Islamism - 4 - Printable Version

Islamism - 4 - Printable Version

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Islamism - 4 - Guest - 02-22-2006

http://www.outlookindia.com/pti_news.asp?id=357292

QUOTEHindu Law Board offers Rs 51 cr for killing Hussain
LUCKNOW/INDORE, FEB 22 (PTI)

The Hindu Personal Law Board today announced a Rs 51 crore reward for eliminating artist M F Hussain and others while a Congress minority cell leader offered Rs 11 lakh to any "patriot" chopping off the painter's hands for hurting Hindu sentiments.

"Anyone who kills Hussain for making obscene paintings of goddess Saraswati and Bharat Mata, the Danish cartoonist, those in the German company printing pictures of Ram and Krishna on tissue paper and the French filmmaker desecrating Lord Shiva will be given Rs 51 crore in cash by the Board," its president Ashok Pandey said in a statement in Lucknow.

If Uttar Pradesh Haj Minister Yaqoob Qureshi undertook the job "he will be given Rs 101 crore", it added cryptically. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /> <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' />

"Peace will not prevail on earth unless such people are eliminated," he said and urged Qureshi to set out on the mission.

Islamism - 4 - Guest - 02-22-2006

QUOTESeven killed as tension raises after Samarra blast
(Updated at 2250 PST)
SAMARRA:Â A bomb attack Wednesday destroyed the dome of one of the world's holiest Shiite shrines, prompting reprisal attacks against 27 Sunni mosques in Baghdad that left seven people dead.

In Baghdad, mobs killed four clerics and three worshippers in their assaults on 27 Sunni mosques, an Iraqi security officer told media.

Crowds machined-gunned and set fire to some of the religious sanctuaries, he added.

In the Shiite south, a crowd stormed the Basra offices of a Sunni-based political party, leaving one person dead and severalÂ others wounded, police said, giving no further details.

The mobs ignored an appeal by Iraq's top Shiite religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who urged his community to remain calm and to refrain from engaging in reprisals.

Lets see reaction in India on Friday.

Islamism - 4 - Guest - 02-23-2006

QUOTEChinese Call for Birth Control in Muslim West Sparks Outcry 
The Associated Press (apwire)
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
Associated Press Writer
SHANGHAI, China

Calls for tougher birth control enforcement in China's Muslim west have provoked protests by activists who say such measures would lead to further human rights violations against the region's native Uighur ethnic group.

Nur Bakri, a deputy Communist Party secretary of the Xinjiang region, said in a speech earlier this week that population control efforts would be redoubled over the next five years. Those efforts would focus on farming and herding areas where Uighurs tend to make up the majority, he said.

"The results of economic development will be canceled out by increases in population unless population size can be controlled," Bakri was quoted as saying at a conference Monday on population planning.

Since 1988, Uighurs have largely been limited to two or three children under an exception to China's strict policy allowing most families to have just one child. Human rights groups say the policy has led to coercive birth control and forced abortions and sterilizations, often under poor medical conditions. 

Although Xinjiang's overall population has remained within government targets, its growth rate is among the highest in the country, Bakri said, according to a report of his speech seen Friday on the official http://www.tianshannet.com Web site.

"Population development has not been balanced; the birth rate is unstable," he said, singling out poor rural areas as a particular concern.

"We must increase government efforts in this area," he said.

Exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer said birth control policies are already strictly enforced in Xinjiang and questioned why rural women were being singled out for special attention.

Uighurs already have been marginalized by large scale migration of the majority Han Chinese to Xinjiang and China's heavy handed political and cultural policies in the region, she said.

"This is extremely bad news for the Uighur people _ Uighur women in particular," Kadeer said in a statement.

With a population of about 8 million, Uighurs make up the largest single ethnic group in Xinjiang, although they no longer form an absolute majority. A recent drive to develop the region's resources and infrastructure has brought a further influx of Han Chinese, with the region's capital, Urumqi, now boasting a population of 4 million, much of it Han.

Islamism - 4 - Guest - 02-23-2006

Shrine Attack Brings Civil War Warning QUOTESAMARRA, Iraq - Insurgents detonated bombs inside one ofÂ Â Â Iraq's holiest Shiite shrines Wednesday, destroying its golden dome and triggering more than 60 reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques. The president warned that extremists were pushing the country toward civil war, as many Shiites lashed out at the United States as partly to blame.

As the gold dome of the 1,200-year-old Askariya shrine lay in ruins, leaders on both sides called for calm: But the string of back-and-forth attacks seemed to push the country closer to all-out civil war than at any point in the three years since the U.S.-led overthrow ofÂ Â Saddam Hussein.

"We are facing a major conspiracy that is targeting Iraq's unity," said President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. "We should all stand hand in hand to prevent the danger of a civil war."
......................

Islamism - 4 - Guest - 02-23-2006

An intersting commentry by the BBC on the cartoon controversy:-
QUOTECartoons and the globalisation of protests
By Paul Reynolds
World Affairs correspondent, BBC News websiteÂ
The spread of protests against the cartoons of Muhammad is another manifestation of globalisation.

Just as Dr Edward Lorenz of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology asked in 1972: "Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?" (he originally mentioned a seagull's wings, but a butterfly is so much more poetic), so these days cartoons in an obscure newspaper have set off demonstrations which cross continents.

The phenomenon is fuelled by the growth of the Islamic influence in Western societies, the sense of Islamic anger not just at the cartoons but at world events and the precarious nature of relations between the West and the Muslim world.

Then and now 
Compare the recent crisis with what happened to the author Salman Rushdie in 1989.

Then, the protests were directed largely at one person.

Now they are directed at a whole country, in this case Denmark, and more than that, against large parts of Western society and its traditions.

Equally, the cartoons are seen as attacks on Islam itself, not just by an author but by a society.

And in places, the issue has been exploited for local purposes.

In northern Nigeria, the protests went beyond the original issue. They developed into anti-Christian riots, as anger at the drawings was exploited in a part of the world where Islam from across the Sahara meets Christianity which has moved up from the missionary-influenced coast.

Teachings questioned 
Rushdie's sin in The Satanic Verses was to exploit some notorious lines in an account of the Prophet's life which told how Muhammad was tempted by Satan to suggest that three goddesses worshipped in Mecca might find a place in the new religion he was proclaiming. These are the "Satanic Verses" themselves.

They are absolutely rejected by Islamic tradition. Rushdie, however, used them to construct a fable in which he questioned the whole basis of Muhammad's teachings.

It was on 14 February 1989 that the then Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini proclaimed: "The author of the book entitled The Satanic Verses, which has been compiled, printed, and published in opposition to Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, as well as those publishers who were aware of its contents, have been sentenced to death."

The book was burned, in Britain and elsewhere. Protests followed outside US and British buildings in India and Pakistan, and people died.

But the main anger was directed against Rushdie himself who had to go into hiding. The Ayatollah's fatwa against him is still technically in force.

Iran alone 
In the West, the protest was seen largely as a product of the Iranian revolution rather than a mass movement in Islam. At the time, Iran was seen as the great threat.

The Rushdie affair can be seen as the precursor of the cartoon crisis

Saddam Hussein's Iraq was even regarded by some Western leaders as a bulwark against the fervour of Iran. Ten years previously he had attacked Iran and the West barely blinked. An incredibly bloody war ensued in which Iraq used chemical weapons and Iran hurled its only-too-willing youth against Iraqi lines.

There was no Osama bin Laden and no al-Qaeda. And there had been no 9/11, no invasion of Iraq. It was only Iran which declared that the United States was the "Great Satan".

There was also a much less influential Islamic presence in Western societies. In Britain, there were indeed protests but they were small and politically not that influential, though the Conservative government did make noises about the need not to offend religious sensitivities. A minister tried to placate Iran, which was seen as the problem.

The Rushdie affair can be seen as the precursor to the cartoon crisis.

Great debate
But now things are different.
The Muslim leadership in the West is far stronger. Muslim leaders in Denmark were instrumental in transforming their local row into a global confrontation.

They did this by taking their case to gatherings of Islamic scholars and politicians in the Middle East where they found a ready audience. From there, it went onto the streets.

We are also in the middle of, and perhaps only at the beginning of, a period in which the West and Islam are in conflict (it is not just Iran any more), or at least are trying to establish rules of conduct.

The West is having to reconsider what it means by freedom of speech and to justify, for example, why the historian David Irving is locked up in Austria for denying the Holocaust. In fact, that has to do with Austrian history. The law on holocaust denial applies there and in Germany because of their special responsibilities.

And within Islam there is a great debate between moderates and radicals, the outcome of which will perhaps determine the outcome of the wider conflict.

Into such an atmosphere came these drawings. The tinder box was ready to be lit.

Islamism - 4 - Guest - 02-23-2006

I think lot of reaction is due to Arabia Wahabi influenced Muslim population for some decades migrating to western world because of economical reason. Some did better in new country but lot are still struggling, when immigrant move to other country there is always quest to protect family and second is to keep religious belief intact. For hundreds of years Middle East stayed in vacuum and west modernizes and became powerful. Interaction between them stayed to minimum except they were ridiculed. But for Indian subcontinent it was all together it was different story. We were always fighting.
Why reaction is from everywhere?Â Now every country has mullahs from their native countries to preach new immigrant. They are the link and itâs always easy to play with immigrant insecurity.

Violent protests are from Syria, Lebanon, Indonesia and Pakistan. Every protest in these countries always have state blessing.Â

Even US is not involved but in every protest, protestors were burning US flag.
Why there is no noticable protest from Saudi Arabia, UAE and other Islamic countries?

Islamism - 4 - Guest - 02-23-2006

Nigerian Christians Mob Muslims 
QUOTEOnitsha has borne the brunt, with at least 80 of the deaths. The violence followed weekend protests over the publication of cartoons of Muhammad, the Islamic prophet.

"We don't want these mosques here anymore. These people are causing all the problems all over the world because they don't fear God," said 34-year Ifeanyi Ese, standing amid the concrete rubble of an Onitsha mosque.

With a crowd gathered, Ese angrily scrawled "Mohammed is a man, but Jesus is from above" on a shattered mosque wall with a burned stick.
.............

Should we start a new thread "Clash of Civilization"

Islamism - 4 - acharya - 02-25-2006

Resist Islamist pressure
Balbir K Punj
The Pioneer
24th Feb 2006
In December 1998, comedian Johnny Lever was sentenced to seven days of imprisonment by Additional Metropolitan Magistrate of Mumbai under Section 2 of Prevention of Insultâs to National Honour Act for caricaturing the national anthem and the Indian Constitution at a private function in Hyatt Regency Hotel of Dubai in 1990.Sleuths of Intelligence Bureau were entrusted the task of recovering his performanceâs videotape, which was then presented to the court as evidence. The Johnny Lever episode was recently refreshed in public memory after a private channel recently showed a video recording of Bollywood stars performing at the wedding of Dawood Ibrahimâs nephew.

Contrast this with the universal condemnation in the country of Prophet Mohammedâs cartoons but dodging the issue of MF Husainâs obscene painting of â Bharat Mataâ. Old-fox Husain has gone beyond his limits of denigrating Hindu gods and goddess; and in the process demeaning India . You do not need to engage any IB sleuth to procure a graphic evidence from beyond borders to prove this. Then why should there be one standard for Johnny Lever and another for MF Husain? Nor is protecting the honour of India the sole responsibility of the BJP or the Sangh Parivar. Do not the so-called secularists from Congress sing âVande Mataramâ -the hymn in the honour of Mother India and our national song - at AICC sessions? How can they sing paeans to Mother India and tolerate its âgraphic vilificationâ at the same time ? If defending âMother Indiaâ becomes an act of âHindu communalismâ today, then we are not far from âPakistanisationâ of the country! Last Monday BJPâs Ravi Shankar Prasad raised the twin issues of Prophetâs Mohammedâs cartoons and Husainâs painting portraying âBharat-Mataâ in Rajya Sabha during zero hour. But Parliamentary Affairs Minister

Suresh Pachouri of the Congress, while explicitly condemning the Prophetâs cartoons, did not mention Husain. It forced me and other Rajya Sabha members of the BJP to rush to the well of the House and demand unanimous condemnation of Husain as well.

Only persistent shouting of âBharat mata ki jaiâ for about 15 minutes could elicit a specific condemnation of the painter. Is it credible for the Indian Parliament to unequivocally condemn insult to Prophet Mohammed but maintain silence on the insult to Bharat mata, let alone Hindu deities?

After the Gujarat riots, some âsecularistsâ were suddenly reminded of Kashmiri Hindus languishing in camps for over a decade, only to show that they were not partial while sympathising with Muslim riot-victims huddled in camps in Ahmedabad. Had Gujarat tragedy not occurred, they have would not even paid lip-service to Kashmir. Had the cartoon controversy not erupted, the âsecularistsâ would have been happy to support Husainâs right to freedom of _expression as they have been doing so in the past.

India I am afraid, is turning into a camp following Islamâs jihad for world conquest. Our âsecularistsâ are behaving like stewards who used to follow Aurangzeb in his jihadi campaigns. Demographically, India forms the lone significant hurdle between two concentrations of Islam in West-Central Asia and South-East Asia (Indonesia, worldâs largest Muslim country). We are flanked by two regions with the largest concentration of Muslim population on our immediate left and right. If India goes down, the caliphate is a certainty, for whose establishment Islamists all over the world are working overtime.

If Indians - or Hindus - succumb to this Islamic pressure, then our civilisation runs the risk of collapsing. It might appear surprising that Muslim protest rallies in Hyderabad, Muzafarnagar, and Lucknow against Prophetâs cartoons published in European dailies should lead to looting of Hindu shops, stoning Hindus, shouting slogans against Hindu deities and ransacking the BJP office.No Indian newspaper has published or rather dared to publish the cartoons. Even then why have the Hindus been at the end of Islamic ire? It is because to Islam one kafir (non-Muslim) is as good as another. This was proved during the Solapur riots in Maharashtra in 2002. A critical comment on Prophet Mohammed by American evangelist Jerry Falwell led Muslims of Solapur to vent their ire upon Hindus.But is this not what happened in Mopla riots (1920)? BR Ambedkar in his book Pakistan or The Partition of India says, âThe outbreak was essentially a rebellion against the British Government. The aim was to reestablish the kingdom of Islam by overthrowing the British government...As a rebellion against the British Government it was quite understandable. But what baffled most was the treatment accorded by the Mopla to Hindus of Malabar. The Hindus were visited by a dire fate at the hands of Moplas. Massacres, forcible conversions, desecration of temples, foul outrages upon women, such as ripping of pregnant women, pillage, arson and destruction-in short, all the accompaniments of brutal and unrestrained barbarism, were perpetrated freely by the Moplas upon the Hindus .

Islamic behaviour is atavistic. Thus, I was not surprised when Uttar Pradesh Minority Welfare Minister Hajji Yakoob Qureshi put a price of Rs 51 crore (plus incentive in gold)on the heads of Danish cartoonists.

Refusing to acknowledge it as âsupariâ (contract killing money, as BJPâs Lalji Tandon described it) he defended his decision, on a private television news channel, as deriving legitimacy from Islamic law. Or in other words, the UP Minister was implying, âdamn your constitution, damn your law of the land, I recognise only Islam.â One finds an analogy in another description by BR Ambedkar -âNathuramal Sharma was murdered by Abdul Qayum in September,
1934.It was an act of great daring. For Sharma was stabbed to death in the Court of the Judicial Commissioner of Sind where he was seated awaiting the hearing of his appeal against his conviction under Section 195, IPC, for the

publication of a pamphlet on the history of Islam..The leading Moslems, however, never condemned these criminals. On the contrary, they were hailed as religious martyrs and agitation was carried on for clemency being shown to them. As an illustration to this attitude, one may refer to Mr Barkat Alli, a barrister of Lahore, who argued the appeal of Abdul Qayum. He went to the length of saying that Qayum was not guilty of murder of Nathuramal because his act was justifiable by the law of the Koran. This attitude of the Moslems is quite understandable.

What is not understandable is the attitude of Mr GandhiâThus when a senior member of All-India Muslim Personal Law Board Zafaryab Jilani defends Haji Yakub Qureshiâs Rs 51-crore prize money or Maulana Mufti Abul Irfan issues a fatwa on behalf of two âSharia courtsâ Idara-e-Sharia Darul Qaza and Ifta Firangi Mahali Taksal of Lucknow it does not come as a surprise. They are revealing something important about âIslam, the religion of peace, mercy and benevolenceâ. But what is not understandable is how âsecularistsâ are trivialising Haji Yakub

Qureshiâs threat that constitutes a cognisable offence under Indian Penal Code.

Samajwadi Partyâs Amar Singh looked ridiculous when he said Qureshi did not have enough money to foot Rs 51crore bill. UP Chief Secretary Alok Sinha (his script apparently prepared by UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav) says that those cartoonists are not citizens/residents of India. The IPC makes no distinction between a citizen/resident of India or otherwise.

It means the fatwa is acceptable; the quibble is only over money.I fear US President George Bush, who is not a citizen/resident of India, may receive a prize on his head from Indian Muslim organisations. Will the Indian Government twiddle its finger over citizenship status of George Bush in such a scenario? It is heartening to learn that a criminal case against Haji Yaqoob has finally been filed in Ghaziabad. It proves we are yet not living in a land dictated by Sharia.
(The writer is a Rajya Sabha MP and can be contacted @bpunj@email.com)

Islamism - 4 - acharya - 02-25-2006

Saturday, February 25, 2006 E-Mail this article to a friend Printer Friendly Version

Italyâs âtheo-consâ rally against âIslamist threatâ

ROME: Senior politicians in Italyâs government launched a policy manifesto on Thursday vowing to protect Western civilisation from what they said were the twin threats of Islamic fundamentalism and a moral vacuum.

Marcello Pera, speaker of the Senate and a friend of Pope Benedict, said people in the West were ashamed to stand up for their values and often blamed themselves for being victims of terrorism. âThe West has difficulty recognising itself,â Pera told a news conference to launch the manifesto. âAs Pope Benedict said: âthe West doesnât love itself any moreâ,â he said.

The document, entitled âFor the West, Force of Civilisationâ, begins: âThe West is in crisis. Attacked externally by fundamentalism and Islamic terrorism, it is not able to rise to the challenge. Undermined internally by a moral and spiritual crisis, it canât seem to find the courage to react.â

Pera, a member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconiâs Forza Italia party, wants centre-right politicians to sign up to the manifesto ahead of an April general election which polls say the centre left, led by Romano Prodi, is more likely to win.

Many politicians and some business and media figures have expressed support for the text, which calls for the spread of Western civilisationâs âuniversal and inalienable principlesâ.

Berlusconi himself has yet to sign the document, Pera said, adding however that the prime minister backed the project.

Peraâs manifesto was launched to a background of protests throughout the Muslim world against cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) published in European newspapers.

Many of the protests have turned violent and at least 11 people died in a riot outside an Italian consulate in Libya last week. Pera said the bloodshed could not be blamed on Europe.

âI donât think this can be seen as a response to something which happened in Italy and the West,â he said. âIn those places, fundamentalism was already getting ready and waiting for someone to put a match to the gunpowder.â

Violence by Islamist extremists in Britain and France had shown those countries had failed to integrate immigrants into society, Pera said, insisting Italy must make newcomers respect the Italian way of life.

Pera denied any suggestion that his rallying cry to the tendency Italyâs media has dubbed the âtheo-consâ â available online at www.perloccidente.it â was in any way inflammatory. âThereâs nothing that suggests a clash of religions or a clash of civilisations in this document,â he said. .

Berlusconi, who in September 2001 outraged Muslims by saying the West was a superior civilisation, gave an interview to Arab TV station Al-Jazeera on Wednesday where he dismissed talk of any clash of civilisations and condemned the Muhammad (PBUH) cartoons. reuters

Islamism - 4 - Guest - 02-25-2006

Anti-Jewish murders in France (The Wall Street Journal)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114064452021880485.html

The Murder of Ilan Halimi
By NIDRA POLLER, The Wall Street Journal

PARIS â Last week, a 23-year-old man initially identified as âIlanâ was found by a passerby stumbling in a field near the railroad tracks in the Essonne region south of Paris. Handcuffed, naked, with four-fifths of his body covered with bruises, stab wounds and serious burns, Ilan died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

Soon after, police provided more details. The victim had been kidnapped Jan. 20 and held for 24 days by a gang Courtesy the banlieues, the poor suburban projects that ring the French capital, who eluded capture while repeatedly contacting Ilanâs family with ransom demands. The police suspect the group was involved in other kidnapping attempts in the last two months that used young women as bait. Several of the targeted men worked, as Ilan did, in the small cell phone shops along Boulevard Voltaire in the mixed 11th arrondissement of Paris. In another case, a suspicious father replaced his son for a meeting with a girl who claimed to be a singer, and fell into the hands of masked men who tried to capture him but ran away when someone called the police.

Throughout Ilanâs disappearance, the police handled his case as a straightforward kidnap for ransom. The discovery of his body, bearing signs of barbaric torture over an extended period of time, raised serious doubts about this hypothesis. Later, a policeman admitted to the press that he and his colleagues were baffled by the gangâs erratic behavior. Ransom demands went up to â¬400,000, dropped to â¬100,000 one day, â¬5,000 another. The kidnappers called off several pickup arrangements, acting like amateurs, but were highly sophisticated in using untraceable emails and cell phones.

Yet one detail was consistently played down by the investigators and missing Courtesy the early media reporting on the killing. The victim, whose full name is Ilan Halimi, was Jewish. Most of the men targeted in other kidnapping attempts were Jewish. Most members of the gang who allegedly carried out the crime are Muslims, whose families come Courtesy the Maghreb or sub-Saharan Africa and live in the very sort of neighborhoods that went up in flames during three weeks of nationwide rioting last fall.

Jewish community leaders like Roger Cukierman, president of the Conseil ReprÃ©sentatif des Institutions Juives de France, an umbrella group for the countryâs 600,000 Jews, cautioned against hasty conclusions and unreasonable panic. But French Jews have become sensitive to a well-documented rise in violent Muslim anti-Semitism over the past five years and saw anti-Semitism as the missing link in this senseless crime. After all, Ilanâs family is simple and modest. Ruth Halimi, who is divorced Courtesy Ilanâs father, works as a receptionist. Why else, people are asking, would Ilan be tortured so cruelly for so long? No other motive, aside Courtesy sheer hatred, is apparent.

After Ilan was found on Feb. 13, the pieces started to fall into place quickly. When the police put out a sketch of a blond woman who had tried to bait other young men in similar circumstances as Ilan Halimiâs, Audrey Lorleach turned herself in. She led police to a housing project in Bagneux, a suburb in Hauts-de-Seine. Fifteen suspects in the Halimi murder, who call their gang the âBarbarians,â were brought into custody. Youssouf Fofana, who refers to himself (in English) as the âBrain of the Barbarians,â is the apparent ringleader. He is on the run and, investigators suspect, hiding in northern Ivory Coast, the birthplace of his parents. The girl who entrapped Ilan Halimi, who was also on the run, may be among the three people arrested in Aix-en-Provence Tuesday.

Ilan was held prisoner and abused in an apartment and later a utility room in the cellar in one of the project buildings. Both were lent to the gang by the concierge, who is also now in custody. Some in the gang were known delinquents. Mr. Fofana, who is 26, had served time for armed robbery. But another member was in on-the-job training in the IT service of a French TV station.

In initial statements to the press, Public Prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin and various police officials stuck to their hypothesis that money was the motive for the crime, not anti-Semitism. They noted that Ilan Halimi had been tortured as if the gang were following âa known scenario.â Photos of Ilan, naked, with a sack on his head and a gun pointed at his temple were emailed to family members suggesting, according to the police, âscenes of torture at Abu Ghraib.â As it turns out, the beheading of Daniel Pearl or Iraqi snuff films are the better comparison. An anonymous police detective quoted in Mondayâs edition of LibÃ©ration said: âItâs simply that, for those criminals, Jew equals money.â

Later that same day, investigating magistrate Corinne Goetzmann detained seven of the suspects on charges of kidnapping, sequestration, torture, acts of barbarism and premeditated murder in an organized gang. They will also be charged with targeting the victim on the basis of his religion, French for hate crime, which carries a stiffer penalty. Justice Minister Pascal ClÃ©ment explained that the charge of anti-Semitism was based on the fact that one of the suspects had declared to the judge that they picked a Jew because Jews are supposed to be rich. But, according to reports in the French press, some of the suspects in police custody said that they tortured Ilan with particular cruelty simply because he was Jewish.

No longer able to deny or play down the racial motive, the investigation is entering a new phase. One of the most troubling aspects of this affair is the probable involvement of relatives and neighbors, beyond the immediate circle of the gang, who were told about the Jewish hostage and dropped in to participate in the torture.

Ilanâs uncle Rafi Halimi told reporters that the gang phoned the family on several occasions and made them listen to the recitation of verses Courtesy the Quran, while Ilanâs tortured screams could be heard in the background. The family has publicly criticized the police for deliberately ignoring the explicit anti-Semitic motives, which were repeatedly expressed and should have dictated an entirely different approach to the case Courtesy the start. Police searches have now revealed the presence of Islamist literature in the home of at least one of the gang members. 

The highest echelons of the French government are now preoccupied with the murder of Ilan Halimi. Paris is well aware that the case threatens Franceâs international reputation, but far more than that is at stake. Once again, as in the suburban riots of 2005, the country is forced to come face to face with the criminalized, alienated and racist Muslim youth and their adult enablers in its midst.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin declared, in a long speech delivered at the annual dinner of the CRIF, that this heinous crime was anti-Semitic, and that anti-Semitism is not acceptable in France. He promised that the perpetrators would be captured and punished. Two French policemen were sent to the Ivory Coast with an international warrant to arrest Mr. Fofana who flew there on a one-way ticket on Feb. 15, the day that his photo appeared in Le Figaro. A delegation of the CRIF and members of the Halimi family on Tuesday met with Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

The murder of Ilan Halimi invites comparison with the November 2003 killing of a Jewish disc jockey, SÃ©bastien Selam. His Muslim neighbor, Adel, slit his throat, nearly decapitating him, and gouged out his eyes with a carving fork in his buildingâs underground parking garage. Adel came upstairs with bloodied hands and told his mother, âI killed my Jew, I will go to paradise.â In the two years before his murder, the Selam family was repeatedly harassed for being Jewish. The Selam case has not been opened by the magistrate. The murderer, who admits his guilt, was placed in a psychiatric hospital, and may be released soon.

The initial response to the kidnapping of Ilan Halimi suggested a comparably selective ignorance. But many things have changed in French society in the past two years. Then, faced with the new tide of anti-Semitism, the Jewish community was left alone with its distress and at times even accused of being justifiably targeted because of its support for Israel. Today the government has apparently decided that the barbarous hatred unleashed against one Jewish man is a threat to all of France.

Ms. Poller is an American novelist living in Paris since 1972.

Islamism - 4 - Guest - 02-25-2006

How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West Courtesy Within 
By Bruce Bawer
Doubleday. 247 pp. $23.95

Author sees growing Muslim enclaves hoping to rule Europe
By Carlin Romano

If the ongoing "Battle of Khartoon" (let's give it some historical resonance) proves anything, it's that many otherwise well-educated Westerners remain illiterate about Islam.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the editors of Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper didn't understand when they published their visual bombshells that some strains of Islam (but not all) oppose depiction of Muhammad. Consider that just one gap in knowledge that new books like Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept help close.

Indeed, thanks to Voltaire, the Enlightenment, and American freedom of expression, spring lists Courtesy prestigious publishers abound with scholarly tomes packed with information on Islam. Look, for instance, at Alan Jamieson's Faith and Sword: A Short History of Christian-Muslim Conflict (University of Chicago Press), or Efraim Karsh's Islamic Imperialism: A History (Yale)

Such studies follow scores of volumes over the last few years that offer context for the current fury over Muhammad's cartoon portrayal as a source of terror. Read, for instance, Muhammad in Europe (NYU Press, 2001) by Minou Reeves, an Iranian scholar who examines traditional European images of Muhammad as a xenophobic warrior and argues that they misjudge him.

But such books, with their sedulous, unapologetic presentation of fact, also pose a challenge to Islamic insisters that Muhammad never be criticized. Did you know that Syria, Egypt, Palestine, North Africa, Iran and Iraq consisted of Christians, pagans, Jews and Zoroastrians until Arab Islamic warriors subdued them by force (eventually conquering the whole Byzantine and Sassanid Persian empires)? That the citizens of Mecca, now the holiest Muslim city, opposed Muhammad and his new creed until he showed up on their doorstep with an army in 629?

It may also surprise you to learn that three Jewish tribes on the run Courtesy Roman persecution - the Nadir, Quraiza and Qainuqa - partly founded Medina (then called Yathrib), the city where Muhammad moved to escape his Meccan enemies.

According to Karsh, Muhammad and his followers systematically eliminated Medina's Jews and seized their property. In 627, Medina's Muslims declared that the Quraiza were collaborators with Muhammad's Meccan enemies. They beheaded 600 to 800 men of the Quraiza, threw their bodies in trenches, and divided their wealth.

Karsh and Jamieson serve up further uncomfortable tidbits. The Christian philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas, no draw-Courtesy-the-hip cartoonist, thought Islam incapable of the status of a true faith because he deemed it a religion of violence and war. (Aquinas overlooked massacres by Christian crusaders, which should remind us that Christians once arguably exceeded Muslims in violence.) The great English historian Edward Gibbon thought Arabic might have become the language of Oxford and Cambridge if Charles Martel's Frankish army hadn't stopped an expansionist Arab force at Poitiers in 732.

Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept, published this month, provides an extraordinarily timely and incisive complement to such works. His topic is far fresher, one rarely explained to Americans because of our shrinking coverage of Europe: the astounding growth of Muslim communities there over the last 30 years, and how they interact with traditionally Christian societies.

Bawer, a gay, neoconservative American literary critic Courtesy New York who has lived in Amsterdam (now more than half non-Dutch) and, since 1997, in Oslo, energetically reports here what happens between the terrorist incidents that prod mainstream American media to brief coverage: the everyday tensions of a Europe that, for the first time in many centuries, must face substantial Islamic populations and ambitions.

In Bawer's view, Western Europe is becoming a "house divided against itself." On the one hand, the educated European elite maintains an unshakable "belief in peace and reconciliation through dialogue," a faith (their only remaining faith) that every issue can be resolved without violence.

On the other hand, Europe's unassimilated Muslim communities are led in many cases, Bawer contends, by "fundamentalist Muslims" who seek "the establishment in Europe of a caliphate government according to sharia law." Such leaders, often imams and elders, see "Islamist terrorists as allies in a global jihad, or holy war, dedicated to that goal."

According to Bawer, liberals in Europe, even more than their American counterparts, want to believe that most Muslim immigrants share Western middle-class goals: a safe place to live, opportunities for their children, and the like. That accounts, Bawer argues, for the odd mix in their attitudes to Muslims: joy in the "multiculturalism" that makes their previously homogeneous societies more "colorful," and a nativist desire to keep Muslims in their place as exotica.

Bawer asserts that the reality - confirmed for him by the resistance of European Muslims to assimilation, and the marked presence in their communities of honor killings, homophobia, polygamy, marital rape, forced marriage, and intolerance of democracy and pluralism - is that European Muslim leaders, with demographics on their side, still harbor the millennial hope of taking power in Europe, and see the European attitude as both weak and hostile. It is "political correctness," Bawer writes, that has "gotten Europe into its current mess."

Accept his analysis or not, Bawer and his details startle, since American tourists rarely visit the Muslim communities that now ring many European cities, and American journalists rarely cover them. Apart Courtesy the heinous killings by angry Muslims of prominent Europeans such as Dutch professor and politician Pim Fortuyn (after publication of his book Against the Islamicization of Our Culture) and Dutch artist and filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who dared to question Islamic brutalization of women, Bawer describes a landscape of dysfunction.

Seventy percent of the inmates in French prisons, Bawer reports, are Muslim. Four out of five residents at Oslo's main women's shelter are non-Norwegian women seeking protection Courtesy male family members. In Denmark, "Muslims make up 5 percent of the population but receive 40 percent of welfare outlays." Ninety-four percent of asylum seekers who come to Norway arrive with no identification, a well-known subterfuge around Europe that virtually ensures asylum on humanitarian grounds.

Bawer's book also highlights the ironies of current global politics and immigration. Radical Islamists, for instance, focus their fury on the United States even though it, unlike Europe, experienced little antagonism with Islam until the creation of Israel, and in fact most resembles the traditional Islamic "umma" (universal Muslim community), in the generosity with which it welcomes foreign residents (though it differs in offering equality rather than second-class dhimmi citizenship).

Similarly, while Islamists explode with fury at the very idea that non-Muslims should occupy or live in Islamic countries, Bawer observes and amply documents that many employ every legal and illegal stratagem imaginable under the doctrine of "family reunification" to bring more relatives into their European countries. They then insist they have a right to be there and apply for the seemingly endless forms of European welfare: "unemployment benefits, relief payments, child benefits, disability, cash support, and rent allowance."

Bawer apportions blame for the "mess" he sees. Muslim immigrants insist on Islam's traditionally imperialist principles, which presume that no Muslim properly lives under the sovereignty of a non-Muslim state. Europeans maintain a "romantic view of Muslim immigrants" as "colorful" unfortunates worthy of assistance, but steadfastly resist their entry into elite professions and neighborhoods. Bawer beautifully capsulizes this European mind-set as "millions in aid, but not a penny in salary."

Ultimately, his book, like the cartoon controversy, raises profound challenges to standard ideas of democracy, authority, and free expression.

To whom does any country's physical territory belong? Those who have been there longest? A simple majority? The best-educated?

Must the cultural rules of longtime societies last forever? Or might it make perfect democratic sense for officially secular France to change should its Muslim population reach 50 percent, just as the English-speaking United States might need to accept Spanish as an equal language if Spanish speakers reach that mark?

Bawer's must-read book, in tandem with others, opens our eyes to an inescapable truth: Christians and Muslims fought wars for more than 1,000 years, with each at times conquering the other's territory by force. Non-Muslims need to know far more about Islam if they're going to take positions they can justify, whether that leads to cooperating with various Islamic world views or ultimately confronting them.

Islam, we're often reminded these days, means "submission" in Arabic. Enlightenment, we should equally remember, means replacing half-baked notions and myths with facts.

Islamism - 4 - Guest - 02-27-2006

JMM offers Rs 50 lakh for killing magazine editorQUOTEKhan's offer came close on the heels of former Uttar Pradesh minister for Haj and Minority Welfare Haji Mohammad Yaqoob's announcing a bounty of Rs 51 crore on the head of the Danish cartoonist, sparking a controversy leading to his exit from the government.

The Front leaders demanded severing of Indian government's friendly relations with Denmark and asked for a ban of commodities from that country.

Earlier, about 50 copies of the Delhi-based magazine, which published the cartoon, were seized by the police from a book stall in the steel city after a mob staged protest on Saturday night.

Islamism - 4 - Guest - 02-27-2006

QUOTE Yahoo! unbans! Allah!Â Â

Nor will Yahoo! accept yahoo, osama or binladen. But it will accept god, messiah, jesus, jehova, buddah, Hindu, satan and both priest and pedophile.


QUOTEI suspect, joking apart, that Yahoo are well under the heel. I checked Yahoo Images some while back to see if the Mohammed cartoons were there - no sign.

Compare:
Yahoo Images: search Â for "mohammed cartoons"

Google Images: search for "Mohammed cartoons"Â

The primary sources are absent from the Yahoo image archive. Let's be blunt: they are obviously censoring their results.

Islamism - 4 - Sunder - 02-27-2006

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5922_16...02500000000.htm

Iâm pleased with the God Iâve chosen but...â
Ramesh Babu
Thiruvananthapuram, February 26

Kamala Suraiya, famous poet and short story writer, says she regrets her decision to convert to Islam. But she is not giving up by reconverting to Hinduism.

Here is what's got the 72-year-old writer mad: "Everyone needs favours. In the name of Sakkath (alms giving), these people are fleecing me. I can't cope with it anymore." Some people, she added, carted away her things without her consent.

"In the last seven years (she converted in 1999) I lost nearly Rs 10 lakh and a number of precious things including ornaments," she said.

However, she has no plan to reconvert. "I am pleased with the God I have chosen. Allah is supreme for me. But I am not happy with the attitude of some people," she said while denying the news that she would come out of her veil soon.

"Islam is a beautiful religion. I still pray in Arabic," she said.
"While embracing Islam I thought they would protect me well. Instead of this, they are exploiting me. Forlorn at times, I regret my decision," she said.

Islamism - 4 - Guest - 03-01-2006

QUOTEMushwarat writes to the Danish Ambassador to India on the Cartoon Issue," from The Milli Gazette Online, with thanks to Olivia:

Letter from Syed Shahabuddin, President, AIMMM to Ambassador of Denmark
H.E. Mr. Michael Sternberg,
Ambassador of Denmark,
11, Aurangzeb Road,
New Delhi - 110 011.

27 February, 2006
Excellency,

May I draw your attention to our letter of 4 February, 2006 requesting you to convey the religious sentiments of the Muslim community on the publication of the defamatory and blasphemous cartoons in Denmark on 30 September, 2005.

We feel that had your Excellencyâs Government and the editor of the paper expressed their regret when representations had been made by the Danish Muslim community, friendly governments like ours, the Ambassadors of the Muslim countries in Copenhagen, the agitation could have been avoided.

We take this opportunity to submit through Your Excellency for consideration by Your Excellencyâs Government a constructive suggestion made by the American Jurist Prof. Bernard K. Freamon that the publisher of the cartoon may be prosecuted under Section 266b of the Danish Penal Code which provides for âcriminal prosecution and conviction for dissemination of any communication by which a group of people is âthreatened, insulted or degraded on account of their race, colour, national or ethnic origin or creedâ¦â The initiative of the prosecution would serve to cool down religious passions all over the Muslim world.

Accept, Excellency, the assurances of our highest consideration,

Sincerely,
Syed Shahabuddin, President,
ALL INDIA MUSLIM MAJLIS-e-MUSHAWARAT


Did he write letter to Indian President regarding Hussain painting or Nafisha Ali?

Islamism - 4 - Guest - 03-01-2006

UAE Govt confiscate text books from US schoolQUOTE"The text book dubbed Middle East as one of the most dangerous explosive areas in the world and the Muslim conquest of India as the most bloodiest in the world history," a report in the Khaleej Times said.
QUOTE"While there are clamour for change in the Middle East, one has to understand that these are the books coming from so called 'free world'. This is a typical example of how textbooks are used to manipulate the thought of young minds," Salami said.

The book would be withdrawn from the syllabus, he said.

They are smart people and know what to do. They don't have to deal with CDE or Ruth Green or Alan or jokers from Harvard.

Islamism - 4 - Guest - 03-03-2006

YOU MUST WATCH THIS :

Link

Islamism - 4 - Guest - 03-04-2006

Mudy,

This has to be one of the most powerful videos I have ever seen. A Jordanian (?) living amongst vipers and snakes, which Islamists are, has what millions upon millions are deathly scared of saying publicly.

Let me get on to the task of distributing this to as many people I know. Also, will request faithfreedom.org to host this site.

Thanks a million!

Reggie

Islamism - 4 - Guest - 03-04-2006

The text version of this interview is in:

http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/WafaSultan60302.htm

Islamism - 4 - Bharatvarsh - 03-04-2006

QUOTEAnti-Bush stir gets communal
- By Amita Verma
www.asianage.com

Lucknow, March 3: Anti-Bush protests here on Friday led to large- scale communal violence in which two minors were killed and over three dozen people seriously injured. Curfew has been imposed in the Wazirganj and Qaiserbagh police circles of the city.

Protesters vandalised and looted over 20 shops before setting them on fire. A building that houses a nationalised bank was also set on fire. Over two dozen vehicles, including three jeeps, were set on fire in the riot-affected areas and three police personnel were among those injured.

According to reports, an organisation called Mohammadi Mission had given a call for observing Friday as "Yaume Bad-dua" in protest against US President George W. Bush's visit to India. The processions began from various mosques after the Friday prayers in the afternoon, and as soon as one procession reached the congested Maulviganj locality, some boys began forcing shopkeepers to down their shutters.

A few shopkeepers who resisted were beaten up by the youths. The shopkeepers regrouped themselves in large numbers and returned to attack the protesters. The two groups pelted stones and threw bottles filled with acid while some miscreants opened fire from rooftops. Boys armed with iron rods and cycle chains could be seen targeting people belonging to a particular community.

As soon as news of the violence spread across the city, clashes began in Nazirabad, Aminabad, Charbagh, Aishbagh, Nakkhas, Model House and Cantt Road localities. Even the posh Hazratganj area was not spared, and miscreants vandalised several shops in the area and damaged private vehicles parked there.

The outbreak of communal violence, incidentally, coincided with President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's visit to the state capital on Friday evening. Former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was also present in the city when the riots took place. Several roads leading to the venue of the function at which the President and the former Prime Minister were guests were blocked, and the entire administration remained on tenterhooks until the VVIPs left for Delhi in the evening.

District magistrate R.N. Tripathi told reporters that a minor dispute had led to the escalation of violence, while principal home secretary Alok Sinha said that four companies of the Provisional Armed Constabulary and Rapid Action Force had been deployed in the communally-sensitive localities.

The officials, however, refused to confirm the death of a minor, even though TV news channels showed the body of the child lying on La Touche Road. The officials also denied that the police had opened fire on the rioters, but the injured persons who have been admitted to Balrampur Hospital told reporters that the police had targeted them and fired. Most of the injured have been hit by bullets either in the legs or in the neck. Some of the injured persons have suffered serious burn injuries caused by acid attacks.

The situation in Lucknow remains tense, though violence has been contained to a large extent.
Once again the Muslims of India show India's secular ethos and make us all proud.