious status as a Hindu.

Organizers include the Malaysian Consultative Council on Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST) women’s rights groups Women's Action Society (AWAM) and Sisters in Islam (SIS).

Revathi was born to Indian parents who had converted to Islam before her birth. She claims she was raised by her grandmother as a Hindu. She and Suresh were married according to Hindu rites in March 2004. Revathi was advised by the Malacca Islamic Religious Department to make an application at the Malacca Syariah High Court to confirm her status as a Hindu. She did as she was told. However, the Syariah Court ordered her detained in a rehabilitation centre in Ulu Yam, Selangor under Melaka's Syariah criminal laws for 100 days. This detention was extended in Revathi's absence for a further 80 days supposedly because she had not "repented". In the meanwhile, Revathi's Muslim mother obtained a Syariah Court order granting her custody of Revathi and Suresh's 15 month old baby. That order was enforced on Suresh's Hindu family with the assistance of the police. The family is now torn apart - with the mother in detention, the child with the grandparents and the father in limbo without his family.

After the Lina Joy case – the Malay women whose conversion to Christianity was not recognised by the Federal Court, who judged it to be an issue for the “Islamic tribunal” – increasing doubts about the existence of freedom of belief and faith in the country. In fact in multi-racial Malaysia two legislations exist: Islamic and Constitutional, and they are often conflicting. For example Constitutional law grants freedom of religion, while Islamic law prohibits conversion from Islam. Organizers of the prayer vigil Revathi, seek to underline that “Federal law supremacy over Sharia needs to be reaffirmed”.
authority

Ebadi Can't See Iranian-American Client

Iran censorship 'getting worse'

Ms Ebadi says she has not been allowed to see her client

Iranian Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi has said censorship in her country is getting much worse.
_____________________________________

Ms Ebadi, a human rights lawyer, said the government was trying to prevent information about what is happening there reaching the outside world.

The recent arrest of four Iranian-Americans for spying was part of that trend, she told the BBC.

Ms Ebadi said she was being prevented from representing one of those detained, academic Haleh Esfandiari.

She said Mrs Esfandiari had requested representation in a phone call, but Iran's judiciary denied it.

She said has not been allowed to see her client, who is being held in solitary confinement, and has not been given details of the case.

"On the basis of Iranian law, none can accuse anyone else before he or she appears in court," Ms Ebadi told the BBC.

She added that the ministry of intelligence's repeated description of her client as a spy was "absolutely illegal".

National sovereignty

Ms Ebadi said the government's attitude to foreigners was also deteriorating.

"Censorship has got much worse recently... Iran's government doesn't like its domestic affairs and events inside the country to be reflected in the outside world," Ms Ebadi said.

When governments are threatened... they suppress freedom-loving figures Shirin Ebadi

Ms Ebadi also criticised the West, saying talk of military strikes on Iran had given Teheran an excuse to suppress its people on the grounds of national defence.

"Usually when governments are threatened by foreign forces, they suppress freedom-loving figures by pretending to defend national sovereignty," she said.

"And this is true in Iran now."

Ms Esfandiari is director of the Middle East programme at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Also being detained are Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant with the Open Society Institute and Ali Shakeri, a founding board member of the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding at the University of California in Irvine.

Parnaz Azima, a journalist who works for the US-funded Radio Farda, has been released but prevented from leaving the country.

authority

Gaza Lurches to Islamic State

From The Times Online

June 14, 2007

Gaza lurches towards Islamist mini-state

Paul Martin in Rafah and James Hider in Jerusalem

A new, Islamist mini-state was emerging in the Gaza Strip yesterday, as victorious Hamas forces surrounded and blew up their secular rivals’ last strongholds in bitter fighting that threw the entire future of the Middle East peace process into doubt.

Supporters of the Fatah movement fled to Egypt or surrendered as Hamas leaders predicted that they would control the entire coastal strip by the end of the week.

European Union chiefs said that the deployment of an international force should be urgently considered to curb the bloodshed.

In Gaza, Hamas strengthened its grip as its fighters surrounded die-hard Fatah supporters in isolated, last-stand strongholds. In Khan Younis in the south, Hamas guerrillas tunnelled under a Fatah security base and blew it up with its defenders still inside. Those refusing to give up in other besieged bastions were given two days to surrender.

”This is a victory for Islam and I hope we will build our Islamic state,” said Abu Qatada, a masked 22-year-old Hamas fighter, standing outside the smouldering ruin of the Fatah security base. “We must now complete the job,” he said.

In a symbolic moment, a large crowd of Gaza civilians demonstrating for an end to the internecine fighting came under fire from unidentified attackers who killed at least two marchers.

Political leaders of Fatah were also being hunted, and several hundred members of a Fatah-affiliated clan gave themselves up to Hamas militiamen after a deadly ambush. Fifty Fatah policemen crossed the border with Egypt and gave up their weapons to Egyptian troops after their positions came under Hamas rocket attacks.

“The situation is very, very bad,” Maher Mekhdad, a high-ranking Fatah official in Gaza, told The Times by mobile phone after his well-defended house was overrun by Hamas gunmen. “Hamas is going for total control of all the Gaza Strip. They want to push us into oblivion.”

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President and leader of Fatah, lamented the “madness” that was unfolding. At least 33 people were killed yesterday, bringing the toll since Saturday to 81 as the violence escalates into what many Palestinians see as all-out civil war in Gaza.

The United Nations said that it would scale back its operations in Gaza after two of its Palestinian employees were killed and two others seriously wounded in crossfire.

Benni Eilon, an extreme right-wing member of the Israeli parliament, said that the fighting would put paid to Palestinian plans for an independent state. “The Fatah is diminishing in front of our eyes, and a group of gangsters is taking over. ”

authority

Taliban Militants Drain Life from Pakistani City

Pro-Taliban militants gain ground, drain life from once prosperous Pakistani city

The Associated Press.
Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/13/asia/AS-GEN-Pakistan-Talibanization.php

TANK, Pakistan: Pro-Taliban militants have transformed a once-bustling community in northwestern Pakistan into a desolate city under siege.

After militant raids on government buildings, businesses and a school, Tank's dusty streets and bazaars are largely empty and gunfire rings out at night. A tribal elder and opposition politician estimates that one-third of residents have fled to other areas.

"The government has lost its writ in Tank," said Sardar Ahmed Gul, who keeps a loaded Chinese-made pistol at hand. "Every evening there is shooting and people cannot go out."

The government's crumbling authority over towns like Tank in the North West Frontier Province suggests that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf is failing to rein in extremism as Islamic militants broaden their influence beyond the lawless regions that border Afghanistan.

It also raises questions about the prospects of success for Washington's anti-terrorism efforts in the region, where al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri are believed to be hiding.

Observers blame the uptick in violence in Tank, about 110 kilometers (70 miles) from the Afghan border, on fighters filtering in from South Waziristan, a militant stronghold on the frontier where the government has little control.

On March 28, scores of militants attacked government buildings and businesses for several hours, killing one soldier and kidnapping a high school principal who had tried to stop them from recruiting students. He was freed, but the violence persisted — last month, about 100 militants attacked a government official's house, killing 13 people.

Pakistan's army also has come under attack; three bombings since January have killed at least six soldiers.

Now, Tank is becoming a virtual no-go zone, even for its 150,000 residents, and the fear is that it and other nearby districts are slipping into the orbit of Islamic fundamentalists who have issued Taliban-style social edicts and set up their own courts in the tribal areas.

Extremists have warned barbers not to shave customers' beards and bombed shops selling Western music or films.

At a meeting of his National Security Council last week, Musharraf told authorities that "the militants must be taken head on, security of vital places be beefed up and activities of suspected elements be strictly monitored."

He pledged to provide the provincial government with more police, vehicles and equipment. But there are doubts about both his willingness and ability to clamp down on the militants.

Musharraf relies heavily on Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, a religious party that leads the provincial government and helped secure the release of the abducted principal, to mediate with militant groups in the region.

Samina Ahmed, a South Asia expert at the International Crisis Group think tank, views Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam as a "political front" for the militants. The party shies away from criticizing the militants' activities in Tank, Ahmed said, blaming the government instead for stirring up a hornets' nest by launching counter-terrorist operations in the area at Washington's behest.

"'Talibanization' is a term created by the U.S. and the West to blame and defame Muslims and Pashtuns," said Maulana Saleh Shah, a Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam lawmaker in Tank. "Anywhere something happens against their agenda they label it as Taliban."

However, others suspect that the party is losing control of hardcore extremists.

"There is a serious rift between these militants and the JUI," said Rahimullah Yousafzai, a Pakistani reporter and expert on the region. "Some of them had links with the JUI in the past, then they were radicalized and they want the JUI to be more radical, too."

Asfandyar Wali, head of the secular Awami National Party which competes with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam for the loyalty of ethnic Pashtuns, accused Musharraf of deliberately allowing the violence. That way, he said, Musharraf can send a message to his foreign backers that "if I am not here, these are the sort of people who will rule nuclear-armed Pakistan."

Shopkeepers in Tank are merely worried about their safety.

"No one wants put his life at risk in such an uncertain situation," said Qibla Khan, who supports a family of 10 by selling fruit and vegetables. "We all are worried about our and our kids future. We cannot live in such a constant state of fear and worry."

___

Stephen Graham reported on this story from Islamabad, Riaz Khan from Tank.

authority

Iranian Rapist / Murderer Executed

Gracen Intelligence Commentary:
In a country that routinely exonerates murderers who claim their religion or their honor has been offended — that frees perpetrators of crimes against women on trumped-up charges of adultery — that turns a blind eye to abuses of the Baha'i, Jews, Christians and all others of non-Muslim faith, this is an encouraging, if extremely odd, turn of events. Ebadi, who is anti-death penalty under normal circumstances, has either changed position, or there is something about this family of such importance that the general Iranian population is being warned not to mess with their property. It is on behalf of the woman's family — not the woman's personhood — that this sentence was handed down and carried out. The victim is still, on balance, property, despite being dead. At the same time, there's perhaps another reason: if the culture of Iran invokes the death penalty by stoning on grounds of unproved adultery, extra-judicial (and then absolved) murders of non-Muslims, and so-called "honor" killings based on the bruised psychosexual pride of a man who thinks he owns a woman, we can only applaud this execution on the grounds of equal protection under the law. Until Iran rids itself of its egregious abuses of human rights, particular those of the most vulnerable — the women, the children, the Baha'i and other non-Muslims — it can at least apply equally laws against the taking of human life. It is the position of Gracen Intelligence that it opposes the death penalty, but only under the condition that a nation opposes the death penalty for all — not selectively applying it to women and minorities in judicial and extrajudicial fashion, and then writing laws and installing judges that give a privileged sector of the society (in this case the Mullahs and Muslim men) the right to kill out of ego or bigotry and then go free. Given Ebadi's record on this issue, our supposition is that this may be the point that she, as a lawyer and judge, is actually making. — Morgaan Sinclair for Gracen Intelligence

IRAN: Death Penalty Request by Nobel Laureate Attorney Sparks Criticism

Source: http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.425347667&par=0

Tehran, 13 June (AKI) - The news that a young man has been executed in Tehran for raping and killing a woman has been met with surprise and criticism by progressive Iranians not because of the sentence - Iran ranks second after China for the number of executions carried out - but because the attorney who reportedly demanded capital punishment on behalf of the victim's family is Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi, an anti-death penalty campaigner. Mohammed Safar was hanged a few days ago at Tehran's Evin prison.

Iranian blogs, mostly those of women's rights activists, have harshly condemned Ebadi.

"Someone like her who is a campaigner for peace and justice cannot support the request for the death penalty asked by the family's victim," wrote on her blog women's rights activist Assieh Amini.

Ebadi's office in Tehran contacted by Adnkronos International (AKI) refused to comment the reports.

A graduate of Tehran University, Shirin Ebadi, 60, was the first female judge in her country, serving as president of the Tehran city court, from 1975.

However, after the 1979 Islamic revolution she was forced to resign when it was decided that women were not suitable for such posts.

Ebadi then established a law practice, taking on politically sensitive cases many Iranian lawyers were afraid to touch.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts to stop among other things political imprisonment, gender discrimination and the death penalty in Iran.

authority

UN Addresses Serbia on Roma Women's Rights

__________________________________________

UN Women’s Rights Committee Calls on Serbia to Address Discrimination against Romani Women

13 June 2007, Budapest, Belgrade: The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), in partnership with the Serbian non-governmental organisations Bibija, Eureka, and Women’s Space, today welcomed the concluding comments of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in their review of Serbia’s compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. CEDAW’s comments address Serbia’s initial report on its progress in eliminating sex and gender discrimination since becoming party to the Convention in 2006. The ERRC, Bibija, Eureka and Women’s Space had previously submitted a report to the Committee bringing attention to the critical situation for Romani women in Serbia.

CEDAW’s comments highlighted the particularly vulnerable position of Romani women in Serbian society, who face multifarious barriers to education, political representation, and legal justice due to the combination of sexual and racial discrimination. The Committee requested that Serbia take immediate action in a number of areas:

Domestic violence
The Committee cautioned that admission criteria for safe houses may represent “de facto discrimination against Roma women threatened by domestic violence.” It urged Serbia to “review and monitor the application of admission criteria used by safe houses for victims of domestic violence in order to ensure that these do not exclude Roma women.”

Education
Questioning the “lack of current sex-disaggregated data and information in regard to education,” the Committee showed particular concern in regards to “Roma women and girls and other marginalized groups,” amongst whom rates of literacy and education are alarmingly high. It recommended that “special attention be paid to achieving equal access [to education] for marginalized groups of women and girl, in particular of the Roma minority…the Committee also recommends that literacy and vocation programmes be provided to Roma women, in particular those who are elderly and illiterate.”

Health care

The Committee noted concern about “the limited access to adequate health-care services for women, especially for women in rural areas and Roma women,” and called on Serbia to “increase its efforts to improve the availability of sexual and reproductive health services, including family planning.” It extended this concern to the area of early marriage, “particularly within the Roma population,” due to the “negative effects of early marriage on women’s enjoyment of their human rights, especially their rights to health and education,” and as such urged Serbia “to enforce the legal minimum age of marriage, which is set at 18.”

ERRC, Bibija, Eureka, and Women’s Space are pleased that the Committee included such detailed recommendations to the Serbian government to improve the dire situation of Romani women, and they urge Serbia to take immediate, strong action to implement the Committee’s recommendations.

Wahhabism Spreading in Russia

14 June 2007, 10:01

Prominent Islamic researcher warns against Wahhabism replacing traditional Islam throughout Russia

Moscow, June 13, Interfax - Ideas of Islamist extremism and intolerance towards other faiths are spreading today in many Russian regions, Islamic researcher Roman Silantyev maintains.

'There is a process of substituting Islam 'modernized' in the spirit Wahhabism for traditional Islam underway in Russia today. People often follow the Wahhabi ideology in the belief that what they confess is traditional Islam', Silantyev said in an interview with the Nashe Vremya weekly.

In the researcher's estimation, if before there were large Wahhabi enclaves in Dagestan, Chechnya and Karachayevo-Cherkessia, now 'there is an apparent spread of the Wahhabi infection from Chechnya to the whole of North Caucasus and even to the Russian population in the Stavropol region'.

Besides, he added, 'Wahhabi pestholes' have gradually appeared in cities and areas with a traditional Islamic minorities, such as Sakhalin, Orenburg region, Yamalo-Nenets cities, St. Petersburg, Tomsk, Omsk, Chita and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

'Whole Wahhabi villages have appeared in Mordovia and the Penza region. In the Olonets region in Karelia they (Wahhabis - IF) tried to lay Orthodox parishes under tribute', the expert maintains.

The present Islamic community in Russia, in his view, is 'in a state of the gravest crisis' and the ways out of it have not yet been found. The Russian umma 'has begun mutating' towards a gradual erosion of the dividing line between traditional and non-traditional Muslims.

'The Wahhabis tried to use arms to impose their views but failed. Then they changed their tactics and established control over most of the Islamic mass media and a considerable number of publishing houses', Silantyev has reported.

According to his data, the bulk of the Islamic literature existing in Russia, especially cheap leaflets on the rudiments of Islam, is translated into Russian and 'circulated by Saudi and Kuwait foundations', and 'the most innocent quotations from them are calls not to obey the laws of non-Islamic states'.

authority

Tirumala Bans All Religions except Hinduism

INDIA

Only one religion allowed in Tirumala: Hinduism
by Nirmala Carvalho
The government of Andhra Pradesh issued a ban last Friday against religions other than Hinduism in Tirumala. Violators risk three years in jail, fines of up to 5,000 rupees, or both.

New Delhi (AsiaNews) – In Tirumala only Hinduism is allowed and political activities are banned. In a decision taken last Friday by Rameshwar Thakur, governor of Andhra Pradesh, the state government has banned all religions other than the one traditionally associated with local places of worship or prayer. The state’s chief minister, Y. S. Rajasekhar Reddy, told AsiaNews that a bill to that effect will be presented in the next session to the state assembly.

Missionary activities by Christians in Tirumala and surrounding areas are blamed for the government’s new policy which includes punitive measures against violators including three years in jail, fines of up to 5,000 rupees or both.

Mgr Marampudi Joji, archbishop of Hyderabad, told AsiaNews that “in the face of persecution, we stand by our faith and our conviction. No political power can prevent us from spreading the Good News of the Lord.”

In his opinion, “this ordinance is essentially political and our Christian chief minister is buckling under pressure. We believe that the Indian constitution guarantees us the right to spread our faith. It is a matter of urgent concern that Andhra Pradesh should introduce such an ordinance. The government should be sensitive to the sentiments of the Christian community which has so tirelessly served all classes of society, irrespective of caste and creed. As archbishop of Hyderabad I say that no Christian has ever entered a place of worship of another religious community to proselytise. The Church has been involved and spearheaded dialogue between religions and within civil society. We are not afraid. In spite of laws Christians’ faith is stronger than ever. People are more united and closer to the Church. We live our faith and in the face of persecution we stand with courage and unity in Christ.”

Fr Anthoniraj Thumma, executive secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Federation of Churches and deputy secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Bishops’ Council, told AsiaNews that the Council “strongly opposes the ban. Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy yielded to the will of Hindu extremist groups who took advantage of the fact that he was Christian to blackmail him. This ordinance runs against many fundamental rights protected by our constitution and discriminates against non-Hindus. The Andhra Pradesh Bishops’ Council will take up its opposition when the issue comes before the state assembly.”

For John Dayal, chairman of the All Indian Catholic Union, “the ordinance violates the constitution of India and may go against the Supreme Court ruling in the Hindutva case which held that Hinduism was a way of life.”

The fact of the matter according to Dayal is that “the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and is affiliated organisations have targeted Reddy for his religion.” For instance, “RSS papers usually refer him by his Christian name, Samuel, rather than Rajshekhara.” But “no religion in the world claims a place exclusively as its own, where no one else can enter.”

“According to its constitution India is a secular state,” he explained. “So what is problem with religious freedom in a Tirumala? What happens to article 30 of the constitution [which recognises the right of minorities to establish and administer their own educational institutions]? What about Hindus’ right to choose where they want to get medical assistance and education? What happens to religious freedom for Dalits, Christians and other groups who live in the area?”

authority