Quote:Muslim parents of 'honour killing victim' schoolgirl, 17, charged with her murder EIGHT years after she vanished

Last updated at 7:54 AM on 8th September 2011



By Jaya Narain



+ Shafilea Ahmed was doing her A-levels and wanted to be a lawyer

+ Her parents were remanded in custody





[Image caption:] Shafilea Ahmed dreamed of being a lawyer



The parents of suspected honour killing victim Shafilea Ahmed have been charged with their daughter’s murder – eight years after she disappeared.

Shafilea, 17, went missing from her home in September 2003 after complaining that her parents were trying to force her into an arranged marriage.

A massive hunt was launched for the bright A-level student who had dreamed of becoming a lawyer.



Her decomposed body was found in February 2004, hidden near a river in the Lake District.

A coroner ruled that the Muslim teenager had been the victim of a ‘vile murder’.

Iftikhar Ahmed, 51, a taxi driver, and his wife Farzana, 48, were initially arrested on suspicion of kidnapping their daughter in December 2003.



They were questioned by police but were released in June 2004 without charge when the Crown Prosecution Service ruled there was insufficient evidence against them.

The couple were re-arrested on suspicion of murder in September last year but have always denied any involvement in their daughter’s disappearance or death.





But today, almost exactly eight years after Shafilea went missing, they were charged with her murder.



They appeared at Halton Magistrates’ Court in Runcorn, Cheshire, for a six-minute hearing, during which they spoke through an interpreter to confirm their names, ages and address.





[Image caption:] The teenager's father, Iftikhar, 51, and mother Farzana, 48, have been charged with murder and appeared at Halton Magistrates' Court, in Runcorn, earlier today



[Image caption:] Farzana and Iftikar Ahmed arriving at the inquest into the death of their daughter





Standing in the dock flanked by two security guards, Mrs Ahmed wore a traditional grey Asian shawl and fought back tears.



Bearded Mr Ahmed, in an open-necked white shirt and light grey trousers, remained expressionless, his hands clasped.



The murder charge was put to them but no plea was entered.

The charges are believed to have come after fresh evidence was handed to police by Shafilea’s sister, Alisha, who was two years younger.

She was arrested by police for allegedly masterminding an armed robbery at the family home.



Alisha, who is in the witness protection programme, admitted the charges and is awaiting sentence.

The 22-year-old is believed to have made new claims about her parents’ involvement in Shafilea’s death.



Shafilea, from Warrington, Cheshire, went missing after complaining she was being forced into an arranged marriage.



Police investigating her disappearance discovered she had travelled to Pakistan for what she thought was a family holiday.

But once there she was allegedly told an arranged marriage had been organised for her.

(I hate to spook people, but when will kids of islamaniac parents realise there is no such thing as "holiday in Pukestan/Turkey/Morocco/etc". Not if you're a girl who's reached a certain age.)





The A-level pupil drank bleach in an apparent suicide attempt while in Pakistan and returned to the UK to continue studying.

(Which poor kid wouldn't if they found out they had to marry some islamaniac? Likely to end up in some drugged-up islamaniac harem if they survived the attempt.)





[Image caption:] The 17-year-old's decomposed remains were discovered on the banks of the River Kent in Sedgwick near Kendal, Cumbria in February 2004

Weeks later she disappeared. She was reported missing by a teacher.



After her body was found on the banks of the River Kent in Cumbria, an inquest ruled she had been murdered and a pathologist stated she was likely to have been smothered or strangled.

The coroner said at the time: ‘Shafilea was the victim of a very vile murder and there’s no evidence before the court as to who did it. There are things people know that have not been told to this court.



Shafilea Ahmed, 17, vanished from her home in Warrington, Cheshire, in September 2003

‘Her ambition was to live her own life in her own way: to study, to follow a career in the law and to do what she wanted to do. These are just basic fundamental rights and they were denied to her.’

Her father has always denied he tried to force Shafilea into an arranged marriage, claiming she accidentally drank bleach during a power cut after mistakenly thinking it was fruit juice.

(Sure, that happens all the time. Like how everyone casually reaches for some milk in the wee hours of the morning and it turns out to be cyanide...)



Mr Ahmed said he had not reported her missing because police had not taken him seriously when she had run away before.

[color="#800080"](Let me guess, when she ran away previously she was reported by islamaniac parents as "kidnapped"? Where have I heard this before... In NL. In DE.)[/color]



In February 2003, Shafilea sought help from youth advisory service Connexions, saying she was ‘running away because she was in fear of being married’.

Several songs written by Shafilea in the run-up to her death were later discovered, one saying: ‘I feel trapped.’



Another stated: ‘All they think about is honour, I was like a normal teenage kid, didn’t ask too much, I just wanted to fit in, but my culture was different.

'Now I’m sitting here playing happy families, still crying tears.’



Her parents were remanded in custody. The case was adjourned for a bail hearing at Manchester Crown Court tomorrow, where they will appear via video link.





[Image caption:] Shafilea Ahmed, 17, vanished from her home in Warrington, Cheshire, in September 2003

Quote:Islamist Attacks 'Kill 150' In Nigeria

Sky News – Sun, Nov 6, 2011



At least 150 people have reportedly been killed and a number of government buildings were left in ruins after co-ordinated attacks in Nigeria.





A radical Muslim sect, known locally as Boko Haram, has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Borno and Yobe states, with the worst damage cause in the city of Damaturu.



The group has also pledged to continue its sectarian fight against Nigeria's weak central government.



"There's that fear that something might possibly happen again," Nigerian Red Cross official Ibrahim Bulama said.



A rescue agency official told AFP: "I was involved in the evacuation of corpses to the morgue. I personally counted 150 bodies."



In Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state, a car bomb exploded outside a three-storey building used as a military office and barracks, killing many uniformed security agents, Mr Bulama said.



Gunmen then went through the town late on Friday night, blowing up a bank and attacking at least three police stations and five churches, leaving them in rubble, officials said.



On Saturday morning, people began hesitantly leaving their homes, seeing the destruction left behind which included military and police vehicles burned by the gunmen with the burned corpses of the drivers who died still in their seats.





The Nigerian Red Cross said at least 65 people died in and around Damaturu. Four other people were killed by four bombs in Maiduguri, about 80 miles (130 kilometres) east, officials said.



A Boko Haram spokesman using the name Abul-Qaqa promised that "more attacks are on the way".



"We will continue attacking federal government formations until security forces stop their excesses on our members and vulnerable civilians," the spokesman said.



Boko Haram wants to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, an oil-rich nation of more than 160 million people which has a predominantly Christian south and a Muslim north.



Its name means 'Western education is sacrilege' in the local Hausa language, but instead of schooling, it rejects Western ideals like Nigeria's US-styled democracy that followers believe have destroyed the country with corrupt politicians.



In August, Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing at the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria's capital, which killed 24 people and left another 116 wounded.



President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian who took office amid religious and political rioting that saw at least 800 die in April, cancelled a trip to Bayelsa state for his younger brother's wedding on Saturday.



He said the presidency did not consider those who launched the attacks "true Muslims," as the assault came during a holy period of Eid al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice.

Quote:Is the paedophile-imam not allowed to say what the prophet says?

Friday 9 Dec 2011 - 09:41



Do politicians work as per the rules of logic? Below follow two reports that exceed the limits of logic:



"Tweede Kamer* member Kadija Arib (of party PvdA) is disconcerted that the imam Mohammed al-Maghraoui - who is very controversial in Morocco - who approves of marriages with 9-year old girls, is allowed to attend a conference just like that in The Hague around christmas. Arib wants the government to refuse a visa to the imam."



(* "Tweede Kamer" - literally Second Chamber - is like the equivalent of "House of representatives".

First Chamber is sort of the equivalent to the "Senate".)



Festival

The salafist mosque As Sunnah is host to this Moroccan imam. Why is this mosque organising a festival?



According to the media, the mosque has seriously expanded and, for the purpose of inaugurating the new construction, is organising a five day Arabian conference at the end of this month with as theme 'The muslim between steadfastness and temptation'.



Nice title: temptation. Apparently, the temptation of salafism is so great that the mosque had to be seriously expanded.



Fatwa

What crime has Al-Maghraoui committed? In 2008, he issued a fatwa wherein he supports/aligns with girl-marriages (to be understood as being from 9 years onwards).



He was charged in Morocco for encouraging paedophilia and rape. For Chamber member Ahmed Marcouch this was reason (enough) to tweet: "Reprehensible opinion. Don't give a visa to NL (NL = The Netherlands)".



Al-Maghraoui defends himself with the following argument: "I am a theologian, I am not making this up. It is the prophet who said this before me." This was the second report.





Ayaan

Intermezzo: Ayaan Hirsi Ali once said that prophet mohammed - when measured according to our western standards - was a paedophile and a perverse tyrant.



Khadija Arib was then in the Chamber. Like most of the brave, politically-correct Moroccans, she then had only criticism for Ayaan. But now she suddenly takes a stand for children who are not to fall prey to islamic paedophiles.



(Measuring) standards

Measured by our western standards, imam Al-Maghraoui is right when he says: "I am a theologian, I am not making this up. It is the prophet who said this before me."



Is it true what he says? We're here asking the question concerning the *veracity* of a pronouncement.



Listen to the "mother of all the faithful", Ayesha:

"The prophet married me when I was six years old, and he had intercourse with me when I was 9. When we had arrived in Medina, I had been weak for a month and had lost my hair, but it was already back to shoulder-length. My mother came up to me while I was playing with my little girl companions. She called out to me about something and I walked toward her, not knowing what she wanted. She took me by the hand and let me stand briefly at the door so that I could catch my breath, because I was totally panting. Then she took me inside, and there I met with a few women who congratulated me and wished me all good. I was left behind in their company: they washed my head and made me presentable. The prophet has never surprised me without my being made up, except once before the afternoon. Then they handed me over to him."



Pure [true/unadulterated] islam

This is also islam - the true/pure islam even. Don't Khadija and Ahmed approve of islam anymore? Was the prophet a paedophile?



They're allowed to think that, IMO. But the problem is that this prophet with his life - which together with the koran forms the basis of the sharia - enjoys the western concept of religious freedom.



And, indeed, islam has a political and judicial appearance/manifestation that is in essence incompatible with democracy and the culture of human rights.



Perfect **

It is not logical if we bear in mind that the Chamber *has* granted an unconditional visa to mohammed and his islam, but does not now want to extend a visa to an imam who perfectly states what mohammed has done and come up with.

Yes, but that is in conflict with the law!

And the violent stories and verses about the unbelievers, the Jews and people of other views - are they not in conflict with the law?

(** Don't know how to translate "keurig" in general. In the context it's used however, "perfectly/in perfect manner" suffices. Better to get a professional translator.)



Remonstrate/object

Ahmed Marcouch could object that he does not consider such rules and pronouncements applicable any more.



OK Ahmed, in that case, I have for you a long list of violent, discriminatory, inhuman rules and imperative pronouncements belonging to the prophet mohammed that need to be declared invalid. What then remains of the koran and mohammed?

Indeed, Donald Duck (is all that remains). In other words: a humanistic modern protestantised Arabian church. Ahmed, if you're consistent, you would by now <have joined up with> Geert Wilders.



Kindred spirit

The imam can come. He is merely member of a club that was once instituted by a kindred spirit of Robert M. (Link goes to an article titled "Police cracks (down on) child-porn network of Robert M.")



To the prophet mohammed, the whole world - including the Netherlands - was a big creche. If you don't like the imam, then take on the instigator of all this misery. And that is prophet mohammed.

It seems logical to me.



- Afshin Ellian

Quote:Afshin Ellian (1966) is professor of Social cohesion, citizen-ship and multiculturalism at the University of Leiden. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, you will find here a contribution of this stubborn poet and thinker who has been living in the Netherlands since 1989. Until 1 January 2008, Ellian took care of this blog as part of a duo with Leon de Winter. This last wanted some time again (and an empty head) to finish off his novel, so he - temporarily - dropped off (see here the old blogs of Ellian & De Winter). De Winter blogged since the starting days (November 2004) at this site, under the name "The Free West". It is now up to Ellian to defend the ideals and freedoms of western culture.

Quote:Driving out virginity in Saudi Arabia

SAUDI Arabia’s population of virgins would be catastrophically wiped out if women in the Islamic kingdom were allowed to drive motor vehicles.



[color="#800080"][image caption:][/color] Quelle horreur! A Muslim woman behind the wheel of a car



The “no more virgins” warning, according to this report, was sounded by Muslim clerics from the Majlis al-Ifta al-Aala, the country’s highest religious council, and follows recent demands from females that they should be allowed to drive.



Under the current ban, females face public lashings, jail and ostracism if discovered driving in the only country in the world where women are not allowed to take the wheel.



The report from the Majlis, produced in association with a former professor at King Fahd University, Kamal Subhi, reported their findings to the Shura Council, the country’s legislative assembly.



It warned that allowing women to drive would:

Quote:Provoke a surge in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce.

[color="#800080"](I don't want to cast aspersions on these islamaniac clerics and the "professor" - knowing on how slim a thread hangs their flimsy reputation - but uh... it sounds very much like they are speaking from *way* too much experience. Like all these clerics have already gone down the old road of driving -> loss of virginity -> prostitution/pornography/homosexuality and divorce themselves. While one sympathises with their obvious regrets, it doesn't imply that others will consider following in their footsteps. Not because of *driving* at any rate.)[/color]



If the ban was lifted, the nutters predicted that within ten years Saudi Arabia would be utterly devoid of virgins.



This latest lunacy from religious leaders comes after news broke last month that certain women were appearing in public with “sexy eyes”, and driving men to distraction.

[color="#800080"](Wow.

But did I hear someone say islamaniac men need to be neutered? Compelling point... Maybe the islamic clerics will next bang their heads together to come up with such a fatwa?)[/color]

Quote:Sexy eyes offend Saudi purity police

The latest report out of Saudi Arabia concerning the mad activities of the purity police suggests they are now considering a ban on the display of sexy eyes – women’s eyes, that is.



The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV) have apparently detected instances of provocative eye displays in the Islamic Kingdom, and have decided that a clamp-down is required.



Spokesman of the Ha’eal district, Sheikh Motlab al-Nabet said the committee has the right to stop women whose eyes seem “tempting” and order her to cover them immediately.



Three years ago the BBC reported that a Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia had called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye.

[color="#800080"](Obviously the cleric has no idea of the power of even just one eye.... But if the cleric took out both of his own, he wouldn't have to witness any of it any more, now would he? Problem solved at the very root.)[/color]



Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.



The latest announcement came days after the [color="#0000FF"]Saudi newspaper al-Watan reported that a Saudi man was admitted to a hospital after a fight with a member of the committee who ordered his wife to cover her eyes. The husband was then stabbed twice in the hand.[/color]



The CPVPV have draconian powers over the lives of ordinary Saudis, but these do not appear to extend to the country’s royal elite. A Wikileaks document released last year said that:

Quote:“Wild Western-style parties” are regularly held at royal palaces in Jeddah, away from the reach of the committee, who stands helpless against any royal violations.

[color="#800080"](Just like the innumerable papal orgies throughout the ages even while the lay christomoronic priesthood were told to get rid of their wives and become celibate. But then christoislamism was always one and the same religion.)[/color]

It was reported that alcohol, drugs, dancing and sex were a feature of these bacchanalian parties.

[color="#800080"](Christoislamism has nothing to do with Bacchus. So why involve him and his?)[/color]

Quote:Stonyground

November 20th, 2011 at 9:02 am

Apologies for being OT but [color="#0000FF"]there is a government petition afoot for the UK to follow the Irish and close our embassy to the Holy See.[/color]

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22434



At present there are only about 250 signitures so it needs some help.

Quote:Pakistani man chops off wife's nose, lips

Published on Dec 19, 2011



ISLAMABAD (AFP) - A Pakistani man chopped off his teenage wife's nose and lips in a furious marital row allegedly [color="#0000FF"]over the amount of time she spent with her parents[/color], officials said on Monday.

[...]

Quote:Shameful: Bangladeshi Man Chops Off Wife’s Fingers for Studying for a Degree

Posted on December 17, 2011

[...]

“The incident is [color="#0000FF"]one of a number of acts of domestic violence targeting educated women in recent months.[/color]

Police say that Mr Islam, who works in the United Arab Emirates, tied up his 21-year-old wife, Hawa Akther Jui, earlier this month. He then taped her mouth and cut off the five fingers.

Doctors say the fingers cannot be re-attached and it appears that Ms Akther will have to live with permanent disfigurement.”



[color="#0000FF"]Jui told the BBC that her husband had taped her mouth shut and blindfolded her, “saying that he would give me some surprise gifts.”[/color]

Quote:Afghan woman to be freed from jail after agreeing to marry rapist

Jeremy Kelly in Kabul

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 December 2011 18.51 GMT

[...]

An Afghan woman jailed for adultery after she was raped by a relative is set to be freed – but only after agreeing to marry the man who attacked her.

[...]

Gulnaz was jailed for 12 years for adultery after she reported being raped by a cousin by marriage in an attack that left her pregnant. As the case became publicised, the sentence was reduced to three years. She has spent the past two and a half years in jail, during which time she gave birth to a daughter. Malpas, 30, had spent months following Gulnaz's case after being commissioned by the EU to make a documentary on women's rights in Afghanistan.

[...]

Heather Barr, Human Rights Watch's Afghanistan researcher, who has spent the past month visiting female prisoners for an upcoming report on "moral crimes", welcomed the release of Gulnaz and said she hoped there was a review of all the cases of female prisoners.



"There are hundreds of women in this situation and it is well overdue to look at the injustices done to them," she said.



"I have interviewed 58 of them in the past month and have heard the same types of stories of forced marriages, beatings, sexual assaults, and when they flee these abuses and report them, they are locked up."Barr agreed it was possible that the Karzai administration had been encouraged to look at some of the serious human rights problems that remain in Afghanistan in the runup to Monday's Bonn conference, and hoped it would remain on the agenda once that concludes. The European Union, which has remained largely silent in the face of mounting publicity about the case said it was delighted about news of Gulnaz's release.

Quote:[...]

Ms Motley said the attacker's father had been allowed to visit Gulnaz several times in jail and made her sign a document which she did not understand.

[...]

Quote:Sunday 18/12/2011 December, 2011

Afghan rape victim says no choice but to marry attacker

[color="#0000FF"]She was jailed for adultery after being raped, then pardoned and set free. But now her brothers are threatening to kill her and with nowhere else to go, Gulnaz is resigned to marrying her attacker.[/color]



Gulnaz, who does not know her exact age but is 20 or 21, spoke in a quiet voice with her blue burqa pushed up over her face. Her baby daughter, the child of her rapist, played on the floor at her feet.

“I have to marry him, I need a father for my child. I need somebody to take care of my daughter and give us a home,” she said.

“I don’t have any other place to live. My brothers have vowed to kill me and my attacker and my daughter.”

[...]

“I petitioned and asked the government to arrest the man, but they arrested me. Why was I put in jail innocently?” she said.

“I don’t know why we have this kind of government here, they don’t even care about a poor woman. I brought up the case to seek justice but I was put in jail.”

Gulnaz was raising her child in a prison cell in Kabul. And although she was released, she is still confined. With fears for her safety, she has moved to a women’s shelter in a secret location.

[...]

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission logged 1,026 cases of violence against women in the second quarter of 2011 compared with 2,700 cases for the whole of 2010.

Some 87% of Afghan women report having experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage, according to figures quoted in an October report by the British charity Oxfam.

Last month, the UN said that a landmark law aiming to protect women against violence in Afghanistan had been used to prosecute just over 100 cases since being enacted two years ago.



AFP

Quote: [url="http://www.indiandefencereview.com/IDR-Updates/India-needs-a-new-personality.html#0.5"]0.5[/url][url="http://www.indiandefencereview.com/IDR-Updates/India-needs-a-new-personality.html#1"]1[/url][url="http://www.indiandefencereview.com/IDR-Updates/India-needs-a-new-personality.html#1.5"]1.5[/url][url="http://www.indiandefencereview.com/IDR-Updates/India-needs-a-new-personality.html#2"]2[/url][url="http://www.indiandefencereview.com/IDR-Updates/India-needs-a-new-personality.html#2.5"]2.5[/url][url="http://www.indiandefencereview.com/IDR-Updates/India-needs-a-new-personality.html#3"]3[/url][url="http://www.indiandefencereview.com/IDR-Updates/India-needs-a-new-personality.html#3.5"]3.5[/url][url="http://www.indiandefencereview.com/IDR-Updates/India-needs-a-new-personality.html#4"]4[/url][url="http://www.indiandefencereview.com/IDR-Updates/India-needs-a-new-personality.html#4.5"]4.5[/url][url="http://www.indiandefencereview.com/IDR-Updates/India-needs-a-new-personality.html#5"]5[/url] By [url="http://www.indiandefencereview.com/author/Dr-Amarjit-Singh/1"]Dr Amarjit Singh[/url]

17 December, 2011

Tectonic changes are required on the diplomatic and military fronts for India to emerge happy and confident, and with an industry that can compete with world players. As far as world competition goes, India’s success is often measured by capital un-intensive measures such as cricket and software, and there it seems to linger, with bollywood music as backdrop.



[indent] Non-alignment policies got India nowhere, but instead earned India the wrath of the West – the ones with capital and technology.



[/indent] Earlier this month, India had to hide its true intention of being a partner in the US-Australia-India trilateral agreement because India apparently wishes to appease China for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. This went to show how distant India’s policies have led it to ignominy, such that it must deceive its citizens to achieve ends that should be won by merit rather than beggaring. And all this after India’s was the strongest voice in the United Nations in the 1950s to admit China to the UNO. Imagine India’s potential, and then look at its world status, and anyone can see a massive lacuna of astronomic magnitude.



How does India believe it is viewed in the world? How much introspection does its Ministry of External Affairs do? How much creative thinking is allowed in government, in contrast to following political and bureaucratic dictates? Does India think it should adhere unwaveringly to policies established in the 1950s and take pride in assuming a principled stand by not budging from those policies even in the wake of changed systems around the world? After all, the Berlin wall was torn down, Germany reunited, the USSR disbanded, Vietnam united, Yugoslavia disassembled, Bangladesh created, apartheid abolished in South Africa, Afghanistan unleashed on the world, and 9/11 and 26/11 shook the world … five additional countries became nuclear powers, and one hundred and eleven (111) new countries joined the United Nations from 1960 to 2006 – all after India had gone down the path of non-alignment. Has not much water gone down the Ganges in the last 50 years to suggest to India that geopolitical changes have taken place o a geological scale?



[indent] ...India did not send troops to Tibet in 1951 at the suggestions of Sardar Patel can probably be argued as the biggest foreign policy and military blunder by India.



[/indent] Non-alignment policies got India nowhere, but instead earned India the wrath of the West – the ones with capital and technology. While South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Japan and Germany enjoyed USA’s patronage, India snuggled itself into the communist orbit, though it was never a communist-minded country, only because it wanted to be the champion of the countries emerging from colonialism. India never became that champion, got diplomatically kicked in the teeth for its twisted vocalism on Korea, and was betrayed in the Sino-Soviet communist conspiracy by the well-planned Chinese invasion of an unsuspecting India in 1962. And because India was unwilling to become a military partner with Britain and USA in the 1950s, the US chose Pakistan over India to become a partner in CENTO and SEATO, thus sidelining a more powerful and culturally rich India, and sealing its fate.



That India suffered because of that and India’s subsequent proximity to the USSR, is obvious: India was deprived of essential technology and education needed to spur military growth; had to return 93,000 POWs to Pakistan without settling the Kashmir issue owing to US threats, notwithstanding the Indo-Russian friendship treaty of 1971; and the USA was emboldened to find a partner in China in 1971 to oppose the USSR – the results of which are obvious today with China having a GDP thrice that of India, when India and China were tied for GDP in 1990. Now, China’s ugly dragon literally breathes fire down India’s neck from over the Himalayas. Of course, that India did not send troops to Tibet in 1951 at the suggestions of Sardar Patel can probably be argued as the biggest foreign policy and military blunder by India.



[indent] Looking east, India has not recognized the power of Buddhism in Chinese and Southeast Asian society and politics, and failed to make anything of Buddhism in fifty years...



[/indent] The diplomacy, wars, and politics of the last half-century show abundantly that every country that opposes the USA receives the raw end of the stick. Pakistan is today on shaky ground commensurate to its now hot-now cold, pro US-anti US policies; and China, an economic competitor to the USA, faces the demise of its communist regime as a long term US strategy that has begun to take shape. On the other side, every country that whole-heartedly partnered with the USA gained riches, technology, education, talent, and economic and military success. Even today, while people speculate on the economic slide of the USA, the US dollar is welcome currency in every country of the world, including in USSR, Vietnam, and China. Consequently, the USA is the only major power in the world, such that China’s blue-water navy is one weeks’ work for the US Navy to sink. India’s planners have to learn to read the writing, and this is not about reading tea leaves. No one should underestimate the USA, a nation that could have physically ruled the world after it made the atom bomb, but didn’t.



It follows that it is imperative that India see the lights for where they are, and earnestly participate in military operations with the United States to make the USA a true ally. For example, the USA long urged India to contribute troops to Iraq, and even requested Indian troops for Afghanistan (though Pakistan threw a wrench into that proposal). Again, this is not about forsaking one’s independence and sovereignty to a foreign power, but simply a method to retain it, given particularly that India’s military is not as strong as its military planners need it to be to fight a war on two fronts, inspite of all the hype and official claims on the matter. For Indian analysts, let it be clear that the evil empire is not USA, but more possibly Russia and China.



[indent] ...China funds India’s communist and Naxal activities and supplies armaments to them, India doesn’t even send a demarche. Which ghost possesses India that it can’t raise its head?



[/indent] Thus, India must not only discard its non-alignment philosophy and extricate itself from Russian influence that comes with military dependency and delayed military contracts, but must next look anew westward at its support of Palestine and Arab Street. Having new friends would likely bring India new respect. India needs to flock with nations of its type, in the spirit of its democracy and secularism. None on Arab Street comes anywhere close to a semblance of institutional democracy. For every day since independence, India encouraged the emerging countries of the Middle-east, only to find them criticize India in every war with Pakistan. In addition, we cannot forget that Iran and Saudi Arabia gave Pakistan military hardware during the 1965 war, and had their fighter aircraft on standby for Pakistan to use in the 1971 war. If a friend of India is not a friend in need, that is no friend indeed. On the contrary, Israel stuck its neck out for India at every turn, offering to bomb Pakistan’s Kahuta nuclear plant in the early 1980s – an operation that nearly materialized; supplied active military assistance during the Kargil war; and reliably sells India high-tech military equipment. Yet, India denounced Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006, voted for Palestine’s admission to UNESCO in 2011, and now plans to vote in 2012 for Palestine’s admission to the UNO, forgetting that modern terrorism all started with the PLO in the sixties. India’s actions are not the acts of rationality. A sagacious country will bat for its friends and keep the lid on its enemies; Instead, India apparently backs its detractors and slights its benefactors.



Editor's Pick

• [url="http://www.indiandefencereview.com/military%20&%20aerospace/Seven-blunders-that-will-haunt-India-for-posterity.html"]Seven blunders that will haunt India for posterity[/url]
• [url="http://www.indiandefencereview.com/homeland%20security/Why-India-is-unable-to-prevent-terrorist-attack.html"]Why India is unable to prevent terrorist attack?[/url]
• [url="http://www.indiandefencereview.com/military%20&%20aerospace/Indias-China-Syndrome.html"]India's China Syndrome[/url]

Looking east, India has not recognized the power of Buddhism in Chinese and Southeast Asian society and politics, and failed to make anything of Buddhism in fifty years (or 3,000 years as you look at it), even though original Buddhist shrines of Lord Buddha exist in India. Fortunately, some talk has begun to emerge in India on this topic. But, now is a time to heavily sponsor Buddhist activities in China and Myanmar and all Southeast Asian countries to gain essential goodwill: a moral deed, indeed. In fact, consider this expense as a necessary military expense, because it will earn India military cooperation. And, while China funds India’s communist and Naxal activities and supplies armaments to them, India doesn’t even send a demarche. Which ghost possesses India that it can’t raise its head?



[indent] To attain to its full potential, India must inevitably shed its old personality and adopt the aura of a country reborn: a country that preserves its military and sovereign interests every day, just like every other self-respecting country...



[/indent] If there had been no obstruction to level-headed thinking in diplomatic and military matters, India would have massively invested decades ago in developing its engineering skills to nurture its indigenous industrial-military complex. But, India can turn around, though it has tried for years to advance a global foreign policy that has not served its interests. And, only a complete turnaround will suffice. India must forget its past diplomacy and focus fully on the present. Only in recent years do we see evidence of a partial turnaround with the nuclear service agreement and silent participation in regional efforts to hold down China, though India lost the window of opportunity to easily quadrifurcate Pakistan before it owned a nuclear device while China was still weak in the mid 1970s. The support that the USA gave to Pakistan, owing to India’s recalcitrance to ally with the USA in the 1950s, played a great role in preventing India from stuffing Pakistan to the trash heap of history. With the USA turning a blind eye, Pakistan developed its nuclear program after Pokhran. In addition, the whole support that the USA gave Pakistan is coming back to haunt not only the USA, but India, as well, who now faces the undesirable consequences of a nuclear holocaust at the hands of irrational terror in Pakistan. That’s why it can be said that India has managed to successfully work against its own interests, inspite of its best hopes otherwise.



To attain to its full potential, India must inevitably shed its old personality and adopt the aura of a country reborn: a country that preserves its military and sovereign interests every day, just like every other self-respecting country, in a world where shark eats shark (though we only wish it wasn’t like this). In an age where competition is increasing for scarce resources, a situation that can easily escalate to war when the issue of survival is at hand, only real friends will help each other. Refer China’s mining of mineral resources in the Indian Ocean, where the slightest omission or investigation by an Indian naval ship can potentially lead to shots fired in anger. Wars of the future will be justified for natural resources. But, India must emerge into this new century with a new song and new set of friends to protect her, without having to veil her face. India must realize itself for the tiger she is, rather than the cat she behaves like. Only with this new armor can India truly shine.

Quote:Wedding dancers sentenced to death

Tue May 29 2012



Four women and two men have reportedly been sentenced to death in northern Pakistan for singing and dancing at a wedding.



Clerics issued a decree after a mobile phone video emerged of the six enjoying themselves in a remote village in the mountainous district of Kohistan, 176km north of the capital Islamabad.



Pakistani authorities in the area said local clerics had ordered the punishment over allegations that the men and women danced and sang together in Gada village, in defiance of strict tribal customs that separate men and women at weddings.



"The local clerics issued a decree to kill all four women and two men shown in the video," district police officer Abdul Majeed Afridi told AFP.



"It was decided that the men will be killed first, but they ran away so the women are safe for the moment. I have sent a team to rescue them and am waiting to hear some news," he said, adding that the women had been confined to their homes.



Afridi said the events stemmed from a dispute between two tribes and that there was no evidence the men and women had been inter-mingling.



"All of them were shown separately in the video. I've seen the video taken on a cell phone myself, it shows four women singing and a man dancing in separate scenes and then another man sitting in a separate shot," he said.



"This is tribal enmity. The video has been engineered to defame the tribe," he added.



The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said at least 943 women and girls were murdered last year for allegedly defaming their family's honour.



The statistics highlight the scale of violence suffered by many women in conservative Muslim Pakistan, where they are frequently treated as second-class citizens.

Quote:Women killed for dancing at wedding: reports

Thu Jun 7 2012



Four women in Pakistan's volatile north-west have reportedly been killed for singing and dancing at a wedding.



A video, which reports claim was shot at the wedding, shows a group of women draped in robes and head scarves sitting on the floor of a mud hut singing and clapping while one man dances and another films.



Villagers said the women were killed not long after the footage was recorded but local officials deny the claim, the BBC reports.



The men who appeared in the video faced a court on Wednesday charged with inciting tribal violence.



The women failed to appear in court but local officials insist the women are still alive.



The video was reportedly shot around two months ago in the Kohistan district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.



The scenes sparked the ire of tribal elders, who allegedly issued a decree authorising the women's death because their dancing had dishonoured their families.



On Wednesday the Chief Secretary of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa suggested that human rights groups and officials set up a commission to probe the alleged murders.



He said local customs prohibiting women to travel in male company or face questions from male members of a judicial bench would hinder the investigation.



Article sources: BBC

Quote:Suspected Islamist stabs two policemen in Brussels metro

Sat Jun 9 2012



A suspected Islamist stabbed two policemen Friday at an underground station in a Brussels neighbourhood where scuffles broke out a week earlier, local media reported.



The two victims, a man and a woman who were attacked during a routine check, did not sustain life-threatening wounds, the reports said.



The attacker was quickly subdued and was found to be carrying documents connected to Shariah4Belgium, an extremist Muslim group active in Belgium, public television said.



"He confessed to wanting to attack the police because of Belgium's attitude towards Muslims," television said.



Clashes broke out last week in the same Molenbeek neighbourhood between police and Muslim youth over the arrest of a young woman wearing a full veil.



The Shariah4Belgium group had then posted a video on the Internet defending the detained woman. The group's leader was subsequently arrested.

Quote:Muslim extremist stabs two police in the metro

Sat 09/06/2012 - 10:23



Two police officers were stabbed with a knife in the Brussels metro station Beekkant last night. The perpetrator is believed to be a Muslim extremist.

The attack happened around 6 PM in the Brussels borough of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek. Police officers were carrying out checks and wanted to detain four men. It was at this moment that they were attacked by an assailant wielding a knife.



The police officers, a man and a woman, were stabbed with a large kitchen knife. Both officers sustained injuries requiring treatment in hospital, but neither is in any danger.



Several other police officers arrested the attacker. Police sources say that the assailant is a French Muslim who travelled to Brussels from Paris on the day of the attack. Police also found newspaper clippings on the attacker detailing the recent Molenbeek riots as well as texts attacking the police. The riots were triggered by the arrest of a Muslim convert who was wearing a full face veil. The wearing of this garment in public is in violation of Belgian law.



The attacker is now being questioned. Police hope to discover whether he is mentally deranged or willfully came to Brussels with the intention of attacking the police.



Police commissioner Johan Berckmans: "He told us that he travelled from Paris to Brussels by train in order to express his dissatisfaction with the policies that the Belgian government is pursuing with regard to Muslim extremists and Sharia4Belgium, but there is also a link to the events of last Thursday in Molenbeek. He claims he's a member of an extremist party in France."

Quote:Muslim jihadist came all the way from Paris just to stab two policemen in Brussels

Posted: June 8, 2012 | Author: barenakedislam | Filed under: Islamization of the West |12 Comments »



The Muslim piece of sewage who stabbed two police officers during a routine check in the metro Molenbeek in Brussels today, came especially from Paris to kill policemen over the June 1st arrest of a Muslim woman who was wearing an Islamic headbag/niqab which has been banned in Belgium.



Dreuz (H/T Martin) He carried with him documents held by recurring threats of the Islamists Sharia4Belgium, who promised to kill a policeman to avenge the insult to the woman in a burqa, last week in Molenbeek. The man also said he had planned to visit Afghanistan.

According to RTL, the Muslim had extracts from the Koran over him, and he would have screamed “jihad” (holy war ordained by Islam at all good Muslims) when hit.

(IIRC RTL is a media outlet/set of European TV Channels - e.g. there are DE and NL channels that are called "RTL".)



The identity of the Arab Muslim was not disclosed, we do not know yet if it were, like other attacks that occurred in France this week, people with criminal records, but left liberty by a court partisan and complacent. We also do not know if it was an Islamist under surveillance, which we know how it failed in the case of the terrorist Toulouse and Montauban, Mohamed Merah.



RELATED STORIES/VIDEOS:



‘Sharia4Belgium’ Islamist arrested for making a call-to-violence video



belgium-muslim-riots-break-out-after-muslim-baghead-refused-to-show-face-in-security-check-then-attacked-police-officers



belgium-baghead-bounty

Quote:The French and Their Gun Laws

From the desk of Paul Belien on Wed, 2007-12-05 09:55



On Sunday evening Nov. 25 in Villiers-le-Bel, an immigrant suburb to the north of Paris, two youths steal a motorbike and go joyriding. They collide at high speed with a police vehicle that just happens to be passing by. The two youths die on the spot. Villiers-le-Bel is one of France's 751 "zones urbaines sensibles" (sensitive urban areas). These are no-go zones where radical Muslims hold sway. Almost 5 million people, or 8 percent of the French population, live in such zones. In May, Nicolas Sarkozy won the French presidential elections with the promise that he was going to reclaim them for the republic.



So far the "lost territories" have not been reclaimed. Following the death of the two boys, youths went on the rampage in Villiers-le-Bel. They blamed the two policemen in the vehicle for "murdering" the boys "because the police should not have been there." During three nights of rioting, several police stations, schools and shops were burned to the ground. When the authorities sent in the police, almost 200 policemen got injured – many of them by guns.



"We were attacked from all sides by youths armed with hunting rifles," one of the officers said. "The kids were shooting at us. I've never seen anything like it. It was like in a movie."





Meanwhile, a horror movie was taking place just around the corner. On that same Sunday evening, 43-year-old Thierry Deve-Oglou, a Frenchman of Turkish origin, went to the metro station near Villiers-le-Bel, the very area where the rioting was going on. He boarded the RER D, the metro line connecting Paris to its northern suburbs. Mr. Deve-Oglou took the train in the northern direction, away from Paris.



The suburban metro is generally considered unsafe, and the D line is one of the most dangerous, especially beyond Garges, the station after Villiers-le-Bel. "There are no guards and no surveillance cameras," a metro employee acknowledges. "After Garges there are hardly any passengers left on the train. It is then that the acts of aggression begin."



Mr. Deve-Oglou noticed that the metro carriage was empty except for a young blond woman whom he there and then decided to rape. He had done this before, in January 1995, on the same RER D line, in the same place. Then, however, his victim had not dared to resist. She survived the attack and was able to testify at his trial the following year when he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.



This time, however, the victim fought back. Anne-Lorraine Schmitt, a 23-year-old journalism student and the eldest of five children from a Catholic and patriotic family – her father, Philippe, is an army colonel – tried to escape. Mr. Deve-Oglou stabbed her. She managed to hurt him with his own knife, but he butchered her with more than 30 stab wounds in the chest and face.



[photo caption:] Anne-Lorraine Schmitt



Mr. Deve-Oglou left the train carriage at the next metro station, but police officers noticed the bleeding man and took him to the hospital. When half an hour later Anne-Lorraine's body was discovered in the empty carriage at the RER D terminus in Creil, it was not difficult to find the killer. He was arrested the same evening. Soon the police was able to solve similar rapes on the same line D during the previous years.



Why had the police never questioned this serial rapist before? Why had he been released after his first conviction? The question haunts Philippe Schmitt. "The circumstances of Anne-Lorraine's death are devastating to us," he writes. "We do not dare to imagine the 'horror movie' that took place inside that closed car of the RER, line D. Why was such an individual, already convicted of sexual assaults, able to repeat his crime? In 5, 10, 15 years, everyone knows he will be free again."



Frederic Pons, the editor of Valeurs Actuelles, a magazine where Anne-Lorraine had worked as an intern, wrote on the magazine's blog: "When will this rapist with his knife leave prison? After 8, 10, 15 years? Our society must pluck up the courage to remove him from society once and for all. If we do not do this the fathers, the brothers, the uncles will. In the name of justified violence."



The next day Mr. Pons removed his post from his blog. His text was deemed an incitement to violence. It is taboo in Europe to say that if the state fails to protect the citizens, the citizens should do so themselves. There is no Second Amendment in Europe. Even European politicians from the so-called "right," like Mr. Sarkozy, are horrified at the suggestion that citizens should be allowed to protect themselves against criminals. Last year, Mr. Sarkozy told French radio: "Security is the responsibility of the state. I am against the private ownership of firearms. If you are assaulted by an armed burglar, he will use his weapon more effectively than you anyway, so you are risking your life."



The result is that in France only the criminals are armed, while decent citizens, even those as brave as Anne-Lorraine, perish.



This piece was originally published in The Washington Times on December 5, 2007 .

Quote:'Sensitive urban areas'

Wednesday, January 16, 2008



Last November, 15-year-old Mouhsin and 16-year-old Lakamy were killed in Villiers-le-Bel, an immigrant suburb of Paris. The boys, joyriding on a stolen motorbike, collided at high speed with a police vehicle which happened to be passing in a neighborhood where the police normally do not venture.



Though Moushin and Lakamy were French-born and of French nationality, their families had them buried in Morocco and Senegal — the countries of their ethnic origin. The self-imposed segregation extends even beyond death. Muslims, who claim that France does not have enough separate Islamic cemeteries, do not want to be buried near Christians or Jews.



The death of the two boys led to three nights of heavy rioting in which gangs of criminals — invariably described in the media as “French youths” — burned down dozens of public buildings and tried to kill two police officers in retaliation.



For the first time the French police were confronted with rioters using firearms. On Nov. 28 Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, declared that “opening fire at officials is completely unacceptable.” He promised that “those who shoot at officials will face court for attempted murder.” Two months later Mr. Sarkozy’s words can be evaluated. All in all, seven delinquents have received a jail sentence for participating in the riots. No one had to stand trial for attempted murder. The longest sentence is a 12-month term. Two of the youths were convicted following the testimony of a deputy police officer. Because the court disclosed the identity of the witness, the latter had to face the consequences. When he arrived at his home he was beaten up by a group of young immigrants.



In May, the French voters elected Mr. Sarkozy as president because he had promised to restore the authority of the Republic over France’s 751 no-go areas, the so-called zones urbaines sensibles (ZUS, sensitive urban areas), where 5 million people — 8 percent of the population — live. During his first months in office he has been too busy with other activities, such as selling nuclear plants to Libya and getting divorced. While the French media publish nude pictures of the future (third) Mrs. Sarkozy, the situation in the ZUS has remained as “sensitive” as before.



People get mugged, even murdered, in the ZUS, but the media prefer not to write about it. When large-scale rioting erupts and officers and firemen are attacked, the behavior of the thugs is condoned with references to their “poverty” and to the “racism” of the indigenous French. The French media never devote their attention to the bleak situation of intimidation and lawlessness in which 8 percent of the population, including many poor indigenous French, are forced to live. Muslim racism toward the “infidels” is never mentioned.



Xavier Raufer, a former French intelligence officer who heads the department on organized crime and terrorism at the Institute of Criminology of the University of Paris II, thinks that organized crime has a lot to do with the indifference of the French establishment.



The ZUS are centers of drug trafficking. According to a recent report of the French government’s Interdepartmental Commission to Combat Drug Traffic and Addiction (MILDT) 550,000 people in France consume cannabis on a daily basis and 1.2 million on a regular basis. The annual cannabis consumption amounts to 208 tons for a market value of 832 million euros ($1.2 billion in U.S. dollars). MILDT estimates that there are between 6,000 and 13,000 small “entrepreneurs” and between 700 and 1,400 wholesalers who make a living out of dealing cannabis. The wholesalers earn up to 550,000 euros ($820,000) per year. Since they operate from within the ZUS the drug dealers are beyond the reach of the French authorities.



The ZUS exist not only because Muslims wish to live in their own areas according to their own culture and their own Shariah laws, but also because organized crime wants to operate without the judicial and fiscal interference of the French state. In France, Shariah law and mafia rule have become almost identical.

(Same as in India. Even bollywho is funded by the islamic mafia)



Mr. Raufer says that corruption is the key to understanding both the silence of the French media and the unwillingness of the French politicians to reconquer the lost territories of the republic. He suggests that Parisian journalists, intellectuals and politicians may have been bought with drug money: “Enormous interests are at stake. Once such [a] vast amount of money circulates underground everything can be bought, including the culture of condonement.”



Recently the Islamist ideologue Tariq Ramadan was appointed professor at Leiden University, the eldest and most prestigious university in the Netherlands. His chair is being financed by the Sultan of Oman. In Europe as elsewhere, large sums of Saudi and Gulf money are being used to buy universities and media outlets. The purpose is not to promote a moderate form of Islam and to stimulate Muslim immigrants to assimilate into their Western host countries, but to do exactly the opposite. It is possible that money resulting from criminal activities within Europe’s own borders is being used for the same goals. In that case no one need be surprised at the vast propaganda of multiculturalism emanating from our schools, our press and our politicians.

(Well, that's what christianism - both as emanating from western countries as well as in India - is doing in the Hindu homeland. If it's good for the goose...)



Multiculturalism is a disaster. Because it is a disaster and has opened the door to organized crime, the latter’s money has bought everything and the praise of multiculturalism is being sung louder than ever.



Paul Belien is editor of the Brussels Journal and an adjunct fellow of [color="#0000FF"]the Hudson Institute[/color].

Quote:Bowing to the islamists

Wednesday, October 24, 2007





Last Thursday, a group of 80 people from 15 European countries, plus Israel, Canada and the United States, convened in a conference room on the seventh floor of the European Parliament building in Brussels for a “counterjihad” meeting.



They listened to speakers such as the Egyptian-born scholar Bat Ye’or, author of the book “Eurabia,” who explained how the European Union (EU) has become a vehicle for the Islamization of Europe and how the EU has promoted “a massive Muslim immigration… hoping that the Euro-Arab symbiosis through economic development, soft diplomacy and multiculturalism would guarantee [Europe] peace, markets and oil.”



The citizens of Europe are extremely worried by this Islamization process, but their political leaders impose it on them against their wish. Europe is in worse shape than America because European democracies lack two pillars of freedom that America still has — solidly enshrined in the first and second amendments of its Constitution. In many European countries, freedom of speech no longer exists. It has been restricted by laws intended to curb so-called “hate speech.” These laws forbid people to express their worries about massive immigration and about the Islamization of their nations.



Europe, with few exceptions, such as Switzerland, is also unfamiliar with the second pillar of free societies: the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. In countries such as Belgium even pepper spray is an illegal weapon. The result is that the law-abiding citizens are at the mercy of criminals, many of them of foreign extraction.



While the delegates at the counterjihad meeting, who had been invited to the European Parliament by one of Europe’s so-called far-right parties, discussed strategies to counter the spread of Islamism, EU bureaucrats convened in a meeting room two floors below. On the fifth floor of the parliament building, they discussed the “harmonization” of self-defense legislation in the 27 EU member states. This means that, if the EU gets its way, the citizens of all member states will soon be submitted to Belgium’s strict rules and that pepper sprays will be banned everywhere.



Meanwhile, as became clear from the country reports given at the counterjihad meeting, Europe’s no-go zones are multiplying. These are areas where the police no longer dare to venture and where Islamists hold sway. Every night since the beginning of last week, immigrant youths have been torching cars and clashing with police in Amsterdam’s Slotervaart district. The incidents started Oct. 14 when a policewoman shot dead a 22-year old ethnic Moroccan while he was stabbing her and a colleague with a knife. Senior police officers compare the current situation in Amsterdam to the 2005 Ramadan riots in Paris. Media outside the Netherlands, however, hardly mention the riots, which aim to drive the police from Slotervaart and turn the neighborhood into a new no-go area — yet another pocket of Eurabia on Europe’s soil.



Similar events are currently taking place in Brussels, the capital of neighboring Belgium and of the EU. Last Sunday, demonstrating Turkish youths ransacked an Armenian pub in the Sint-Joost-ten-Node borough. According to the pub owner, police were present at the scene but did not interfere while his pub was being demolished. The Armenian owner, who by Belgian law is not allowed to possess pepper spray, had to flee for his life. The situation in Brussels remains tense.



Fortunately, there is some good news as well. Last Sunday, the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) won 29 percent of the votes and 62 of the 200 seats in Switzerland’s federal parliament, the National Council. This is the largest number of seats that any Swiss party has ever won since 1919.



[color="#0000FF"]During its campaign the SVP used a controversial poster, showing three white sheep standing on the Swiss flag. One of the white sheep kicked a black sheep off the flag. The caption read: “Bringing safety.” The SVP poster wanted to emphasize that foreigners commit four times as many crimes as the Swiss do and that this situation will no longer be tolerated. Everyone knows which segment of the foreign population the term “black sheep” refers to.



Even law-abiding foreigners living in Switzerland realize what the SVP’s true message is: Get rid of those aliens who perpetrate crimes. Parties in the rest of Europe would be persecuted for using similar posters because people are not allowed to contemplate the issue, but the Swiss are able to raise their voices. It is no coincidence that the freedom-loving Alpine republic consistently refuses to join the EU.[/color]



Paul Belien is editor of the Brussels Journal and an adjunct fellow of the Hudson Institute.

Quote:Pirbhai, a closet White Supremacist, persists in his colonial fixation: “Of course, Orientalist tropes concerning Muslim ‘atrocities’ are nothing new among Hindu intellectuals (...) Nor is the persistence of Orientalist misrepresentations particular to Hindutva circles.” (p.43) With this, he also attacks their Western counterparts, naming specifically Robert Spencer, Bat Ye’or and Ibn Warraq (of Lebanese, Egyptian and Pakistani provenance, respectively).

[...]

‘neoconservative [color="#0000FF"]Christians’ like Spencer[/color], ‘rightist Jews’ like Ye’or and ‘secular humanists’ like Ibn Warraq.” (p.52-53)

Quote:German court bans religious circumcision

Updated: 07:33, Wednesday June 27, 2012



[color="#0000FF"]Circumcisions of young boys on religious grounds should be considered as grievous bodily harm, a German court has said, in a landmark ruling that clears up a grey area for doctors.[/color]

[color="#800080"](:Thunderous laughter[/color]



The regional court in Cologne, western Germany, ruled that the 'fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighed the fundamental rights of the parents.'



'The religious freedom of the parents and their right to educate their child would not be unacceptably compromised, if they were obliged to wait until the child could himself decide to be circumcised,' the court added.



The case was brought against a doctor in Cologne, who had circumcised a four-year-old Muslim boy on his parents' wishes.



The doctor was later charged with grievous bodily harm but acquitted by a lower court which judged he had acted within the law as the parents had given their consent.



On appeal, the regional court also acquitted the doctor but for different reasons.



The regional court upheld the original charge of grievous bodily harm but ruled also that the doctor was innocent as there was too much confusion on the legal situation.



'The body of the child is irreparably and permanently changed by a circumcision,' the court said. 'This change contravenes the interests of the child to decide later on his religious beliefs.'



[color="#0000FF"]Holm Putzke, a criminal law expert at the University of Passau, told the Financial Times Deutschland[/color] that the ruling was 'enormously important for doctors because for the first time they have legal certainty.'



[color="#0000FF"]'Unlike many politicians, the court has not allowed itself to be scared off by charges of[/color] anti-Semitism or [color="#0000FF"]religious intolerance,' added Putzke.[/color]



The World Health Organisation has estimated that nearly one in three males under 15 is circumcised. In the United States, the operation is often performed for hygiene reasons on infants.



Thousands of young boys are circumcised every year in Germany, especially in the country's large Jewish and Muslim communities.

Quote:Islamists in North Mali Stone Couple to Death

By ADAM NOSSITER

Published: July 30, 2012



BAMAKO, Mali — Islamists in control of a town in northern Mali stoned a couple to death after accusing them of having children outside of marriage, a local official who was one of several hundred witnesses to the killings said Monday.





The official said the bearded Islamists, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, brought the couple into the center of the town of Aguelhok from about 12 miles away in the countryside. The young man and woman were forced into holes about four feet deep, with their heads protruding, and then stoned to death at about 5 a.m. Sunday, the official said.



“They put them into the holes, and then they started throwing big rocks, until they were dead,” the official said, speaking by satellite phone from the remote desert town near the Algerian border.



“It was horrible,” he said, noting that the woman had moaned and cried out and that her partner had yelled something indistinct during the attack. “It was inhuman. They killed them like they were animals.”



The official insisted that he not to be identified because he said “our lives are in danger here.” The official said many of the 2,000 people in Aguelhok had already begun leaving, crossing the border into Algeria, as a result of Sunday’s stoning.



The stoning was the Islamists’ most brutal reported act of repression so far. Refugees from the north have given numerous accounts of public whippings and beatings for alleged violations of Shariah law in the main towns of Timbuktu and Gao.



All of northern Mali, a vast area larger than France, most of it desert, is in the hands of Islamists linked to Al Qaeda, after a rebellion against the Malian government that began in January. The rebellion began as a new iteration of a decades-long struggle by a nomadic ethnic group, the Tuaregs, to gain autonomy from a central government based in the south that it had long accused of neglect and persecution.



But the Tuaregs were soon overtaken by their de facto allies, a local Islamist movement, the Ansar Dine, or Defenders of the Faith, which itself was allied with Al Qaeda. Ansar Dine now controls the region, in alliance with another radical Islamist splinter group, the Mujao, or the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa. The groups share the goal of imposing an extreme form of Shariah law on the people of northern Mali.



The official in Aguelhok said [color="#0000FF"]the rural couple were heard to protest, faintly, that the children — the youngest a baby of 6 months — were not even theirs. But the men who executed them said the couple had been guilty of a serious crime, and deserved punishment.[/color]



“All they said was, it was the law of Shariah that prescribed it, that God willed it,” the official recalled. He said the execution had lasted about 15 minutes, but the woman died quickly, after crying out.



In silence, more than 300 people from the town watched. “The people protested, that no law could possibly prescribe such a thing,” the official said.

(Hate to throw cold water on people, but have these Malians even *read* the koran or bible? Death by stoning is the prescribed punishment for adultery. Which is why islam is also famous for stoning muslim women raped by other muslims: apparently getting raped is adultery too. <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':blink:' /> Clearly the word doesn't mean what I thought it meant...)



“On the slightest pretext, they execute people.”

(Yup. Sounds quite like christoislamism. Remember how the whole "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" biblical law resulted in millions of men, women and children being randomly pointed out as "witches" and gruesomely tortured then burnt?

And children getting brutally murdered for "witchcraft" - even by relatives including "parents" - is ongoing in christianised African nations. No point in pretending all this isn't biblical/koranic.)





Aguelhok drew notoriety early in the rebellion, in January, as the place where dozens of Malian Army soldiers were apparently summarily executed, according to human rights groups. Some had their hands tied behind their backs and their throats cut.



A protest over the executions by angry soldiers’ wives in the capital, Bamako, in early February was an early sign that the government was in trouble. The government was later brought down by a military junta in a coup d’état at the end of March, allowing the Tuaregs and Islamists to overrun the north.



The south is still in disorder, with the junta still active behind an appointed civilian government whose powers remain uncertain. On Friday, the interim president, Dioncounda Traoré, returned to Bamako from Paris after an absence of over two months following an attack by a mob — some said orchestrated by elements in the military — that left him seriously injured.



In a televised speech on Sunday, Mr. Traoré announced a reorganization of the government with the aim of recovering the troubled nation’s unity.



A version of this article appeared in print on July 31, 2012, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Islamists In North Mali Stone Couple To Death.

Quote:The West African nation, once seen as a pillar of democracy in the troubled region, has been split in two since a coup in March. Tuareg rebels took control of Mali's vast north but they have since been driven out by al-Qaeda-linked extremists seeking to impose their radical interpretation of sharia law. An estimated 300 000 people have fled.

Quote:Nigeria religious leader survives attack

From: AAP August 04, 2012 1:04PM



A TOP Muslim traditional leader in northeastern Nigeria has escaped a suicide attack, when the bomber was thwarted by locals before blowing himself up, police and residents say.

The target of the attack was Muhammad Abali, the top Muslim traditional leader in Yobe state, whose official title is the Emir of Fika.



Five people, including three policemen, were wounded in the blast outside the main mosque after Friday prayers ended in the town of Potiskum, the state police commissioner, Patrick Egbuniwe, said.



"A lone suicide bomber attempted to attack the Emir of Fika in Potiskum just after the Friday prayer as he left the mosque. But the attacker was restrained by the people around and he blew himself up," he said.



[color="#0000FF"]"Only the bomber died. Five other people were injured including three policemen attached to the emir,"[/color] Egbuniwe said.



A nurse at the Potiskum government hospital, who asked for anonymity, said 13 people, including three policemen, were brought to the hospital wounded.



[color="#0000FF"]It was the latest such attack targeting Muslim leaders in northern Nigeria, where radical Islamist sect Boko Haram accuses establishment Islamic figures of being too close to the country's corrupt elite.[/color]



"A man who looked in his 40s ... approached the emir and tried to embrace him, but people around pushed him away, and at that moment, a bomb concealed under his caftan went off," one witness said.



Those wounded included the emir's bodyguard, a mosque aid worker and a nurse, the witness said.



There was no immediate claim of responsibility, though Potiskum has been hard hit by violence blamed on Boko Haram.



"I and my brother were leaving the mosque through a different gate when I heard an explosion followed by a commotion as worshippers tried to flee," another resident said.



"I fled the mosque, but some minutes later when the news of what happened spread, I came back to the mosque and I saw a large crowd watching the dismembered body of the attacker."



[color="#0000FF"]Some three weeks ago, a suicide bomber tried to assassinate another key Islamic leader outside his mosque after Friday prayers but missed his target and killed five others.



The target of that attack was Umar Garbai el-Kanemi, who carries the title of Shehu of northeastern Borno state, where Boko Haram has been based.[/color]



Yobe state borders Borno.

Quote:Nepal bars young women from working in Gulf: report





Added At: 2012-08-09 8:19 PM

Last Updated At: 2012-08-09 8:26 PM



AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE



[image caption:] Nepalese women mark International Women's Day in Kathmandu in March 2012.

[color="#800080"](Some *purdy* Nepalese Hindu women in pic. Cute's an understatement.

But don't know why these pretty Nepalese are wasting their time in some "international women's day" march. Clearly, the concept is too profound for my poor brain.)[/color]





[image caption:]Nepal has banned women under 30 from travelling to Gulf countries to work following reports of widespread sexual abuse and exploitation, local media said on Thursday.



KATHMANDU: Nepal has banned women under 30 from travelling to Gulf countries to work following reports of widespread sexual abuse and exploitation, local media said on Thursday.



Thousands of women -- mostly aged under 25 -- leave the impoverished Himalayan nation every year to take up menial jobs in cleaning or construction, with many heading to Gulf Arab states.



"Young female workers are reported to have been sexually and psychologically exploited in Gulf countries," Information Minister Raj Kishor Yadav was quoted as saying in the Himalayan Times English-language daily newspaper.



"So the cabinet decided to set the age bar for women migrant workers in the Gulf. Women above 30 years of age are at low risk of such exploitation."

(Nonsense. Islamaniacs famously practise even necrophilia. So let's not pretend poor 30+ year olds are safe either, when they won't be safe even when they're corpses.)



Nepalese women have been allowed to go to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar since 2010, when authorities lifted a 12-year ban imposed after the suicide of a Nepalese domestic worker who had been abused in Kuwait.



Most Nepalese migrant workers are in India but the government and local charities estimate that between 20,000 and 70,000 are in wealthy Gulf countries, lured by the promise of better wages to help support their families back home.



Maiti Nepal, which works to prevent the trafficking of Nepalese women abroad, welcomed the announcement, saying many underage girls travelled to the Gulf for work and abuse was common.



"We have met several housemaids who were not only raped by their masters but also forced to have sex with the masters' relatives. They are confined to the house and live in a situation akin to slavery," director Bishwa Khadka said.



There was an outcry in Sri Lanka in September 2010 when a maid returned from Saudi Arabia alleging that her employers had forced 24 nails and needles into her body.

(See earlier news posted at IF in #541.)



Fifteen Nepalese women committed suicide in Lebanon in 2010 while two to three domestic helpers a week seek refuge in Nepalese embassies in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait following abuse from their employers, according to the Times.



The labour ministry was not immediately available for comment.

Quote:Age bar on migrant maids draws rights flak





Added At: 2012-08-09 11:02 PM

Last Updated At: 2012-08-09 11:02 PM





HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE





KATHMANDU: Increased incidents of sexual, physical and mental exploitation of Nepali housemaids in gulf countries and reports of underage girls being sent on forged passports prompted the government to restrict women bellow 30 years of age from working as housemaids in those countries, but rights activists say it violates women’s right to equality.



Government sources said the new age bar will apply only to those women who want to work in informal sectors that are not covered by the host countries’ labour laws. The job of housemaid falls under Kafala system prevalent in gulf countries which allows the employers to hold their employees’ travel documents, restrict them from changing jobs and returning to their home countries at their will. Most of the Gulf countries have not signed ILO conventions.



“We decided to put age bar because mature women can better protect themselves. Other South Asian countries also have similar provision. The Gulf countries themselves suggested to have such provision,” said Kumar Belbase, Minister of Labour and Employment. Bal Bahadur Tamang, President, Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies shares government’s views.



Saru Joshi, Programme Specialist, UN Women, Nepal, however, said they were against any kind of restriction on women. “The more prudent step will be to strengthen security network, to offer choices, make the workers aware of the risks, strengthen NRN associations and adopt integrated approach,” she added.

(Am I the only one? The only one who, when Saru Joshi of "UN Women" started talking, only heard "Bla Bla Bla"?

Oh, that must be what the Greeks called "barbarian": one who makes no sense, is unintelligible/unintelligent etc.)



Minister Belbase said the government was trying to create enough jobs within the country because banking on remittance was not good for the country.



Advocate Pushpa Bhushal said the new age bar was against women’s right to work and right to equality. “Government should focus on protective measures rather than restricting them from seeking foreign employment,” she added. Joshi said if the government implemented the new age bar policy without bringing employment schemes for women on 18-29-year age group, women workers could fall prey to unscrupulous elements and could be trafficked to Gulf countries via foreign countries. “In most of the Gulf countries, families have overriding authorities over the court on some matters. Many Nepali workers do not know this,” Joshi added.



UN Women conducted an interview recently with 608 women who returned from Gulf countries where 94 per cent women said they would not leave the country if they had an opportunity to earn at least NRs 10,000 a month.



Economist Chiranjivi Nepal, however, said sending women to Gulf countries was almost like rendering them slaves. “These countries have not even granted voting rights to women. Work is dignified only when people are treated equally,” he added. According to government estimate [color="#FF0000"]last year 23,000 women had gone to work in Gulf countries[/color], half of whom were for informal sector jobs.

(Yikes. 23000 Hindu females to be cannibalised by islam? Are people mad???? Are they not following the news on what happens to even islamaniac females from Indonesia etc who end up in islamaniac ME as housemaids, not to mention the kafirs who end up in the ME?)



The share of women workers’ contribution to remittance is expected to be around 11 per cent.