Reporting from London -- In an audio message from a hide-out in South Asia this month, an Al Qaeda chief did something new: He sang the praises of an ethnic group that once barely registered in the network.
"We consider the Muslims in Turkey our brothers," said Mustafa Abu Yazid, the network's operations chief. Lauding Turkish suicide bombers killed in recent attacks near the Afghan-Pakistani border, he declared, "This is a pride and honor to the nation of Islam in Turkey, and we ask Allah to accept them amongst the martyrs."
The message is the latest sign of the changing composition of Islamic extremism, anti-terrorism officials and experts say. The number of Turks in Al Qaeda, long dominated by Arabs, has increased notably, officials say. And militant groups dominated by Turks and Central Asians, many of whom share Turkic culture and speak a Turkic language, have emerged as allies of and alternatives to Al Qaeda in northwestern Pakistan. Read more ...
DHAKA: A widow was whipped 202 times and a man 101 times following a fatwa by a religious leader for their alleged involvement in "anti-social activity" in a village in southeastern Bangladesh, prompting local protests and action by the police.
Piara Begum, a widow of 40, and Mamun Miah, 25, were whipped before hundreds of people at Khaiyar in Comilla district Saturday night.
The woman fell unconscious and was rushed to hospital. Doctors said she was critically injured and needed to be given intensive treatment.
Miah was whipped 101 times, The Daily Star newspaper said Monday.
Punishment under a fatwa is held illegal as per a high court ruling of 2001 in Bangladesh that has a predominant Sunni Muslim population.
The police arrested six people, including Moulana Mohammed Manirul Islam, a religious leader working in the local madrassa.
Piara Begum filed a case with the Debidwar police station under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act.
I've long linked to this blog and sometimes I've highlighted particular posts as exemplary.
Recently I made a comment and out of the blue I was invited to join it. I don't know whether that was a mistake, because many of my own posts are highly and pungently critical of some aspects of Islam - or at least some of its supporters - but here's my first post to see if I can find out something I consider to be very important , and it's a question about what is for me the crux of the Islam/religion of peace controversy.
What allows all you pious, observant Muslims to eschew violent jihad and taqiyya against us non-believers? What makes you the peaceful people that you are and lets you stay faithful to Islam at the same time?
This question may seem to be insulting and hostile to Muslims but it isn't meant to be so and so please bear with me while I explain myself... and then tear my arguments to shreds in the comments section if need be.
I'm not asking why so many of my fellow human beings who happen to be Muslim neither try to subvert nor enslave their predominantly non-Muslim homelands; nor do they lie to their neighbours about any intention to pursue jihad at some more propitious time. It takes no explaining or justification that a majority of pretty much any group mostly wants to get on with their lives without deliberately hurting anyone else - it's a common feature of human nature after all - though sadly not a universal one. I don't expect most of my Muslim neighbours her in north-west England to be plotting mayhem or savagery against the rest of us, or even oppression against those in their own religious communities. They get on with life running shops or teaching in schools and colleges or cooking or driving taxis or selling mobile phones or nursing in our hospitals, and it doesn't surprise me or alarm me that they do so - 'just folks,' and all that...
BUT - and this is where the politics comes in - some students of Islam whom I read and admire (such as Robert Spencer and Melanie Phillips ) say that the Koran is held to be the perfect and definitive word of God; incapable of amendment or improvement.
How does the Koran's clear and open-ended injunctions to faithful Muslims to wage war against infidels: some quotations here, and here; or which permanently demean unbelievers here (all collected from the strongly anti-Islam website The Religion Of Peace, ) square with both the faithfulness and the peacefulness of most Muslims in the West?
It is quotations like these that the head-hackers and bombers use to justify their killings, and I believe it is such writings that provide the original motivations of such crimes. But they are the bad guys. I'm asking about the good guys here.
As I say, I'm not surprised when my Muslim countrymen leave me unharmed and in peace, but how do they and you, the believing Muslims who are Muslims Against Sharia contributors get around what Mohammed quite clearly has reported in the Koran, and what the Hadith and Sunna also report Mohammed as having said or done or enjoined on the faithful to do?
How does a decent - or how do scores of millions of decent Muslims - go to work, pray, live alongside their non-Muslim fellows in amity or peaceful competition, and ignore the supposedly unimpeachable but bloodthirsty or cruel passages of the Islamic trilogy?
What makes you as soppy as me and Episcopalians and Jews? It's not the decency I don't understand - only how it triumphs over what seems to me and to many others to be very clear and oppressive notions?
Where's your 'Stop sign?'
Cards on the table about me here. I'm a Right-wing (by British standards) conservative and a willing follower of a formerly violent and cruel religion called heathenry, which was once suppressed and later wiped out by Christians throughout Europe, but which has now revived as a much gentler ( I'm glad to say) and tolerant minority cult of tree-huggers in parts of Europe and North America.
A man used a butcher's knife to stab his stepdaughter up to 20 times because he believed she was a "slut" who was interfering in his marriage, a court has heard.
Khaled Ibrahim Mohamed Ellaimouny, 38, was today jailed for 12 years for the attempted murder of his stepdaughter Amanda Lee Smith, who was 24 when her stepfather stabbed her in the chest, arms, legs and face as she sat on the lounge of the family's Shailer Park home in January 2007.
In the Supreme Court in Brisbane, Crown prosecutor Philip McCarthy said Ellaimouny, an Egyptian national who married Ms Smith's mother after meeting her online, moved in to the Smith family home in January 2006.
Mr McCarthy said Ellaimouny, who worked as a chef at a restaurant in the Logan area, got along well with his stepdaughter until late 2006 when he discovered semi-nude photos of her and her boyfriend on a family computer and began referring to her during arguments with Ms Smith's mother as "the slut daughter." Read more ...
"On a more serious front, I sincerely hope that when the president goes in for his annual check-up, the doctors at Bethesda will do a brain scan. Surely something must be terribly wrong with a man who seems to be far more concerned with a Jew building a house in Israel than with Muslims building a nuclear bomb in Iran."
Iranian-Americans and supporters march in Los Angeles Sunday to protest what they say are crimes against humanity and democracy committed by the government of Iran after the disputed June 12 Iranian presidential election results in Los Angeles, California.
By Jim Meyers
Foreign policy expert and author Michael Ledeen tells Newsmax that President Barack Obama "hasn't done anything" to help the Iranian people as resistance to the country's repressive regime continues.
Ledeen also says that the talks Obama seeks with the current regime will go nowhere, charges that Iranians "have been killing Americans all over the world," and warns that as soon as the Islamic Republic acquires a nuclear weapon, it will "test" it on Israel.
But he also believes the current regime is unlikely to survive. Israel will certainly attack Iran if the West fails to stop the ayatollahs from completing a nuclear weapon, Ledeen said.
"They've said as soon as they get a nuclear weapon they're going to test it on Israel, so that's a pretty big threat," Ledeen said, adding, "I expect the Israelis to eventually attack the Iranian nuclear facilities if the rest of the world doesn't find some other way to do it. Whether they will bomb it or not, I can't tell. There are a lot of ways to do it." More ...
CNN ran a report Monday about Youssef Megahed, the Egyptian resident alien and former University of South Florida student (where convicted terror supporter Sami Al-Arian was once a professor and the current leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ramadan Shallah, also taught). Megahed was acquitted in U.S. District Court in Tampa of federal explosives charges stemming from an ill-fated road trip to South Carolina with an associate who pled guilty to providing material support to terrorists. After Megahed's acquittal, the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Tampa took Megahed into custody and charged him with removal (deportation) violations, ostensibly on terrorism/security related violations that are believed to rely on evidence related to his criminal case, even though he was not convicted.
As reported by the IPT in April and again in June, Megahed's supporters and apologists argue Megahed is being treated unfairly. Some even claim the immigration case amounts to double jeopardy. The law, however, is clear. Deportation proceedings are civil/administrative in nature, not criminal, and foreign nationals (aliens) in the United States may be subject to removal based on a lesser standard of evidence than "beyond a reasonable doubt" in criminal cases, even if the evidence is very similar.
There is no double jeopardy. This process is not used by the government frequently and a decision to proceed requires significant review by high-ranking officials within DHS, sometimes in consultation with the Department of Justice.
Today's CNN article contained 55 paragraphs. Of those, only five reflected the U.S. Government's position in the case. The rest of the article describe Megahed's "plight" and how the former foreman of Megahed's criminal case jury traveled to the Florida detention center to personally visit with Megahed and his family.
The network report did identify a few facts that are worth noting, including that a government search of a computer found at Megahed's residence found "numerous videos, documents and an internet search history that supports Islamic extremism, jihad against the United States..." Also, CNN quotes a former Miami U.S. Attorney as saying, "The government doesn't use this a lot, but I think this is an arrow in the quiver that needs to stay because there are those cases where the government needs to do everything in its power to keep us safe, from some of those same individuals." Also, Guy Lewis states, "In one context, the real question is, are you going to jail for a long time. The other context is, are you going to get to live among us?"
The other 50 paragraphs clearly side with Megahed.
Saudi Arabia and four of its princes are immune from 9/11-related civil litigation after Monday's U.S. Supreme Court decision not to take up an appeal of a lower court decision that ruled against 9/11 families. The move keeps intact a ruling by New York's 2nd District Court of Appeals dismissing the lawsuits. In a statement, attorneys for the family of the FBI's former New York Executive Agent in Charge John O'Neill, who died at the World Trade Center, expressed disappointment at the ruling:
"We note, however, that there are still cases pending in the lower courts against other sovereign nations unaffected by the Supreme Court's ruling.
We note, too, that there are still cases pending against other defendants seeking to hold them accountable for their actions in assisting Al Qaeda."
Earlier Monday, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on a government report which found a Saudi-financed charity, the Saudi High Commission, helped supply weapons to the Somali warlord responsible for killing 18 U.S. soldiers in the 1993 Black Hawk Down battle. Read more ...
While President Obama praises the "long history" of U.S.-Saudi "friendship" and the "strategic relationship" between the two countries, some State Department officials are privately unhappy over a Saudi-produced film blaming "Zionist gangs" for the suffering of the Palestinians. The film is "The Olive Dream," a soon-to-be-released Arabic-language movie produced by Saudi filmmaker Osama Khalifa.
"The narrative of 'the catastrophe of 1948' and the resulting 'Palestinian suffering' has long served as an incubator for violence and anti-American sentiment," an anonymous State Department official wrote in a June 16 "Counterterrorism Communication Alert" obtained by IPT News. "As the US government works to push the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward, a significant obstacle to winning Arab public opinion and achieving lasting a lasting peace is the current narrative of the conflict."
But the Saudi-produced film, which "aims to teach children about the 'Palestinian Cause' from the viewpoint of a Palestinian refugee, may serve to further cement this narrative in a new generation of young Arabs and Muslims," the State Department official warned in the memo labeled "OFFICIAL USE ONLY." Read more ...
In 2006, in a small claims matter in Michigan, a Muslim woman, Ginnah Muhammed, refused to take off her face mask (niqab) while she testfied. Judge Paul Paruk dismissed her case. Muhammed sued, the ACLU backed her. They argued for a “religious exception” to courtroom attire. Although Muhammed’s small claim case was against a car rental agency, here is what Michael Steinberg, legal director of the ACLU of Michigan stated:
“The Michigan Supreme Court should not slam the door of justice on a category of women just because of their religious belief…Under the proposed rule, women who are sexually assaulted do not have their day in court if they wear a veil mandated by their religion.”
Sexual assault was not at issue nor was the victim afraid that testifying might lead to her death. Leave it to the ACLU to always get it wrong.
Finally, earlier this month, on June 17, 2009, the Michigan Supreme Court, in a 5-2 vote, ruled that a Judge had the power to “require witnesses to remove head or facial covering as (the witness) was testifying.” A Judge has the right to see a witness’s “facial expressions” to determine her “truthfulness” while she testifies. Read more ...
It's an understatement to say that the much-hyped speech hasn't stood up to the scrutiny of history scholars.
By David Solway
“In Greek mythology, Procrustes was a highway robber who tied travelers to his bed and made them fit; if their legs were too short, he stretched them; if they were too long, he cut them off.”
— Dictionary of Classical Mythology
President Barack Obama’s famous (or infamous) Cairo address of June 4, 2009, has been subjected to the unrelenting scrutiny of many reputable observers and distinguished political scholars — and found egregiously wanting. It is replete with distortions, fabrications, lacunae, misconceptions, inaccuracies, lies, exaggerations, and outright historical fallacies. There is scarcely a passage without its resident howler. I do not have the space to run through this near-interminable list here — anyone with a decent knowledge of history or ready access to a search engine can trawl for himself — but I will provide two exemplary instances of historical error. Read more ...
An exclusive Pajamas Media investigation reveals the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) to be a hotbed of extremism, racism, and terror support.
By Patrick Poole
Following up on Jennifer Rubin’s exclusive Pajamas Media article — concerning the efforts of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Rights Division to recruit employees to man their booth at the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) annual conference in Washington, D.C., — it bears examining exactly who the Obama administration and the DOJ are partnering up with. The Investigative Project on Terrorism notes that ISNA appears to be the new lead partner for the administration’s Islamic outreach after a top FBI official met with an ISNA vice president last week.
In response to Rubin’s report, Thomas Jocelyn of the Weekly Standard observed that ISNA’s name has come up in a current German terror finance investigation. It is believed that the Islamic group had donated $100,000 to the Third World Relief Agency at the very same time that TWRA was funding the terror network behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
According to Steve Emerson in his New York Times bestselling book, Jihad Incorporated, ISNA was also responsible for providing $170,000 in start-up cash for the Islamic African Relief Agency. The U.S. Treasury Department designated them a global terror finance entity in 2004 for providing direct support to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and Hamas. Read more ...
President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
As demonstrators in Iran continue to voice their support for democracy, I am deeply concerned that Iranian-American voices are not being heard. Their cultural and personal ties to the uprising in Iran are invaluable and deserve the attention of our great country.
Mr. President, below are a sample of statements on the uprising from Iranian-American leaders from across the US. I hope you will have your staff contact the people behind these statements to utilize their knowledge. No one better understands Iran, and what is happening on the ground there, than those with direct links to the country. Few in America should have greater say about our policy toward Iran than Iranian-Americans who fear for the safety of their friends and family still living in Iran.
"Mr. President it is now proven to you and your advisors that no matter what you say or don’t say the Islamic regime in Iran, like all other dictators, will blame United States because without it they have no other reason for being in power. This is an inescapable fact. Your advisors also know that the Islamic regime in Iran will drag negotiations without any outcome the history has proven this fact. Now that the people of Iran have been able to use a window of opportunity to prove to the world that this regime is not their representative, standing with them, is the right political decision to make. Oppressed people have always looked to America for freedom." Read more ...
As pictures of women, young and old, religious and non-religious, have plastered our Internet and TV screens chanting and bleeding for a recount in what many in Iran believe has been a fraudulent presidential election result in June 2009, their extraordinary heroism and sheer numbers have awaken the international media to the sizable female presence in the Iranian Green Movement (Nehzat-e Sabz).
A poignant question to ask at this point might be where and what are the positions of Iranian feminists inside the country. They have been for long at work demanding their civil liberties. To what extent are they now participating in defining the goals and aspirations of the Green Movement?
Unknown to perhaps many outside Iran, the Iranian women’s rights movement has been relentlessly working and expanding its demands for an end to gender discrimination in a country where in the realm of family and penal law, women are treated as second-class citizens. Since the 1990’s various NGO’s, magazines such as Zanan, individual lawyers, and specific campaigns such as the One Million Signatures and the Stop Stoning Forever Campaign have worked relentlessly and across ideological divides to publicize, mobilize and realize their specific demands for women’s rights in the legal sphere. The women we have been seeing marching in the streets of Tehran, Shiraz and elsewhere did not grow like mushrooms out of nowhere. They are the robust children of decades of sustained and grassroots struggle.
A Feminist Awakening (without the “F” word) slowly but surely has emerged in post-revolutionary Iran. Over 63% of university graduates are female in Iran and contrary to many countries in that region, Iranian women are visible in all areas of public life. They are lawyers, doctors, artists, publishers, journalists, bloggers, politicians, students and professors. In 2003, when I was visiting Tehran and other major Iranian cities, during any given state radio news broadcast, the entire news team were women, as their names were announced: Negin, Parvaneh, Sara, Fatemeh… This was often the rule and not the exception. Be that as it may, one should not paint an overly rosy picture of women in Iran. Only 12.3% of them are part of the public workforce and for many marriage is the only gateway out of their parental home. The staggering rate of 30% unemployment is particularly acute among young women, who also face additional gender discrimination in the workforce.
The world has just watched the cold-blooded murder of Neda in Teheran. The last sentence she uttered was: “Death to the Dictator.” Many of us are now about to see the haunting film about the real-life stoning of another Iranian woman, known as Soraya M. These two tragedies took place in a Muslim country.
The blood of real (not just reel) Muslim women, murdered either by the state or by their families, continues to cry out—not only in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa but also in the West.
Two days ago, on June 24, 2009, in Germany, a Turkish father, Mehmet O, a kebab shop owner, repeatedly knifed his fifteen-year-old daughter, Bursa, while she was sleeping. Despite the fact that Bursa, her mother, and her sister all wore hijab, Mehmet O. still felt Bursa was too “westernized,” and that she did not want her “strict Muslim father to control her life.” Bursa’s friends described her as a “fun-loving girl, (who) loved hip hop music….But that is no reason to kill someone.”
This is certainly not the first honor killing in Germany or in Europe by a Muslim father or brother.
Earlier this year, on March 4, 2009, a Turkish brother strangled his 20-year-old twin-sister, Gulsum Semin, because she allegedly had an abortion. Her father has been arrested as an accessory to this murder.
On July 3, 2008, in Norway, an Iraqi woman, Vian Bakir Fatah, who had divorced her violent husband, converted to Christianity, and was dating a Norwegian man, was stabbed to death by her ex-husband and by her violent 16-year-old son. Read more ...
The Stoning of Soraya M. is a riveting, immensely important film that unforgettably and unflinchingly depicts the horror of the Islamic Sharia punishment of stoning for adultery. But in today’s politically correct environment, reviewers are rushing to divert attention away from or downplay the root causes of the crime the film indelibly depicts – and by doing so, are condemning more women to suffer Soraya’s fate.
This phenomenon – which I call Islamophobophobia – was vividly manifested in a review of the film by Kevin Thomas that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Friday.
Islamophobophobia: John Derbyshire coined the term to refer to his distaste for those (foremost among them me) who study how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam in order to justify terrorism and Islamic supremacism, and make recruits among peaceful Muslims. But now that Derbyshire has coined the term, I think it should be applied not only to a distaste for so-called “Islamophobes” (an appellation that I reject in any case), but also to an anxiety not to appear “anti-Islamic,” no matter what contortions one may be forced into as a result. This kind of Islamophobophobia especially manifests itself among politically correct types who find themselves for whatever reason in the position of discussing some human rights abuse or terrorist activity that its perpetrators justify by reference to Islamic teachings -- they will discuss it, all right, but will go to any length to make sure nobody thinks that it really has anything to do with Islam, or that it is any different from what those nasty Christians do. Read more ...
Iranian-Americans have called on Obama to be more forceful with Iranian leaders [GALLO/GETTY]
It took two weeks of intensified government repression against protesters in Iran before Barack Obama, the US president, moved from cautious commentary to describing the crackdown as "violent and unjust".
The acknowledged elephant in the room preventing a more robust US response to the Iranian crisis is the Anglo-American-organised coup in 1953, which overthrew Mohammed Mossadeqh, the nationalist prime minister, and brought the 33-year-old Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, back to the country as unchallenged ruler.
The coup was motivated by Mossadeqh's and the Iranian parliament's decision to nationalise the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951, and by the fear that Soviet-inspired communists might take over the government.
The US-sponsored overthrow of Mossadeqh and our subsequent whole-hearted support for the Shah's brutal rule are ignominious chapters in the history of US foreign policy.
But does a coup 55 years ago really disqualify the US from standing up forcefully for democracy in Iran today?
It is highly unlikely.
US policies flawed
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, do not fear the US but rather their own people's desire to live in a country more like the US.
In fact, in poll after poll Iranians have revealed themselves to be among the most pro-American and pro-democratic people in the Muslim majority world.
The Iranian government needs little excuse to beat, jail, and otherwise punish its citizens. It is already doing a thorough enough job without US interference, and seems poised to go even further. However, if it goes too far it risks "losing legitimacy in the eyes of its own people," as Obama said at a June 25 press conference.
Obama is acutely aware of the real reason why he cannot be too forceful in supporting the millions of Iranians demanding to have their votes counted.
The problem is not with US administrations long past, but with the policies of the current administration.
The fact is that the US counts as its closest allies in the Middle East regimes who routinely rig elections - if they even bother to hold them at all - which produce governments that are far less legitimate than Ahmadinejad's today.
The substance of Obama's foreign policies in the Middle East and North Africa remain in many key areas strikingly similar to, and are in some cases more aggressive than, those of George Bush, his predecessor.
Saudi Arabia remains our most crucial Arab ally despite the fact that its government is among the world's most repressive and undemocratic (about which Obama has had nothing to say since becoming president).
Rather than encourage Arab democrats, the Obama administration is improving ties with Libya and returning an ambassador to Syria, where today we are courting Bashar al-Assad as a "key player" in the region, despite his country's abysmal record on human rights and democracy. Read more here...
Hamas support among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is waning, according to a survey conducted by the Palestinian Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC).
Palestinians attend a Hamas rally in Gaza City
According to the results of the poll published Monday, 18.8 percent of the Palestinian population backs the Islamist group, compared to 27% when the last JMCC survey was conducted in January.
The survey of 1,199 people also showed that 35% of Palestinians support Fatah, a nine percent rise compared with the previous survey.
In addition, 26.5% said they blamed Israel for the lack of a breakthrough in Fatah-Hamas reconciliation talks, while 23% said Hamas was responsible and 15% blamed Fatah.
Khader Khader, head of the JMCC media unit, said Hamas's popularity was hit by disgruntlement among Gaza residents over a lack of a deal in Egyptian-mediated reconciliation talks and the continued blockade of the territory.
"It's a sort of protest by the people (of Gaza) because there is no progress on these two major issues," Khader was quoted by Reuters as saying.
Prince Walid bin Talal is one of the world's richest businessmen
A member of the Saudi royal family has called for the assets of his brother to be frozen.
Prince Khaled bin Talal denounced his brother's media empire in an unprecedented public attack from within the ruling family.
Prince Khaled accused Prince Walid bin Talal of disseminating vice and violating the rules of Islamic Sharia in the conservative kingdom.
Prince Walid is one of the richest businessmen in the world.
It has long been known that there is a split within the ranks of Saud family between liberals and conservatives.
But, until now, they have always managed to keep a lid on the problem.
Prince Khaled said he had been forced to speak out after quiet efforts to advise his brother to mend his ways had fallen on deaf ears.
Prince Walid, known for his liberal lifestyle, owns a media empire which features entertainment channels that have long angered conservative Saudis.
Prince Khaled, told an Arabic website that his brother's plan to introduce cinema into Saudi society was the straw that broke the camel's back.
This was a reference to a Saudi film financed by Prince Walid, and shown in Saudi Arabia late last year despite fierce opposition from Islamist activists.
Nearly all forms of modern entertainment - particularly those that bring men and women together - are regarded by conservative Saudis as morally corrosive and can, in their eyes, undermine the religious foundation of the Saudi society and state.
Presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi, center, joins thousands of supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi at a mosque in Tehran's northeast.
As supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi shout out their support in Tehran, European leaders voice anger at the Saturday arrests of eight British Embassy staffers.
By Borzou Daragahi
Reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates -- Thousands of Iranians disputing the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad marched at an unauthorized rally Sunday, defying truncheon-wielding security forces and dire threats by Iranian leaders.
Meanwhile, European leaders' hackles were raised by the arrest a day earlier of eight British Embassy staffers in Tehran, a move that has sharpened Iran's confrontation with the West over the disputed election and its violent aftermath. Several of the staffers, all Iranian nationals, were quickly released. Read more ...
When a pro-terrorist organization announces its intention to launch a financial jihad against the West, it is well worth learning their methods. More significant than the promotion of a religious pseudo-financial scheme is the possibility their largely unregulated practices could release a new wave of toxic assets into the wider economy and trigger a series of small-scale Enrons.
The Muslim organization Hizb Ut Tahrir capitalizes on Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna's 20th century derivative, encouraging followers to build a parallel financial structure. Al-Banna envisioned the resultant Shari'a-compliant finance as a “back door” into Western financial markets and institutions through which to supplant liberty and prosperity with Islam. Muslim clerics including MB spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi promote Shari'a finance as generally safer than Western investments, a diversification method to steady personal assets -- and a stable economic system that should replace capitalism. Call it “financial replacement theology,” if you wish.
In July, Hizb Ut Tahrir plans to launch its U.S. arm with a huge Chicago “Khalifah conference” heralding the coming Caliphate and global Islamic supremacism. After 9/11, Germany and Sweden outlawed Hizb Ut Tahrir. In July 2005, Pakistan's then-president Pervez Musharaf warned Britain not to tolerate its continued U.K. presence. But in the U.S., Hizb Ut Tahrir has proudly announced intentions to replace capitalism with Islam. Read more ...
Much as the hammers that leveled the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked the end of the Cold War, so might the protests rocking Iran signal the death of radical Islam and the challenges it poses to the West.
No, that doesn't mean we'll be removing the metal detectors from our airports anytime soon. Al-Qaeda and its ilk, even diminished in strength, will retain the ability to stage terrorist strikes. But the danger brought home on Sept. 11, 2001, was always greater than the possibility of murderous attacks. It was the threat that a hostile ideology might come to dominate large swaths of the Muslim world.
Not all versions of this ideology -- variously called Islamism or radical Islam -- are violent.
But at the core of even the peaceful ones, such as that espoused by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, is the idea that the Islamic world has been victimized by the West and must defend itself. Even before the United States invaded Iraq, stoking rage, polls in Muslim countries revealed support for Osama bin Laden and for al-Qaeda's aims, if not its methods. If such thinking were to triumph in major Muslim countries beyond Iran -- say, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- violent extremists would command vast new stores of personnel, explosives and funds.
This is precisely the nightmare scenario that is now receding.
Even if the Iranian regime succeeds in suppressing the protests and imposes the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by force of bullets, mass arrests and hired thugs, it will have forfeited its legitimacy, which has always rested on an element of consent as well as coercion. Most Iranians revered Ayatollah Khomeini, but when his successor, Ayatollah Khamenei, declared the election results settled, hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets, deriding his anointed candidate with chants of "Death to the dictator!"
"Even if they manage to hang on for a month or a couple of years, they've shed the blood of their people," says Egyptian publisher and columnist Hisham Kassem. "It's over."
"Iran is the world's most conspiracy-minded country" I declared in my book, The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy. An entire chapter of that study focused on the Islamic revolution of 1978-79, documenting how "Regardless of political complexion, Iranians interpret the revolution not as an act of will but as the manifestation of mysterious forces. They debate less the causes of the upheaval than the identity of those forces." Another chapter took up the Iran-Iraq war. In both cases, I showed how the conspiracy mentality had a major role in the evolution of events.
And so, as the events of the past month unrolled in Iran – an intense buildup to elections on June 12, the regime's blatant act of electoral fraud, the massive street demonstrations, and the violent crack-down – I watched with special interest the role of conspiracy theories in Iranian political life. To my surprise and delight, their role appeared to be minimal. For once, Iranians were dealing with realities in Iran rather than imagining foreign bogeymen manipulating events in the country.
Then, as the crackdown ensued, the authorities resorted to form and, starting with Ali Khamene'i's key speech on June 19, they began blaming perfidious foreigners, and especially the British government, for their problems. Khamene'i described Western countries as "hungry wolves ambushing us and removing the diplomatic cover from their faces. Do not neglect these people." He went on:
The outstanding diplomats of some western countries who have talked to us with diplomatic courtesy up to now, have, during the past few days, taken the masquerade away from their faces and are showing their true image. They are showing their true enmity towards the Iranian Islamic state and the most evil of them is the British government.
The crowd responded by chanting of "Death to Britain."
As Iran's ruling ayatollahs tell it, the main strike force plotting to end Islamic rule in their country is not on the streets of Tehran but on the upper floors of a celebrated Art Deco building in central London. The propagators of an "all-out war" against the Islamic republic, as Iran's semiofficial news agency has called them, are a group of 140 men and women who work at the BBC's Broadcasting House, a stone's throw from the shopping mecca of Oxford Street in London. Mainly expatriate Iranians, they staff the BBC's Persian-language television service, on air for only six months and reaching a daily audience of six million to eight million Iranians — a powerful fraction of viewers in Iran, with its population of 70 million. …
The government has singled out several foreign news broadcasters for what it calls biased coverage: CNN, broadcasting in English, as well as the Voice of America and the BBC, which broadcast in Iran in Persian, the country's national language. But the BBC's Persian channel has been cast as the main threat, partly, BBC officials say, because Britain's colonial past has earned it a special place in Iran's official demonography. Hamid Reza Moqaddamfar, chief of the semiofficial Fars news agency, has described the channel's coverage as "psychological warfare," and said its mission was "spreading lies and rumors and distorting facts."
A pro-Ahmadinejad newspaper, Vatan Emrouz, even claimed that Jon Leyne, the BBC's Tehran correspondent, expelled from Iran on June 21, paid "a thug" to kill Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman who became a martyr to the protesters after she was shot dead during the demonstrations.
State-run television has interviewed protesters who said the Persian channel influenced them to take to the streets. One woman said the channel inspired her and her son to go out armed with hand grenades. Another woman said the channel's report that the riot police had attacked protesters prompted her to go to the streets, where she said she had found that it was the protesters, not the police, who were "beating up people."
Comment: It is one thing for the mullahs to raise conspiracy theories and another for the population to believe in them. I don't live in Iran and cannot judge the situation at first hand, but I get a sense from news reports that Iranians no longer suffer under the sway of their historic conspiracist mindset. If so, this would be a huge advance for the country.
IRAN says it has freed five of the local British embassy staff it arrested on accusations of stoking post-election unrest, a move that further threatened tense ties with London.
"Eight people were arrested. Five were freed and three are still being interrogated,'' ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said at a press conference in Tehran today.
Earlier, English-language state television Press TV had spoken of a total of nine arrests.
Mr Ghashghavi also said that Iran, which has accused Western nations, particularly Britain and the US of "meddling,'' has no current plans to close embassies or downgrade diplomatic ties with foreign nations.
"There is no plan at the moment to close any embassy or downgrade ties with them,'' Mr Ghashghavi said when asked if Tehran planned to close the British embassy.
The Fars news agency, announcing the arrests yesterday, said the British embassy staffers were accused of playing a "considerable role'' in the unrest that swept Iran after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie accused the British embassy of sending local staff "undercover among rioters in order to push its own agenda,'' the official IRNA news agency reported.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said yesterday that London had protested strongly over the arrests, which he described as "harassment and intimidation'' and dismissed claims the embassy was behind the demonstrations.
EU nations also vowed to respond to any harassment of diplomats in Iran with a "strong and collective response'', Mr Miliband said at an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Corfu.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki - who has previously said Tehran was considering downgrading its ties with London - urged Britain and the EU not to take rash action over the arrests.
"Don't continue with this losing game because this is neither in the interests of the British people nor the two countries' relations that have (already) been damaged because of the British Government's behaviour,'' he said.
He also called for European countries and officials to "revise their stand'' towards Iran, after supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused European and American officials of making "idiotic comments'' about the country.
Britain and Iran have already expelled diplomats in tit-for-tat moves last week.
At least 85 Islamic sharia courts are operating in Britain, a study claimed yesterday.
The astonishing figure is 17 times higher than previously accepted.
The tribunals, working mainly from mosques, settle financial and family disputes according to religious principles. They lay down judgments which can be given full legal status if approved in national law courts.
Disputes: Islamic leaders rule on disagreements
However, they operate behind doors that are closed to independent observers and their decisions are likely to be unfair to women and backed by intimidation, a report by independent think-tank Civitas said.
Commentators on the influence of sharia law often count only the five courts in London, Manchester, Bradford, Birmingham and Nuneaton that are run by the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, a body whose rulings are enforced through the state courts under the 1996 Arbitration Act.
But the study by academic and Islamic specialist Denis MacEoin estimates there are at least 85 working tribunals.
The spread of sharia law has become increasingly controversial since its role was backed last year by Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams and Lord Phillips, the Lord Chief Justice who stepped down last October.
Dr Williams said a recognised role for sharia law seemed 'unavoidable' and Lord Phillips said there was no reason why decisions made on sharia principles should not be recognised by the national courts.
But the Civitas report said the principles on which sharia courts work are indicated by the fatwas - religious decrees - set out on websites run by British mosques. Read more here...
'The positions of the U.S. and Palestinian Authority are closer than ever' June 28
By Aaron Klein
Jerusalem
JERUSALEM – The Obama administration told the Palestinian Authority the "golden era" of Israeli construction in sections of Jerusalem and the strategic West Bank will soon come to an end, a top PA negotiator told WND.
"The U.S. assured us that for the first time since 1967, we are going into a period where there will not be allowed a single construction effort on the part of the Israelis in the settlements, including in Gush Etzion, Maale Adumum and eastern Jerusalem," said the negotiator, speaking from Ramallah on condition his name be withheld.
Maale Adumim is located in eastern Jerusalem. Israel reunited the eastern and western sections of Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Six Day War. Eastern Jerusalem, claimed by the PA for a future state, includes the Temple Mount.
The negotiator told WND the positions of the PA and U.S. regarding ongoing Jewish construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem "are closer than ever."
"The U.S. used to differentiate between natural grown and adding new communities. Not anymore. No construction will be allowed, not even natural growth," the PA negotiator said.
"Natural growth" means adding additional housing to existing communities to accommodate the needs of a growing population.
The negotiator spoke yesterday just before Defense Minister Ehud Barak took off for Washington, D.C., for meetings with the Obama administration.
The negotiator claimed that while Barak might reach an understanding with the U.S. regarding possible West Bank movements, such a deal would be for Israeli political purposes and wouldn't translate into actual Jewish construction on the ground.
The Obama administration recently demanded Israel halt all settlement activity, including natural growth, in apparent abrogation of a deal made by President Bush to allow for natural growth.
The deal was forged just prior to Israel's 2005 retreat from the Gaza Strip. It was confirmed by Sharon aide Dov Weissglas in 2005, and in a Wall Street Journal column last week by Elliott Abrams, a former deputy national security adviser to Bush who reportedly negotiated the arrangement. The deal was in line with an official letter from Bush the year before stating Israel cannot be expected to withdraw from the entire West Bank and that the Jewish state would retain major settlement blocs there.
The West Bank borders major Israeli cities and is within rocket firing range of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Israel's international airport.
Military strategists long have estimated Israel must maintain the West Bank to defend itself from any ground invasion. Terrorist groups have warned if Israel withdraws, they will launch rockets from the West Bank into Israeli cities.
Many villages in the West Bank, which Israelis commonly refer to as the "biblical heartland," are mentioned throughout the Torah:
The book of Genesis says Abraham entered Israel at Shechem (Nablus) and received God's promise of land for his offspring. He later was buried in Hebron.
The nearby town of Beit El, anciently called Bethel, meaning "house of God," is where Scripture says the patriarch Jacob slept on a stone pillow and dreamed of angels ascending and descending a stairway to heaven. In that dream, God spoke directly to Jacob and reaffirmed the promise of territory.
And in Exodus, the holy tabernacle rested in Shiloh, believed to be the first area the ancient Israelites settled after fleeing Egypt.
CAPTURED Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit will shortly be transferred by Hamas to Egyptian custody as the first step of an ambitious plan to lift Israel's siege of the Gaza Strip, restore Palestinian unity and free about 1100 Palestinian prisoners, Arabic reports say.
The report in the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper comes in the wake of similar claims last week from European diplomatic sources, the official news agency of the Palestinian Authority and other sources.
Israeli security officials said they were unaware of any progress on the matter and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya said yesterday that the reports did "not reflect reality".
Despite these reservations, the sense that something major is afoot is widespread in the region.
According to the Asharq al-Awsat report, Corporal Shalit, who has been held in Gaza for three years without any visits by the Red Cross, will be visited by his family once he is transferred to Egypt. He will be held on "deposit" until Israel releases Palestinian prisoners.
The number of prisoners to be released has been the main point of contention since Corporal Shalit's capture. Hamas has demanded the release of 450 hard-core prisoners, some of them serving multiple death sentences for involvement in the detonation of buses and other terror attacks.
Israel has reportedly agreed to release only 175 persons on Hamas' list. Egyptian intermediaries have proposed a compromise figure of 325. The newspaper said Israel would release 400. In addition, Israel has already agreed to release about 600 other prisoners of lesser security weight, including women and youths.
Under the mooted deal, Israel would ease its blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has permitted entry of little more than food and humanitarian aid to the area's 1.5million residents for two years and paralysed the economy.
The Egyptian-brokered initiative, which reportedly has the blessings of Washington, goes well beyond a prisoner exchange and the lifting of the blockade.
The release of Corporal Shalit would be the first step in a process aiming at achieving Palestinian unity as well as an overall peace agreement between Israel and the Arab world.
Talks planned in Cairo between the Gaza-based Hamas movement and the Fatah movement, which dominates the West Bank, will focus on forming a unity government in the Gaza Strip until overall Palestinian elections will be held in January.
As a first step, the Egyptians are attempting to promote a prisoner swap between Hamas, which holds about 200 Fatah prisoners in Gaza, and Fatah, which holds about 800 Hamas prisoners on the West Bank.
If the Palestinians are able to resolve their internal differences sufficiently to establish a stable government, the way will be open to the resumption of peace negotiations with Israel.
The US and moderate Arab states, mainly Egypt, would play key roles in this process.
The international community advocates bilateral Israeli negotiations with the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon.
APPELLATE RULES KAUFMAN A JOURNALIST AND RULES THAT CASE HAS NO MERIT TO CONTINUE
(Dallas, TX) The lawsuit and restraining order that were filed against the Chairman of Americans Against Hate (AAH) Joe Kaufman by seven Dallas-area Muslim organizations, in October 2007, were thrown out this past week by the State of Texas Court of Appeals, Second District of Texas Fort Worth.
The seven plaintiffs included the Muslim American Society (MAS), which the U.S. government has called a front for the extremist Muslim Brotherhood, and three Islamic centers owned by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), an organization that was named a co-conspirator in the 2007/2008 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) Hamas financing trial.
The groups claimed in the lawsuit that Kaufman had written an article for FrontPage Magazine that libeled them, yet not one of the groups was actually named in the article. It was about the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and its connection to the financing of terrorism overseas. Kaufman, in October 2007, had flown to Texas to lead a demonstration outside an ICNA-sponsored event to expose this information to the public.
Regarding the restraining order or “temporary injunction,” the groups admitted under oath that neither Kaufman nor his group had ever threatened them in any way, shape or form. Indeed, with respect to this case, it was Kaufman and his organization that received a threat, before Kaufman’s arrival in Texas.
The case was placed in the Appellate, after the presiding judge refused to rule on whether or not Kaufman was a “media defendant” and refused to rule on the case (“summary judgment”) prior to it going to trial.
The Appellate dealt with both issues, stating that Kaufman was a “media defendant” and deserved all the rights provided to print journalists. And the Appellate moved to dismiss the case, on the grounds that the article written by Kaufman was not about and did not mention any of the plaintiffs or “appellees.” The Appellate basically agreed with everything that Kaufman and his attorneys were arguing and shot down the arguments from the losing side.
One of the more embarrassing arguments from the other side was that Joe Kaufman ran FrontPage Magazine. FrontPage, in reality, is run by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and Kaufman is a columnist for it. Both Kaufman and David Horowitz wrote and filed affidavits attesting to this. The plaintiffs worked hard to have these affidavits thrown out.
From the start of the case, Kaufman has called the lawsuit “entirely frivolous” and stated that it was only brought to harm Kaufman financially and to stop him from writing about the terrorism ties of the plaintiffs’ friends. In the end, the case was an important victory for Freedom of Speech.
Joe Kaufman is available for interview. E-mail: info@americansagainsthate.org.
A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced New Jersey resident Saleh Elahwal to 17 months in prison for providing material support to the terrorist organization Hizballah. Elahwal pled guilty in December to aiding the broadcasts of Al-Manar, a Hizballah-operated television channel which produces hate programming like this.
Elahwal's attorney, Edward Sapone, seemed relieved at the sentence and acknowledged that providing satellite access and technological help to a terrorist organization like Hizballah is not activity protected by the First Amendment.
In December Elahwal admitted that during 2005 and 2006 he helped provide satellite transmission services for Al-Manar. Elahwal and co-conspirator Javed Iqbal received $112,000 from Al-Manar through HDTV Limited, a Brooklyn company they operated. Iqbal also pleaded guilty in December to providing material support to Hizballah and was sentenced to 69 months in prison. Read more about Elahwal and Iqbal's guilty pleas here. Read more ...
Hizballah has greater capability than Al Qaeda of staging a mass-casualty terrorist attack in the United States, according to a top New York Police Department (NYPD) official.
"Hizballah at the strategic level, with its state sponsors, more or less decided not to attack the United States' interest directly in the continental United States at all," NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Counterterrorism Richard Falkenrath said Tuesday. "But our assessment is, if they ever change their minds, they have the capacity to inflict terrible damage on the United States, and I worry about that a lot. We haven't seen it yet, but I don't like to be in a position where our defense lies in the strategic decision of a terrorist organization."
In remarks to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Falkenrath added that he had seen strategic analyses of what could persuade Hizballah to alter its strategic decision not to attack the United States. Falkenrath said those would include "direct U.S. military operations against the Hizballah leadership" as well as attacks against Iran, the terror group's state sponsor.
Hizballah has focused its terrorist actions abroad because "they would have too much heat on them if they did attack the United States, and they can accomplish most of their interests without it," Falkenrath said. Read more ...
This is Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab, caught on film as he unleashed a devastating and indiscriminate attack in Mumbai that left 166 people dead. But this picture is not the most dramatic record of that day. During the raid, the Indian intelligence services intercepted mobile phone calls between Kasab, his terrorist comrades and a mysterious handler hundreds of miles away, who issued commands to shoot civilians without mercy. These shocking tapes reveal the sinister mind control used to turn young men into killing machines - and the casual, off-hand brutality of the men who masterminded the massacre
By DAN REED | 27th June
Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab at the Victoria Terminus railway station in Mumbai during last November's terrorist attack
'Do you want them to keep the hostages or kill them?' asks Brother Wasi of someone else in the control room.
The person replies with a casual grunt, barely audible through the background babble of the news channels playing on a nearby television.
At the other end of the line, 500 miles away, Akasha, a 25-year-old Pakistani, is squatting on the floor inside a besieged building in the centre of Mumbai with a murdered rabbi's mobile phone in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other.
He knows with complete certainty that this will be his last night on Earth. For his mission to be a success, he must be killed.
The two women hostages are on a bed nearby, trussed up and blindfolded. Another gunman, Umer, is dozing.
Now Wasi comes back on the phone. His manner is warm and paternal - the kind of calm, commanding voice you instinctively trust.
Wasi: 'Listen up...'
Akasha: 'Yes sir.'
Akasha speaks in a gentle, dopey murmur. He sounds exhausted.
Wasi: 'Just shoot them now. Get rid of them. Because you could come under fire at any time and you'll only end up leaving them behind.'
Akasha: 'Everything's quiet here for now.'
Wasi: 'Shoot them in the back of the head.'
Akasha: 'Sure. Just as soon as we come under fire.'
Wasi: 'No. Don't wait any longer. You never know when you might come under attack.'
Akasha: 'Insh'Allah' (God willing).
Wasi: 'I'll stay on the line.'
There's silence for 15 seconds. No gunshots.
Akasha: 'Hello?'
Wasi: 'Do it. Do it. I'm listening. Do it.'
Akasha: 'What, shoot them?'
Wasi: 'Yes, do it. Sit them up and shoot them in the back of the head.'
Akasha: 'Umer is asleep. He hasn't been feeling too well.'
Wasi consults his associates in the control room, then comes back on the line.
Wasi: 'I'll call you back in half an hour. You can do it then.'
The Taj Palace Hotel during the raid in November 2008
This conversation, remarkable for its off-hand cruelty, was intercepted by India's intelligence agencies at 8.40pm on Thursday, November 27 last year, two days into the three-day terrorist attack on Mumbai.
I first became aware of these wiretaps in January, when the Indian government released a dossier of evidence about the massacre. The dossier pointed an accusatory finger at Pakistan and included a few paragraphs of transcribed wiretaps as evidence.
At the time the thought of getting hold of the audio recordings themselves seemed fanciful. This was classified material, perhaps some of the most important wiretaps ever recorded by the Indian secret services.
Yet one morning four months later I returned to my hotel room in Mumbai looking over my shoulder and clutching an almost complete set of recordings. Soon the long-dead voices were playing through my headphones.
Gunmen caught on CCTV at the Taj Hotel - behind the double doors, 300 guests are sitting silently in a function room
Despite the difficulties we had in obtaining the tapes, I immediately questioned whether they were genuine, as it's well known that the Indian government was keen to pin blame for the attack on Pakistan. I recognised in the recordings the voices of people I'd spoken to at length - a surviving hostage and an interpreter.
EGYPTIAN security forces have arrested a leading member of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood and three others in pre-dawn raids, the group says on its website.
Abdel Moneim Abul Futuh, a member of the Islamist group's politburo, Fathi Lashin, a former judge, Gamal Abdel Salam of the Arab doctors union, and teacher Abdel Rahman al-Gamal, were detained, the group said on Sunday.
"The arrests are part of the regime's attempt to cut the Brotherhood off from Egyptian political life," the group's number two Mohammed Habib said on the website.
He said more than 140 members had been arrested in recent weeks.
The Brotherhood, Egypt's main opposition movement, is officially banned but members operate openly in the name of the group despite frequent government crackdowns.
It fielded candidates running as "independents" in the 2005 election, clinching one fifth of the seats in parliament, which is controlled by President Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party.
Egypt's next legislative election is scheduled for 2010.
The life that God gives, no man should extinguish. The illegitimate mullahs presently ruling Iran blatantly violate this sacred covenant by shooting at a large number of peaceful demonstrators who are demanding nothing more than their God-Given-Right to liberty and pursuit of happiness. The mullahs and their mercenaries are wasting precious human life to maintain themselves in power through terrorizing the population.
Our hearts are bleeding watching how brutally the government agents are beating up the children and assault them in their dormitories at night while they are sleeping or invade the sanctuary of their homes to beat them up or arrest them. Regretfully, the ruling regime sees these actions as part of their sacred duty. They see any defiance to the supreme leader as defiance to God. They call the demonstrators who just want their voices to be heard "terrorists," “thugs” and “agents of foreign governments.” If they do not shoot people outright, they savagely attack them with axes, chains, batons and any other crude weapons they can get their hands on.
We call upon the free governments of the world, as well as all other businesses, organizations and individuals to enlist in a non-violent campaign of ending the reign of terror of the belligerent clerical regime. Governments should enact the following:
* Renounce the use of force for ending the impasse.
* Declare unequivocally the commitment to respect the territorial integrity of Iran, as well as the rights of the Iranians to decide, through a democratic process, all matters pertaining to their life and country.
* Initiate, without delay or equivocation, a comprehensive program of assistance to all democratic Iranian opposition groups, both within as well as outside of Iran, in their struggle to accomplish the regime change themselves.
* Proclaim wide and far, the cardinal reason for taking these measures against the Mullahs' reign of terror is to prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons, the threat they pose to the region as well as to the world, and the stimulus they provide for other nations to develop their own nuclear arsenal.
* Enforce the U.N. sanctions by inspecting every vessel headed for Iranian ports to make sure they are not ferrying prohibited material. Other than vessels known to be carrying foodstuff and medicine, each ship should be subjected to elaborate inspection.
* Establish an Iran Assistance Fund, from Iran’s frozen assets as well as contributions from peace-loving individuals and organizations, to assist Iranian families during the hardship that the sanctions may create.
* Persuade Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and other Persian Gulf oil producers to significantly increase their output and drastically cut the price. It is what they must do to help forestall the emergence of a nuclear clerical Iran bent on ruling the region.
* Obtain court orders to freeze the overseas assets of Iranian leaders, since they are clearly ill-begotten funds that rightfully belong to the nation.
* Shut down, or severely restrict the operation of the Mullahs' businesses in Dubai and other Persian Gulf states.
* Reduce the staff or completely shut down Iranian missions. Severely restrict Iranian officials and nuclear scientists from foreign travel. Recall your ambassadors from Iran.
* Deny the Iranian airlines operation and encourage non-Iranian airlines to cease serving the country. Provide for flights that serve emergency medical and other health needs of the Iranians.
* File legal charges against the leaders of the Islamic Republic's wanton violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; for their crimes against humanity, genocidal actions against religious and political groups; for support of international terrorism; for demolition of religious sites and cemeteries; for rape, torture, and summary execution of prisoners of conscience; for forgery of documents, for acts of blackmail and fraud, and much more.
* Declare and treat the clerical regime as illegitimate.
* Stop or slow down Iran's import of refined petroleum products.
* Shut down the Islamic Republic's web sites and block their television and radio broadcasts.
* Locate and seize the regime's front organizations such as Alavi Foundation in New York City.
* Identify the agents of the Islamic Republic and prosecute them as promoters of international terrorism.
* Investigate individuals and organizations that lobby or front for the Islamic Republic.
* Take all necessary steps to stop investments in Iran. Persuade banks to refrain from dealing with Iran and the issuance of letters of credit.
* Pressure businesses to stop dealing with Iran.
* Pressure governments to stop doing business with Iran. Warn countries such as China and Russia against circumventing the U.N. resolution and engaging in commercial adventurism.
We, the undersigned, are greatly concerned that the confrontational course of the illegitimate clerical regime of Iran may ignite the flame of war. We urge the leadership as well as people of the world to join in the non-violent campaign of dislodging the mullahs and helping Iranians to establish a secular democracy. The Iran problem is both serious and urgent. It is a world problem. A warning to the world governments and others: You need to act now. Apathy is sleep. If you sleep, we will all weep.
A top FBI official met Wednesday with the vice president of the Islamic Society of North America, a move which followed the Bureau's decision "to use ISNA as their official point of contact with the American Muslim community," an email from an intelligence community veteran that was widely distributed Wednesday said.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has previously reported on the depth of ISNA's Muslim Brotherhood ties.
The FBI has not yet commented on the claim. But the IPT has confirmed that the meeting did take place at FBI headquarters. The decision to make ISNA the FBI's contact point came over the objections of case agents and supervisors investigating Muslim Brotherhood activity in the U.S.
Last year, the FBI cut off outreach communication with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), after evidence in the Hamas-support trial against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) raised questions "whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS." The FBI's case agent testified that CAIR was a Hamas front. Read more ...
The American Civil Liberties Union released a report June 16 (together with a You Tube video) attacking the U.S. government's efforts to shut down terrorist-financing charities. The report was based on 120 interviews, 115 of which were conducted with Muslim community leaders and other Muslims "directly affected by" U.S. government policies regarding the charities.
It suggests (contrary to a substantial body of evidence) – that the U.S. government was wrong to have acted against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, the Global Relief Foundation and other charities accused of raising money for terrorist organizations. The report also perpetuates the myth that the United States government may be planning to prosecute persons for unwittingly contributing to charities that were fronts for terrorism.
The ACLU asserts that post-September 11 policies targeting these charities have a "disproportionate" effect on Muslims and "are undermining American Muslims' protected constitutional liberties and violating their fundamental human rights to freedom of religion, freedom of association, and freedom from discrimination." Read more ...
Economic failure can lead to unrest, even revolution, as people come to understand that their standard of living is being adversely affected by the dangerous actions of their nation’s leaders.
By William R. Hawkins
Iran’s S upreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the theocratic Guardian Council continue their violent suppression of those protesting the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a vote that looks to have been rigged on a massive scale. Pro-democracy demonstrators have suffered hundreds of casualties as security forces have swept them from the streets. "Those arrested in recent events will be dealt with in a way that will teach them a lesson," said Ibrahim Raisi, a judiciary official. Read more ...
I'm NiteOwl AKA Josh Shahryar - twitter.com/iran_translator on twitter - and I've been immersed in tweets from Iran for the past several hours. I have tried to be extremely careful in choosing my tweet sources. What I have compiled below is what I can confirm through my reliable twitter sources. Remember, this is all from tweets. No news media outlets have been used. (All my work is released under Creative Commons (CC). You can freely use it and repost it wherever you'd like to. Just provide a link to the original source at the bottom.)
These are the important happenings that I can positively confirm from Friday, June 26 in Iran.
1. No large rallies or prsotests were held today. There were unconfirmed reports of small gatherings in isolated areas of the city, but for the most part, Tehran didn't seem to witness the same as it has been for the past two weeks. Sources indicated that it was in no way a sign of giving up, but rather a brief interval in more protests that are to come. They added that currently, the Sea of Green is organizing and regrouping as well as coming up with new ways to defy the authorities and also know of the fate of their leaders in order to progress.
2. At 1 PM, however, a large number of people in Tehran took to roofs and released green balloons to show solidarity with the Sea of Green and to commemorate protesters who've died so far. (Link showing the balloons: YouTube - IRAN RIGGED ELECTIONS: Green balloons were used as a form of protest all over Iran 6/26/2009 ) At night, the people again took to the roofs and chanted "Allah o Akbar" and "Death to the Dictator". They also burned candles and held vigils. There was confirmation of the death of one protester who was fired upon by security forces as he chanted from his rooftop. Reports of vigils also came from Mashhad.
3. Khamenei was supposed to lead Friday prayers in Tehran and give a speech; however, he was a no show. Ayatollah Sayyid Ahmad Khatami a hard-line cleric and a member of the Assembly of Experts who has strong ties with Khamenei and Ahmadinejad lead the prayers in his stead. He claimed that the protesters were acting against Allah, branded them 'rioters' and called for their suppression through any means possible. He also added that the government will not bend against pressure and that Neda was killed by protesters. This is backtrack from the government's earlier statements that Neda had been ordered to be killed by a BBC correspondent.
4. Reports indicate that the reason why Khamenei did not attend the prayers was Ayatollah Montazeri's statements yesterday that denounced the government's suppression of the protesters' 'legitimate demands'. This, according to sources, creates a divide between the powerful clergy which has pressured Khamenei just enough to stop him from giving out another speech of the caliber he gave last week. 4. Whether Montazeri's current stance will develop into something of a bigger boost to protesters remains to be seen. 5. (For those who don't know, Montazeri was Khomeini's designated successor until just a few months before Khomeini's death; he openly criticized the Islamic regime and was sidelined in favor of Khamenei. He still wields enough considerable support among the more moderate clergy and is popular among liberal Muslims in Iran.)
6. Meanwhile, on the government's official English News channel, Press TV, George Galloway, a British MP representing the constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow, spent several hours denouncing the protests, Israel and Zionism. He called upon the world to accept Ahmadinejad's re-election and called on the protesters to go home and accept the will of the people. He did not indicate which people he meant when he made that statement.
7. A reliable source indicated that Khomeini's family has thrown its lot behind the protesters. Although they denied calling out for a protest tomorrow, they indicated that they were with the protesters and claimed to be supporting the protesters lawful demands and don't consider Ahmadinejad's government legitimate anymore. This, coupled with Montazeri's statements and Larijani's lethargy, is a strong indication that the clergy are divided in what to do with the protesters and that there is a considerable level of public support now for the protesters among the religious elite.
8. The spokesperson of the Guardian Council announced today that a commission had been formed to recount 10% of the ballots cast with representatives of the candidates present. The commission includes Ali Akbar Velayati, Hadad Adel, Eftekhar Jahromi, Aboutorabi Fard, Dari Najafabadi and Hossein Rahimian. He also gave candidates 24 hours to appoint representatives that would join the commission in the recount.
9. As reported before, the government is heavily charging people for the return of their dead family members' bodies who were killed during the protests. Families are being charged thousands of dollars and are also required to sign a waiver that states they won't sue the police and that Mousavi is the reason behind the death of their loved ones. More people were arrested today including Mohammad Mostafaie, who is a prominent lawyer and important reformist.
10. . The Iranian Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden was attacked today by angry Swedish-Iranians after a peaceful protest. It has been reported that as the protesters neared the gate, one of the guards tried to force the protesters away which enraged them and they tried to take over the Embassy. The police were forced to call for back up to control the protesters. There was also a report of a molotov bomb thrown by pro-Sea of Green protesters at the Iranian Embassy in Bern, Switzerland. It caused little damage to one of the walls.
11. The government is continuously attacking and arresting Iranians who are using twitter to get the message out to the world. Several of our sources have so far been arrested or have stopped using twitter altogether, yet the remainder have pledged to continue until the last minute. Amidst the somber mood, some emotional moments can also be seen. One Iranian tweeted: "I would rather our Iranian youth were tweeting about Michael Jackson than having 2 face this death & horror. Lets set them free to do so."
(There is simply too much on the tweets about where Mousavi is at this point. According to last reports, he was being sternly watched by the government and his movement is restricted, but it's an ever evolving situation.)
Read this if you want to help or get help!
The government in Iran is still increasing internet filtering and throttling in an attempt to silence their people. Anonymous info shows that many in Iran are looking for proxy and Tor information in Tehran and all around the country. Please donate your bandwidth to help bring down the Iran Curtain. Here are links on how to help and get help on this:
Images and vids and instructions on how to send them to us:
Helpers with expertise in the field of medecine, translation and such:
“Medici Cu Internet is a collaboration between piratbyran.org, HackersWithoutBorders and werebuild.eu trying to organize contacts with medical expertise online since there are problems in Iran with hospitals being monitored by the government. Join the IRC-channel at #mci-ir - WebIRC - AnonNet or send an email to us at embassy [at] piratbyran.org for more info. Medical experts, Farsi-translators and people who know the medical situation in iran are welcome to join and collaboratively set up an index with common injuries and their best treatments.”
People Outside Iran: This is as clear and concise as I can be. I have not included ANYTHING that I have sensed to be remotely fishy, but humans always err.
People Inside Iran: Don't believe a WORD of what I am telling you. Do what you think is best, keeping everything in mind. I know LITTLE of what you know so make your decisions based on your OWN judgment.
P.S. Please post this around and tweet and retweet.
For previous generations, the question: “Where were you when Kennedy was shot” has served as a conversation starter as well as a catalyst for exploration of a shared history. It would seem that the quintessential question will soon be: “where were you when you found out Michael Jackson was dead?”?
For the record, I was at the gym. Credulous, I trusted that the Jackson story would get a few minutes of coverage before Bret Baier returned. My jejune confidence that Charles Krauthammer would momentarily be providing commentary about actual news was hastily crushed. Abstrusely, Fox News brought Shepard Smith in to cover this astounding turn of events.
You know what would be really shocking? Michael Jackson dying at the age of 87. That would have been a real stunner, well deserving of the nauseating nonstop narration that should be reserved for heads of state.
Time really stands still on the treadmill when you are listening to a fervid Geraldo lamenting Anna Nicole Jackson’s “shocking” death.
All other news of the day having been declared inconsequential, Fox proceeded to indulge in unnecessary and disproportionate keening about the calamitous death of the world’s most famous pedophile.
The same Michael Jackson who once told a reporter it was “sweet” and “charming” to sleep with little boys and ply them with “Jesus Juice” (known to lucid people as “wine”) has been deified. Jackson, who dangled one of his babies off of a hotel balcony also obtained those children via a bizarre and labyrinthine arrangement, named one of them Blanket and made them wear burkas.
Jackson is exceedingly popular in the United Kingdom, confirming Mark Steyn’s reflection that the United Kingdom is further along than the United States in the march toward complete social and economic collapse. But not to worry, we won’t quit until we’re Number One.
Michael Jacksonrecently converted to Islam. Michael’s brother, Jermaine, converted to Islam in 1989. Even the Religion of Peace failed to deliver true bliss.
Americans know far more about Michael Jackson than they do about the history of Iran and its relationship to the United States. Most of what America knows is wrong, having been subjected to pertinacious propaganda in Ayers’ based public education.
Which is why the interest in the life and death of Neda Agah-Soltan was so facilely dwarfed by the opulent freak show that surrounds Michael Jackson.
Neda was the beautiful young Iranian woman who was gunned down in the streets of Tehran for the crime of showing up. She showed up to take a stand for freedom and took a bullet in the neck for her aspirations. A relative in the United States had cautioned Neda not to attend any demonstrations, telling her “They’re killing people.” To which the lionhearted and prescient Neda replied: “Don’t worry, it’s just one bullet and its over.”
For just a flicker in time, Neda became an icon, a symbol of the young Iranians’ longing for the most elemental liberties. It was easy for Americans to be incensed at the barbarous slaughter of a young woman so lovely and earnest. Young Iran has caught a glimpse of freedom, the inescapable byproduct of advancing technology. The noteworthiness of Neda is in no small measure due to the ease with which young Americans can appreciate her as not so unlike themselves.
Part of the delusive indoctrination that goes on in public schools includes the rewriting of Iranian history in a way that abets the left.
In actuality, before the Jimmy Carter regime, the United States and Iran were on friendly terms. The Shah of Iran was the least backward of all Muslim leaders.
The shah, who is erroneously characterized as a villain, was responsible for giving women the right to vote. In other Arab states, they still don’t have the right to leave the house without a husband or other male relative.
Iranians are understandably horrified by the new American president who has referred to the Ayatollah as Supreme Leader, a show of respect for the legitimacy of the barbaric regime. Barack Obama went so far as to send a letter to the Ayatollah Khomeini weeks before Iran’s June 12th election. Obama was pandering to the brutal, backwards and oppressive Iranian leadership.
Back when the news still took the trouble to cover the bloodbath in Iran, the world saw young Iranians holding signs in English. Urgent pleas were coming through computers worldwide begging the leader of the free world to help the Iranian people. Many Americans would be amazed to learn how many Iranians were educated via petrodollars in the United Kingdom or the United States. Some Iranian young people speak far better English than your local high school kids.
The late shah’s son reached out to Obama for support:
“I would like to take this opportunity and tell the President this is a crucial moment - on behalf of my compatriots and millions who have been turning to the outside world, particularly to this President - to say: don’t let us down.”
While Barack Obama was eating ice cream, Neda’s parents were forced from their home by government agents. Public displays of mourning were shut down. Nineteen year old Kaveh Alipour was gunned down by government barbarians. After frantically searching for news about his missing son at hospitals and eventually the morgue, Alipour’s father was told he would be required to pay a $3000 “bullet fee” to reimburse the government for the ammo expended in executing his child.
Barack Obama did eventually deliver the obligatory “we are outraged” statement. He held off as long as he could, until public opinion became too clamorous to overlook. While he gabbled, the violence in Iran escalated. Iranian citizens were being massacred in the streets with axes and machetes. Students were being routed from their beds in their dorm rooms.
Ronald Reagan responded to a similar cry for help from the people of Poland who were then enslaved by the Soviet Union. Reagan minced no words in decrying the Soviet Union as an “Evil Empire”. He never expelled gibberish about how the United States shouldn’t “meddle” as innocent citizens suffer.
Then, as today, pantywaist liberals were caterwauling about toning down the rhetoric so as not to pique oppressive dictators. Thankfully, Reagan ignored such nattering. The Poles were doing what the Iranians are today: insisting on the most basic of human liberties. Ronald Reagan had no intention of sitting on the sidelines waiting to see how this thing played out:
“In a stiff note to Soviet boss Leonid Brezhnev; Reagan said that if the Russians kept up their thuggish response to Poland they ‘could forget any new nuclear arms agreement.’ Gone too would be better trade relations, and in their place would be the ‘harshest possible economic sanctions’ if they even thought of invading Poland as they had done with Czechoslovakia in 1968 or Hungary in 1956.”
The Soviets responded by declaring martial law and shutting down the Polish borders, as well as squelching communications with the outside world.
Reagan was unflinching. He wrote in his diary:
“I took a stand that this may be the last chance in our lifetime to see a change in the Soviet Empire’s colonial policy re Eastern Europe. We should take a stand and tell them unless and until martial law is lifted in Poland, the prisoners were released and negotiations resumed between Walesa and the Polish government, we would quarantine the Soviets and Poland with no trade or communications across their borders. Also tell our NATO allies and others to join us in such sanctions or risk an estrangement from us. A TV speech is in the works. “
Reagan helped spirit the defecting Polish Ambassador out of the country and to the United States. Leonid Brezhnev was livid. Reagan was delighted; Brezhnev’s outrage confirmed to Reagan that he was on the right track. Ronald Reagan went on to use every tool at his disposal to topple Brezhnev’s regime and replace him with Lech Walesa.
Ronald Reagan won the battle to liberate the Polish people. They have not forgotten. He is considered, in the words of the Polish president, the ”architect of democracy.”
Barack Obama is certainly no Ronald Reagan. The entire world, including the United States would be better off and more secure if the Ayatollah’s government toppled. The death of a pedophile has created a distraction from having to deal with the knotty problem of full scale slaughter in the streets of Iran.
MORE than two dozen Iranian journalists are among the hundreds of people imprisoned by the hardline government in Tehran as part of the violent post-election crackown, according to Amnesty International.
As many as 30 journalists remain in detention, according to the human rights group, which calls the arrested reporters "prisoners of conscience".
Mass gatherings have waned into scattered protests as the Iranian clergy that rules the country tightened its repression of opponents since the bitterly disputed election.
Foreign news journalists have been banned from the streets, and some foreign reporters have been expelled from the country.
Two journalists reporting for foreign news outlets have also been arrested, according to Amnesty: Maziar Bahari of Newsweek, on June 21, and Iason Athanasiadis-Fowden of The Washington Times, who was arrested on or around June 19.
About 20 of 25 employees of the Iranian newspaper Kalameh Sabz were arrested at their office on June 22. Their whereabouts remain unknown, according to Amnesty. Opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi established the newspaper earlier this year.
Amnesty International spokeswoman Sharon Singh said Amnesty has at least two sources on each of the arrests. In many cases family members bring their problems to the organisation.
"If nothing else, the authorities must immediately disclose the whereabouts of these journalists, ensure that they are not tortured or otherwise ill-treated and allow their families and lawyers access to them,'' said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa for Amnesty International.
"Unless the authorities lift all unlawful restrictions on freedom of expression which includes the right of journalists to report on events and release all the journalists arrested, we can only assume they are trying to hide evidence of abuse and further silence any critical voice,'' Sahraoui added.
Keyvan Samimi Behbehani, editor of the banned Nameh magazine, was arrested at home, the group says. He is a member of the Center for Human Rights Defenders' Arbitrary Arrests Committee.
Also arrested was Mohammad Ghochani, the editor of Etemad-e Melli. Amnesty International believes he is held in a Ministry of Intelligence prison.
While Iranian-American protesters packed streetcorners in Westwood last Saturday afternoon in support of the revolution currently playing out in the streets of Tehran, an historical drama about stoning in Iran got underway at the Los Angeles Film Festival mere blocks away.
For the few who don’t know by now, The Stoning of Soraya M. is based on French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam’s bestselling book, which relates the true story of a woman in a remote Iranian village, in the years after the 1979 Khomeini revolution, who is falsely accused of adultery and stoned to death by a mob desperate to cleanse themselves of this affront to their collective honor and to their religion. It’s not only a gripping story in its own right, but it shines a harsh spotlight on the almost unimaginable reality that the barbaric punishment of stoning still exists in the Iranian law code, despite a largely nominal 2002 moratorium, the result of pressure from Western human rights groups.
(Full disclosure, even though I’m not reviewing the film here: I’m close friends with the filmmakers Cyrus and Betsy Nowrasteh, I provided Mpower Pictures with a bit of research on the project, I’m friends with other cast and crew and producers associated with the film, and I think stoning is bad. So don’t take my word for it when I say Soraya will be the most important, affecting film you’ll see all year. Instead seek out the multitude of reviewers who recommend the film, including Big Hollywood’s John Nolte and then see it for yourself.)
Following Saturday’s screening was a panel discussion, not so much moderated as simply hosted by Iranian novelist Khaled Hosseini, author of the bestselling The Kite Runner, who personally selected the film for the L.A. Film Festival. The panel also included Soraya’s writer-director Cyrus Nowrasteh, starring actress Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Dr. Reza Aslan, billed as an Islamic scholar.
Heading off any concerns about possible Islam-bashing in the movie, Mr. Nowrasteh noted at the discussion’s outset that Soraya is actually a pro-Muslim film, because it shows how a few hypocrites can hijack a religion for personal reasons, not to mention that the story’s victim is herself Muslim. He went on to discuss his personal attraction to the story and the process of bringing it to the big screen. Ms. Aghdashloo eloquently responded to a couple of questions about her personal passion for the role and for addressing the real-world issue of stoning.
The Q & A was shorter-lived than many including myself would have liked, or at least less focused; one question, for example, was directed to Mr. Hosseini about his novels rather than the movie. But the focus really got blurry when Reza Aslan took the mic.
“Well,” he started, “I guess it’s up to me to put this into some sort of historical context.” If only he had, then people might better understand why the outrage of stoning still exists, and why it exists today only in territories in the grip of Sharia, or Islamic law. Instead Aslan proceeded to so dilute any context at all that people told me at the reception later, which he did not attend, that they either had no idea what he was talking about or simply tuned him out. What he did do, in several obfuscating turns at bat, was utterly whitewash Islam, its prophet Mohammed, and Iranian lawmakers past and present of any responsibility whatsoever for the practice of stoning.
He began by asserting that “many cultures” struggled with the issue of stoning. I nearly interrupted him right there to ask, “Really? Which cultures besides those under the thrall of Sharia law? Do Laplanders stone adulterers? Peruvian Indians? The Watusi? Minnesotans?” Aslan clouded any potential for understanding by claiming that culture, not religion, is responsible.
Dr. Aslan, an assistant professor of creative writing at UC Riverside with degrees in religion, is such a professorial rock star that he has a MySpace fan page (“Even though he’s the greatest smartie-pants ever he’s a living doll and exceedingly cool,” the site gushes). Not unusually for professors, he seemed to revel in regaling his captive audience with rambling answers devoid of much actual meaning. At one point the answer meandered so tortuously that when Aslan was done I turned to friend and fellow Big Hollywood contributor Charles Winecoff and said, “What was the question again?” “Question?” Charles replied. “What was the answer?”
The gist of his message was this: not only is religion inseparable from culture, but the words of, say, the Bible or Quran are utterly devoid of meaning in and of themselves, blank slates upon which we impose our own biased interpretations. Thus, to use one of Aslan’s own examples, if you’re a “misogynistic prick,” you’re going to view the Quran through that woman-hating lens and impose your own meaning upon it, regardless of what Mohammed, supposedly transcribing directly from Allah, actually wrote. Hence, Islam and Mohammed are not responsible for their followers’ misinterpretations, their patriarchal culture is.
No one would deny that religion and culture aren’t closely intertwined (though I would argue that religion influences culture more than the other way around), but puh-leeze – it’s beyond absurd to say that there is no substantive difference between Mohammed’s message and Jesus’, that there is no meaning inherent in their words, or that the massive edifices of their religions have not been built, shakily or not, upon the foundations of those words. It’s also disingenuous to suggest that present-day stoning has nothing to do with a seventh-century religious directive. It’s true that stoning is a pre-Islamic practice not mentioned in the Quran; but the tenets of Islam are based not solely on the Quran, but derive also from the hadith, or the tales of Mohammed’s life, and Dr. Aslan neglected to mention that Mohammed does command stoning as a punishment for adultery in the hadith.
Nonie Darwish, the Egyptian-American author of, most recently, Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, and someone who knows a thing of two about women under Islam, stood in the audience and challenged Aslan at length about Mohammed and misogyny. He acknowledged one minor, innocuous point, but then dismissed her flatly with “Everything else you said is wrong” and handed the mic back to Mr. Hosseini. Not “That’s a common misconception,” or “Let me quote chapter and verse of the Quran to clarify things.” Just “Wrong.” End of discussion.
(Yet more disclosure: I personally know Ms. Darwish and can attest that she is an affecting, enlightening speaker precisely because she speaks truth plainly and without the kind of empty circumlocutions Dr. Aslan relies on to befuddle the uninformed and to absolve religion of any responsibility for the actions of its believers.)
After implying that Islam has simply been distorted by lots of misogynistic pricks, Dr. Aslan cheerily reassured us that Islamic scholars through the ages got around their discomfort with the whole stoning embarrassment by making it “impossible” to convict anyone of adultery, thanks to a legal formula of required witnesses that stacks the deck in favor of the alleged adulterer. Sounds good, except that people get convicted of it and stoned anyway, and he doesn’t explain why, if Mohammed/Allah never sanctioned it, Islamic scholars ever had to wrestle with the practice in the first place or why they don’t simply ban it as un-Islamic.
To be fair, Dr. Aslan did cut through the fog with a couple of straightforward declarations, but even these raised more questions than they answered. One such jaw-dropping assertion – “There is no such thing as Sharia” – will come as thrilling news to those awaiting lashings, amputations, beheadings, and stonings in communities from Somalia to Nigeria to Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia, etc. where Sharia is in full effect. Another Aslan stunner: “Mohammed was a seventh century feminist.” Surely, I thought, this outrageous soundbite would elicit guffaws from the audience!
But the audience sat guffaw-less. Instead, applause greeted almost every one of Aslan’s opaque, vaporous commentaries. I’d like to believe that this was because he had finally finished talking, but the disappointing reality is that he was simply affirming things that many in the audience, Iranian and otherwise, desperately wanted to believe: that there is no connection between Islam and the Sharia-sanctioned brutality we’d just seen dramatized onscreen, and that Iranian authorities actually disapprove of it.
A much-comforted Iranian woman next to me stood up and, after insisting on being called upon by Mr. Hosseini, gushed “Reza, I love you!” She neglected to express such love for Cyrus Nowrasteh, the director of this extraordinary film; maybe Mr. Nowrasteh needs to rev up his own MySpace fan page.
Overall, Dr. Aslan breezily downplayed stonings in general - Hey, they almost never happen and only in outlying areas out of reach of the rule of big city law, so what’s the big deal? Irrepressible radio host and documentary filmmaker John Ziegler, sitting behind me at the screening, let out a sardonic “Besides, it’s not like it’s as bad as waterboarding, right?” But that wasn’t any solace to a 13-year-old girl sentenced by a Sharia court and stoned to death for adultery in Somalia just last October (after going to the authorities herself and reporting she was gang-raped).
Admittedly, that wasn’t in Iran. Okay, so let’s look at the recent record there: an Iranian woman’s conviction of adultery was upheld just last November and her sentence of stoning confirmed. In January of this year, two men were stoned to death in Iran for adultery, and in May of this year, yet another man was stoned to death (the woman involved repented and presumably got her lashings instead). At least ten more men and women await death by stoning around the country.
The Stoning of Soraya M. is too important a film, and the issue of stoning under Sharia law (oops, I forgot – Sharia doesn’t exist) is too critical to allow an apologist like Dr. Aslan to whitewash Sharia with vague deflections and rude dismissal of debate. Lives are still at stake; men and women are still facing death in this grotesque manner (did I mention that it is specified in Iranian law that the stones to be hurled must not be too small to inflict significant damage nor too big to kill the victim immediately?). If we do not debate honestly the medieval ideology that lies behind this cruel practice, it will never end, and there will be more Sorayas.
This just in, even as I write: The Iranian judiciary is claiming they’ve decided to eliminate stoning. Call me skeptical, but I’ll believe it when it’s officially enshrined in law, when those awaiting death by stoning have their sentences commuted (to lashings, which will certainly result in very muted cellblock celebration), and when no more stonings happen, even in remote villages. In any case, considering that The Stoning of Soraya M. was on a list released in March of Western films that Iran finds objectionable and insulting, and considering the widespread international media focus on Soraya and its relevance to the current unrest in Iran, there’s no doubt that the growing awareness of the film has pressured the Iranian authorities to at least look like they’re doing the right thing.
The best part of the crisis in Iran, is that extremists and fundamentalists everywhere are panicking. They thought that the Iranian regime would remain in place for years, perhaps decades to come. Tehran has been supporting them - think of Hizbullah, Hamas but also dozens of other fundamentalist and extremist* organizations, newspapers, groups, etc. - since the very start of the Iranian Islamic Revolution back in 1979. They rely heavily on the Mullah’s for spiritual and material support. If Khamenei is removed from power, and replaced by a group of reform-minded clerics and politicians, they have a major problem.
And they know it. Which is why both Hamas and Hizbullah sent fighters to Iran a week ago or so. Reports say that Iranians are aware of this, and even talk to Basij militia members before they beat them up, to find out whether they speak Farsi or Arabic. If it is the latter, they can count on no mercy whatsoever. And rightly so.
The Jerusalem Post published an incredibly fascinating article about this matter. From it:
"Iran spends billions of dollars in different regions for various causes. Iran is the second-largest source of funds in the world, exceeded only by Saudi Arabia, for Islamic causes. From Somalia to Lebanon’s Hizbullah, from Hamas to the Egyptian Shiite movement, Iranian support - whether through direct funding or military and training - will be jeopardized if the theocrats are unseated. So would Iran’s support as a major donor to various proactive Muslim organizations in Europe, North America, and South America. The Iranian government’s role in supporting, training and facilitating the Sudanese Holocaust in Darfur is significant, with only the Chinese playing a larger role."
And that’s exactly why people such as Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a pan-Arab newspaper, writes article after article in which he defends the regime, and criticizes the protesters. He fears they will rid themselves of their oppressors, because them doing so would weaken the entire fundamentalist and extremist movement considerably.
"It is certain that those groups and organizations that might expect their funding to be in danger would start lobbying various governments to turn a blind eye to events in Iran. Whether Western politicians have any stomach for this type of lobbying at this point is another topic of discussion. Indeed the global Muslim theocracy movement is in danger at the hands of the Iranian people not only financially, but also in terms of the legitimacy of theocracy as a political system.
It is too early to say what the long-term impact will be, but it is certain that there has been at least a negative psychological impact on the legitimacy of theocracy as a result of the Iranian protests. There may be those who will try to spin the story and claim that the people of Iran still support theocracy and their beef is only with the election and Ahmadinejad. One can say with certainty that for the first few days the Iranian people tried to manage this evolution leaving some wiggle room for the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei. But as of last Friday the gloves were off. With Ayatollah Khamenei showing no restraint, people started chanting “death to Khamenei”, a sign of the realization that they could even go further and let the world know what they really want: the abolition of theocracy in Iran.
Whether the brave people of Iran are successful in their aspirations to live without theocratic rule is unknown. However, it can be said with certainty that their efforts have changed the face of the theocracy movement not only within Iran, but also globally."
To me, that’s the most significant effect of the crisis in Iran.
The Mullahs have proved that their ideology is not merely radical, but also weak and opposed by the majority of Iranians. They rule by the point of a gun, as every extremist group has to. They don’t have support. When push comes to shove, they stand alone. And that is how it will always be. That’s a major setback for fundamentalists everywhere, and that’s also why it’s so important that world news organizations and blogs show this truth - that the Mullahs have failed because their ideology is both wicked and weak - to everyone out there.
*Fundamentalist and extremist are not per definition the same. Extremists do not merely wish to live according to a fundamentalist interpretation of their religion, they also want others to do so, and are even willing to use violence to reach their goal.
TORONTO, 24 juin 2009 - Le Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) applaudit le président français Nicolas Sarkozy pour sa condamnation sans équivoque de la burka comme un instrument d’oppression des musulmanes.
Le MCC croit que le port de la burka est sournoisement présenté aux musulmanes comme un acte de foi et un précepte religieux. Sohail Raza, président du MCC, a déclaré que « les islamistes qui plaident pour le port de la burka dans l’espace public ont pour seul objectif d'exercer un contrôle sur la vie des femmes, réduisant leurs chances d’apporter une contribution significative à la société. »
Les Canadiens de bonne foi ont dû apprécier la déclaration du président Sarkozy. Le MCC demande à nouveau au gouvernement canadien d'interdire le port de la burka dans l’espace public au Canada.
Aucune musulmane ne fait véritablement le choix de porter la burka. L'argument que les musulmanes portent la burka par choix ne tient pas la route, vu la nature généralement oppressive de la communauté musulmane orthodoxe. On ne peut parler d’un véritable choix que si la femme a accès à une alternative. Si on n'a pas proposé d'alternative à la musulmane, on ne peut pas considérer qu'elle a opté pour la burka. « Si la burka est une question de choix, alors pourquoi est-ce que je ne vois pas un seul homme musulman porter ce sac noir de la honte», a déclaré Sohail Raza.
La burka est un vestige de la culture médiévale qui n'a pas sa place au Canada, en France ou ailleurs au 21e siècle alors que nos sensibilités modernes reconnaissent que l'égalité des femmes est un droit inaliénable et universel. La burka devrait être interdite dans toutes les sociétés civilisées.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles invited select members of the Iranian American opposition to petition the United Nations Security Council to expeditiously intervene on human rights in Iran.
A panel of prominent professors, activists, spiritual and political leaders spoke out against the United States’ calculated hesitation and for fervent support of the protestors. These community members came together to discuss, analyze and propose an accurate solution to engage the international community and to diminish the world’s silence toward Iran.
“The Iranian people have already taken their fate into their own hands. All they need is moral support,” said Hamid Arabzadeh, a professor from the University of California Irvine.
“Twitter, the blogs, are the virtual ships that stopped on these shores 60 years ago and were turned away. What we are asking is not to turn the ships of the Iranian people away,” he said pointing around at the walls of the venue, the Museum of Tolerance, a museum commemorating the Holocaust. Arabzadeh was referring to events that took place during World War II. Read more ...
Ibn Warraq et Michael Weiss expliquent comment l’Organisation de la conférence islamique a réussi de manière spectaculaire à infiltrer le Conseil des droits de l’homme de l’ONU et à affaiblir de l’intérieur les instruments de défense des libertés.
Les États-Unis qui avaient quitté ce conseil, y font actuellement un retour. S’ils n’arrivent pas à faire une différence, des voix s’élèveront pour réclamer son abolition. Warraq et Weiss préconisent la création d’une Ligue des démocraties qui agirait en parallèle.
Ibn Warraq est senior fellow du Center for Inquiry Transnational. Il est l’auteur de cinq livres sur l’islam et la critique du coran, dont Why I am not a Muslim. Michael Weiss est éditeur pour Nextbook. Ses écrits ont été publiés dans Slate, The Weekly Standard, The New Criterion, Standpoint, le New York Sun et ailleurs.
Inhuman Rights, par Ibn Warraq et Michael Weiss, City Journal, Spring 2009. Adaptation française par Poste de veille.
Le Conseil des droits de l’homme de l’ONU, l’ami des islamistes et des tyrans partout dans le monde
En décembre 2006, l’Organisation de la conférence islamique (OCI), un groupe international fondé en 1971 et représentant 57 pays, a réuni un sommet d’urgence à La Mecque. L’événement est resté de triste mémoire depuis que deux imams en colère venus du Danemark ont présenté un dossier de dessins publiés dans le journal danois Jyllands-Posten et se moquant du prophète Mahomet. Dans le tumulte qui s’en est suivi, les musulmans ont assassiné plusieurs personnes en Europe et incendié l’ambassade danoise de Beyrouth.
Pourtant, à ce sommet, l’épisode des caricatures n’a pas été le pire exemple des attaques musulmanes contre la liberté d’expression. La décision essentielle de l’OCI à La Mecque a été d’adopter une politique de tolérance zéro à l’égard de tout ce qui pouvait être perçu comme des insultes contre l’islam. Dans son « Programme d’action décennal » l’OCI annonçait qu’elle allait créer un « observatoire » de surveillance des actes « d’islamophobie ». Elle allait également « agir pour que les Nations unies adoptent une résolution internationale contre l’islamophobie, et demandent à tous les états de promulguer des lois en ce sens, avec sanctions dissuasives », ce qui était pour l’essentiel l’objectif de la résolution non contraignante adoptée en mars 2008 par l’assemblée générale de l’ONU pour la lutte contre la diffamation des religions. Et elle allait « participer à tous les forums régionaux et internationaux et les coordonner efficacement pour protéger et promouvoir les intérêts collectifs de l’Umma islamique, y compris par réforme des Nations unies [et] élargissement du nombre de membres du Conseil de sécurité ».
L’objectif était simple : infiltrer et affaiblir de l’intérieur les conventions et institutions démocratiques, d’une manière qui rappelle « l’entrisme » des groupes marxistes dans le parti travailliste britannique au cours des années 70 et 80. Le plan de l’OCI n’a pas atteint tous ses objectifs, bien sûr. Mais il a réussi de manière spectaculaire pour l’un d’entre eux : le Conseil des droits de l’homme de l’ONU (ou CDH).
The Obama administration yesterday announced that it will increase assistance of arms and funds to Somalia’s government, as it tries to beat back a terrorist insurgency that includes an international who’s-who of jihadists, including Al-Qaeda.
It does not exaggerate the stakes in Somalia to say that for the first time in its history, Al-Qaeda is about to have rule over an entire country. The Al-Shabaab, a Somalia-based affiliate of the group, assassinated the country’s national security minister on June 18 and currently controls the entire south and large portions of the central parts of the nation, along with parts of the capital. Should the terrorists succeed, they will also have extremist Somali networks in the West to call upon to expand their jihad and support their efforts.
Al-Shabaab and its allies have received extensive backing from foreign countries, the greatest of which is Eritrea, a single-party state with a history of religious oppression and with a recent fondness for rogue states like Iran. Eritrea was accused by the U.N. in June 2007 of secretly providing Somali insurgents with “huge quantities of arms” possibly including suicide bomb belts and anti-aircraft missiles. Read more ...
An Iranian doctor who claims he tried to save Neda Agha-Soltan, whose death during election protests made her an opposition icon, said today she was apparently shot by a member of the Islamic Basij militia.
Arash Hejazi, who is studying at a university in the south of England, told the BBC that the crowd identified the man they believed was the shooter shortly after the young woman died from a gunshot wound to the chest. Footage of Soltan bleeding to death captured in amateur videos posted on the internet and broadcast across the world triggered an outcry over Iranian authorities' clampdown on protests against the disputed presidential vote.
Hejazi told the BBC he was visiting friends in Tehran when he heard there were protests nearby, and decided to take a look. When they reached the main street, they saw anti-riot police coming on motorcycles towards the crowd.
“All of a sudden everything turned crazy,” he said. “The anti-riot police threw teargas among people and the motorcycles started rushing towards people.”
He continued: “We heard a gunshot. And Neda was standing one metre away from me ... We were just standing and all of a sudden I turned back and I saw blood gushing out of Neda's chest.
“She was in a shocked situation, just looking at her chest, which blood was gushing out ... We ran towards her and lay her on the ground.
“I bent over her and I saw the bullet wound right in the chest below the neck with blood gushing out. My experience says that it was the aorta that was hit and the lung as well.”
He added: “Her blood was draining out of her body and I was just putting pressure on the wounds to try to stop the bleeding, which wasn't successful unfortunately, and she died in less than one minute.”
The people around her took her body away in a car, Hejazi said.
The protesters thought the gunshot had come from a rooftop nearby, but later saw a member of the Basij militia on a motorcycle. They stopped him and disarmed him, the doctor said.
“He was shouting, 'I didn't want to kill her'. I heard him,” Hejazi said.
But the protesters did not know what to do with the man so let him go, but not before taking his identity cards and taking his photo.
The doctor returned to his office to wash off the blood on his hands, but recalled: “I didn't sleep for three nights afterwards.
He said he had decided to speak out, despite the potential risks which meant he would probably not return to Iran, because “I don't want her blood to have been shed in vain”.
Iran's hardline media sought today to deflect blame over the killing of Neda, saying that someone with a smuggled gun had opened fire in the street. The doctor rejected this version of events.
(IsraelNN.com) Iranian anti-regime activists are hoping for an Israeli technological hand to help them fight the Islamic Republic. As of now, hundreds of protesters have been killed by the regime, which is evidently using Arabic-speaking armed thugs from Hizbullah to help perpetrate the violence.
"Dear Israeli Brothers and Sisters," writes Iranian dissident Arash Irandoost, "Iran needs your help more than ever now. And we will be eternally grateful. Please help opposition television and radio stations which are blocked and being jammed by the Islamic Republic (Nokia and Siemens) resume broadcast to Iran. There is a total media blackout and Iranians inside Iran for the most part are not aware of their brave brothers and sisters fighting and losing their lives daily. And the unjust treatment and brutal massacre of the brave Iranians in the hands of the mullah's paid terrorist Hamas and Hizbullah gangs are not seen by the majority of the Iranians. Please help in any way you can to allow these stations resume broadcasting to Iran.
"And, please remember that we will remember, as you have remembered Cyrus the Great's treatment of you in your time of need," Irandoost concludes, signing his blogged call for help "Your Iranian Brothers and Sisters!"
In an interview with Israel National News, Iranian expatriate pro-democracy activist Amil Imani said that Irandoost's message represents the sentiments of much of the youth in the streets in Iran. They have a strong belief in the technological know-how of the Israelis to overcome the Iranian regime's attempts to block communications.
"This is going to be the most massive, impressive revolution of the 21st century," Imani said, "and we're seeing it live." However, he added, it is now too dependent on Internet communications, so the protesters are very much in need of outside assistance to fight the technological and information war.
More generally, Imani said, the Iranian people are lionizing any leader of any nation who comes out strongly against the Islamic Republic at this time.
According to Imani, at least 500 people have been killed by Iranian government forces, with another 5,000 injured.
But the hospitals are no longer safe, he added, as the gunmen from the basiji militia enter the emergency wards looking for wounded protesters. Therefore, Imani said, sympathetic doctors have taken to treating the wounded wherever they can, including in private homes.
Even outside Iran, thousands of protesters are out in the streets every day, especially in the United States. Imani said he thinks the phenomenon represents unprecedented unity in the Iranian expatriate community.
As for the basijis themselves, Imani reported, many of them are Lebanese and Palestinian Authority Arabs hired by the regime to do its bidding. Iranians reportedly captured seven basijis who spoke no Persian, only Arabic. According to Imani, 10,000 more Arab hired guns arrived in Tehran to serve the mullah-led regime.
But they are not the only ones thinking about guns at this point. Some Iranian protesters, Imani reported, have taken to threatening their oppressors, "God help you when we get weapons!"
Even outside Iran, thousands of protesters are out in the streets every day, especially in the United States. Imani said he thinks the phenomenon represents unprecedented unity in the Iranian community, within Iran and abroad.
As a result of the government naming the Council on American-Islamic Relations an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terrorism case, the Muslim community is withholding contributions and distancing itself from the group, a new report reveals.
Washington-based CAIR, which claims to be the largest Muslim advocacy group in the nation, has been identified by the Justice Department as a participant in an ongoing criminal conspiracy to support Hamas, a designated terrorist organization – "a conspiracy from which CAIR never withdrew," federal prosecutors charge.
The blacklisting has scared off many of CAIR's contributors and hurt the organization's recruiting efforts and overall operations. What's more, some Muslims have avoided events organized by CAIR and asked the group to remove their name from its mailing list.
The president of CAIR's Dallas-Fort Worth chapter, for example, complains that his office has suffered a drop in contributions since the naming of CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator.
"Contributions to CAIR have gone down, so we can hire fewer people, can run fewer activities," chapter president Moufa Nahhas said.
"People are afraid to come to events" sponsored by CAIR, he added. "Mosques are also hesitant to open the doors to us, to the organization."
Even the Dallas Central Mosque in Richardson, Texas – the erstwhile headquarters of the Holy Land Foundation – has pulled up the welcome mat to CAIR since a federal jury convicted the Muslim charity and five of its leaders for funneling more than $12 million to Hamas terrorists.
Holy Land's top leaders – including a founding director of CAIR's Texas chapter – were recently sentenced to in effect life terms in prison. The Dallas Central Mosque formerly supported the defendants.
"The mosque doesn't even want the administration of CAIR to come and pray there, because of fear," Nahhas complained.
CAIR also is having a hard time recruiting new leaders.
"People don't want to serve on the board," Nahhas said. "They say they support us and want to help, but they don¹t want to be named as a member of the board."
The case has had a chilling effect even on CAIR's communications with members.
"People don't want a letter or newsletter from CAIR coming to their house – they don't want their name on the mailings," the CAIR official remarked.
Nahhas' comments were quoted in a 165-page report released last week by the ACLU entitled, "Blocking Faith, Freezing Charity: Chilling Muslim Charitable Giving in the War on Terrorism Financing." The nakedly sympathetic report says CAIR was "smeared" in the Holy Land case and recommends the government expunge its name from the list of co-conspirators.
In a desperate appeal to nervous members, CAIR's Dallas office has posted the following on its website: "Take advantage of CAIR-TX, DFW Chapter's legal, civil rights, workplace and immigration rights workshops to be empowered to act positively and wisely protect your rights. Please remember, your innocence does not make you less vulnerable from entrapment, and/or abuse of power by governmental agencies."
The chapter's executive director is listed as Mustafaa Carroll.
Last year, the FBI cut off formal outreach ties to CAIR, citing evidence the group continues to support terrorists.
CAIR's founding chairman Omar Ahmad recently resigned from the board, and CAIR installed at its helm North Carolina state Sen. Larry Shaw, a black convert to Islam.
In his powerful election night acceptance speech, President Barack Obama announced, “[I]t’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.” And this notion of “change” as something that occurs by a mere election sells easily to his adoring devotees. It readily fits modern American intolerance for delayed gratification.
Unfortunately, real “change” is not magical. It typically takes long periods of hard work, suffering, setbacks, step by step advancement until some “tipping point” opens up. And this “change” is what we are seeing manifest in the streets of Tehran today.
Following the Iranian presidential election in which the large margin cited for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over apparent victor Mir Hossein Mousavi suspiciously suggested fraud, protests began to flare up. While many Iranian dissident sympathizers held out great hopes for the opening the Islamic Republic regime had seemed to create, most of the American liberal press had made up its mind that it was too difficult to mount any credible opposition to the overwhelming power the regime has secured for itself. Rigged elections were a staple for Iran – mostly through restricting the candidates in the first place but, if need be, through voter count. Read more ...
Revolution cannot be successful if sacrifice brings more Islamic repression and degradation with another face and a new set of Ayatollahs.
By Ruth King
When the French résistance was fighting the Nazis in 1940, the British and the Americans encouraged them with oratory but withheld any material help. This led the French to say “the British will fight the Nazis to the last drop of French blood.”
I hesitate to encourage the women to resist to the last drop of their blood, but I am dismayed by a number of stylish, well coiffed, décolleté and manicured “feminists” in America, including Iranian expatriates, who urge the courageous women of Iran to continue their bloody struggle against the regime in Iran without naming the real enemy….Sharia. It is like telling them to die in vain. Read more ...
Arab foreign ministers pledged on Wednesday to take required steps to support U.S. approach of achieving a comprehensive peace in the Middle East.
After an extraordinary meeting at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Arab foreign ministers welcomed the positive points in U.S. President Barack Obama's speech which he delivered at Cairo University on June 4.
Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa (L) attends the Arab League emergency foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo, capital of Egypt, on June 24, 2009. The Arab League held the meeting on Wednesday to discuss U.S. President Barack Obama's recent speech made in Cairo to the Muslim world. (Xinhua/Zhang Ning)
In his speech, Obama vowed to find a fair solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Obama administration had urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the two-state solution and freeze the construction of settlements in the West Bank.
Arab foreign ministers welcomed Obama's proposals to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict, according to a statement issued after the meeting.
They stressed that resuming talks with the Israeli side should rely on halting all settlements activity, adding that they prefer achieving comprehensive peace in the Middle East according to the Arab peace initiative.
The Arab peace initiative, which embodies the two-state guideline, was proposed by Saudi Arabia and adopted in the Arab summit held in Beirut in 2002. It offers the Arab acceptance of the Jewish state in exchange for an independent Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders.
A comprehensive peace would not be achieved without ending Israeli occupation and withdrawal from all Arab occupied territories and solving the issue of the Palestinian refugees, said the foreign ministers.
HOODED Somali Islamist militiamen today chopped off the right hand and left foot of four thieves in front of a crowd of 200 people in Mogadishu.
An ad-hoc court set up by the hardline Islamist group Shebab had this week found the four young men guilty of stealing mobile phones and guns from residents in the Somali capital.
"The amputations have been carried out as scheduled,'' a Shebab official said on condition of anonymity.
"According to Islam, anybody who robs people will face a similar punishment.''
Residents in the Sukahola neighbourhood gathered to watch the amputations but no cameras nor mobile phones were allowed.
Two hooded men watched by masked Shebab gunmen carried out the amputations with a traditional Somali curved-blade knife known as a "torey'' after applying tourniquets on the accused's forearms and legs.
"Before the sentence was carried out, medics checked their health. We wanted to avoid anything that could put their lives at risk,'' the Shebab official said.
Witnesses told of the robbers' agony.
"The four were screaming when their limbs were hacked off,'' said Ali Mohamed Ibrahim, a local resident.
"It did not take long. Within three minutes I saw them without their right hand and left foot.''
"Their faces were twisted in horror,'' he said.
"Some of the people in the crowd had to look away when the punishment was carried out. It looked really painful but I want this to put an end to robbery in the area,'' said Farah Mohamed, another witness.
While most of the political players in Somalia recognise Islam as the main source of legislation, the Shebab advocate a very strict interpretation of Sharia.
An alliance including the Shebab and other hardline Islamists already controls and administers large parts of southern Somalia, where courts impose tough sentences that have been condemned by rights groups.
On Monday, Amnesty International issued a statement urging the Shebab - who are engaged in a deadly military offensive against the fledgling administration of President Sheikh Sharif - not to carry out the sentences.
"We are appealing to Al-Shebab not to carry out these cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments,'' said Tawanda Hondora, the London-based watchdog's Africa Deputy Director.
"These sentences were ordered by a sham Al-Shebab court with no due process or guarantees of fairness,'' it said.
Today's public punishment, known as "cross-amputation'', was the first such case in the capital in recent years.
In October, a 13-year-old girl was stoned to death in public by around 50 men on one of Kismayo's main squares.
She was accused of adultery by local hardline Islamists after reporting that she had been raped by three men.
“A man can have sex with animals such as sheep, cows, camels, and so on. However, he should kill the animal after orgasm. He should not sell the meat to the people in the village; however, the selling of meat to people in a neighboring village is permissible.” – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
By Paul L. Williams, Ph.D.
Jimmy Carter has devolved from being America’s worst president to being America’s worst ex-president.
Last week, Carter met with the Hamas government that gained control of Gaza two years ago, after the Palestinian Authority’s forces were routed not only by popular vote bust also by bloody factional struggle.
Jimmy declared that Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) should be recognized as the proper governing authority in Gaza and should not be viewed as a terror organization.
Few, however, are screaming, despite the fact that Hamas is one of the world’s leading Islamic Jihadi groups.
Hamas is an organization that remains responsible for scores of suicide attacks against Israeli civilians (including the 2002 Passover suicide bombing); that supports the World Islamic Statement (the declaration of war against the United States as issued by Osama bin Laden in 1998; that disseminates hate literature to Muslim children throughout the Middle East; and that prays for Allah to transform Jews into “apes, pigs, mice, and lizards.” FSM
Radical Muslims exploit liberal Western lawfare systems and, most recently, blasphemy laws, to advance their Jihad agenda – and liberal Westerners continue to go along to get along.
By Dr. Sami Alrabaa
If Christian and Jewish religious symbols are criticized and satirized, most people do not care. Nobody takes to the street to demonstrate violently against the “culprits.” A long history of enlightenment and freedom of expression has tamed the majority of Christians and Jews. They accept religious freedom as a civilized fact of life.
This, however, does not apply to radical Muslims. They exploit liberal Western lawfare systems and, most recently, blasphemy laws, especially in Europe, to advance their Jihad agenda. Read more ...
Want to do something that will show your appreciation and make a real difference for the troops?
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Most importantly, each care package will include a personal message written by you where you can express your gratitude to our military. This is done through the order form by putting your message in the Comments box. Along with your message will be included a "self-addressed" envelope for the troops to send you a Thank You note if, and when, they have time. This is done through the order form by putting your address in the Ship To field. Rest assured that all care packages are sent to Afghanistan and Iraq.
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As Iran’s ruling regime sets about viciously crushing the protests on the streets of Tehran, vowing a “revolutionary confrontation” to silence those who dare to oppose what mounting evidence suggests was a stolen election, it’s tempting to search for an opposition that will respond in kind to the government-sponsored terror. For nearly 30 years that role has been filled by the Mujahedeen-e Khalaq (MEK), also known as the “People’s Mujahedeen,” the Marxist-Islamist militant group that has fought the Mullahs since the 1979 revolution that swept them to power.
In that time, the MEK and its political front, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has cultivated a reputation as the “largest opposition movement against the Iranian regime.” Calling for the overthrow of “the mullahs’ inhuman regime,” the MEK advocates civil liberties, political and religious pluralism, free markets and free elections – in short, everything that the Iran’s theocratic regime stands against. This public relations strategy has borne fruit, and the MEK has been able to convince many in the West – from analysts like Daniel Pipes, to politicians like Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo – that it represents the best option for democratic regime change in Iran. Now, with the regime best by a popular uprising, there are calls once again for the United States to increase its support for the MEK, first of all by removing its name from the State Department’s list of designated terrorist organizations – a designation that Daniel Pipes calls “preposterous” in the case of the MEK. Read more ...
The leaders of the Palestinian Authority do not want the international community to hear anything about massive abuse of human rights and intimidation of journalists that its security forces are practicing almost on a daily basis in the West Bank.
They do not want the world to see that, with the help of the Americans and some Europeans, they are building more prisons and security forces than hospitals and housing projects for the needy.
They want the US and the rest of the world to continue believing that peace will prevail tomorrow morning only if Israel stops construction in the settlements and removes a number of empty caravans from remote and isolated hilltops in the West Bank.
The Palestinians do not need a dictatorship that harasses and terrorizes journalists, and that is responsible for the death of detainees in its prisons. In the Arab world we already have enough dictatorships.
The Palestinians do not need additional security forces, militias and armed gangs. In fact, there are too many of them, both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
American and European taxpayers' money should be invested in building hospitals, schools and housing projects. Investing billions of dollars in training thousands of policemen and establishing new security forces and prisons will not advance the cause of peace and coexistence.
There is no doubt that many Palestinians would love to abandon the culture of uniform and weapons in favor of improved infrastructure and medical care.
As for the international media, it's time to abandon the policy of double standards in covering the Israeli-Arab conflict. For many years, the mainstream media in the US and Europe turned a blind eye to stories about financial corruption under Yasser Arafat. The result was that Arafat and his cronies got away with stealing billions of dollars that had been donated to the Palestinians by the Americans and Europeans.
Back then, many foreign journalists said they believed that the stories about financial corruption in the Palestinian areas were "Zionist propaganda." Other journalists said they would rather file an anti-Israel story because this way they would become more popular with their editors and publishers.
Recently, a Palestinian TV crew was stopped at a checkpoint in the West Bank, where soldiers confiscated a tape and erased its content.
This incident, hardly received any coverage in the mainstream media in the US and Europe.
The reason? The perpetrators were not IDF soldiers, but Palestinian Authority security officers. And the checkpoint did not belong to the IDF; it was, in fact, a Palestinian checkpoint.
The story of the detention of the TV crew -- which, by the way, belonged to Al-Jazeera and the erasure of the footage did not make it to the mainstream media even after Reporters Without Borders, an organization that defends journalists worldwide, issued a statement strongly condemning the assault on the freedom of the media. Read it all here....
BARACK Obama is having no second thoughts about pulling US troops out of Iraqi cities, despite attacks that have killed 150 people in the past week, the White House says.
The latest incident, just six days before a deadline for American soldiers to withdraw from the cities, towns and villages under an agreement with Iraq, killed at least 62 people when a bomb went off in a Baghdad market.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the top US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, had told Mr Obama the deadline would be kept.
“I know the president has had meetings and continues to have meetings about ensuring that we're making sufficient political progress on the ground,” Mr Gibbs said.
“General Odierno has mentioned that we have seen violence greatly decrease even in the past many months from what it was, and he feels confident in moving forward.”
Asked whether Mr Obama had any second thoughts about the pull back, or whether he had approached the Iraqi government about a change in arrangements, Mr Gibbs said: “No, No.”
Violence has dropped markedly in Iraq in recent months, with May seeing the lowest Iraqi death toll since the 2003 invasion. But attacks remain common, particularly in Baghdad and Mosul.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki warned earlier this month that insurgents and militiamen were likely to step up their attacks in the coming weeks in a bid to undermine confidence in the Iraqi security forces.
Shopping in Harrods last week, I came across a group of women wearing black burkhas, browsing the latest designs in the fashion department.
The irony of the situation was almost laughable. Here was a group of affluent women window shopping for designs that they would never once be able to wear in public.
Yet it's a sight that's becoming more and more commonplace. In hardline Muslim communities right across Britain, the burkha and hijab - the Muslim headscarf - are becoming the norm.
Saira Khan, runner up in the first series of The Apprentice, believes the burkha is an oppressive tool and says it is time to ban it from the streets of Britain
In the predominantly Muslim enclaves of Derby near my childhood home, you now see women hidden behind the full-length robe, their faces completely shielded from view. In London, I see an increasing number of young girls, aged four and five, being made to wear the hijab to school.
Shockingly, the Dickensian bone disease rickets has reemerged in the British Muslim community because women are not getting enough vital vitamin D from sunlight because they are being consigned to life under a shroud.
Thanks to fundamentalist Muslims and 'hate' preachers working in Britain, the veiling of women is suddenly all-pervasive and promoted as a basic religious right. We are led to believe that we must live with this in the name of 'tolerance'.
And yet, as a British Muslim woman, I abhor the practice and am calling on the Government to follow the lead of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and ban the burkha in our country.
The veil is simply a tool of oppression which is being used to alienate and control women under the guise of religious freedom.
My parents moved here from Kashmir in the 1960s. They brought with them their faith and their traditions - but they also understood that they were starting a new life in a country where Islam was not the main religion.
My mother has always worn traditional Kashmiri clothes - the salwar kameez, a long tunic worn over trousers, and the chador, which is like a pashmina worn around the neck or over the hair.
When she found work in England, she adapted her dress without making a fuss. She is still very much a traditional Muslim woman, but she swims in a normal swimming costume and jogs in a tracksuit.
I was born in this country, and my parents' greatest desire for me was that I would integrate and take advantage of the British education system.
East meets West: A pair of women walk down the high street in Birmingham in full Muslim dress
They wanted me to make friends at school, and be able to take part in PE lessons - not feel alienated and cut off from my peers. So at home, I wore the salwar kameez, while at school I wore a wore a typical English school uniform.
Now, to some fundamentalists, that made us not proper Muslims. Really?
I have read the Koran. Nowhere in the Koran does it state that a woman's face and body must be covered in a layer of heavy black cloth. Instead, Muslim women should dress modestly, covering their arms and legs.
Many of my adult British Muslim friends cover their heads with a headscarf - and I have no problem with that.
The burkha is an entirely different matter. It is an imported Saudi Arabian tradition, and the growing number of women veiling their faces in Britain is a sign of creeping radicalisation, which is not just regressive, it is oppressive and downright dangerous.
The burkha is an extreme practice. It is never right for a woman to hide behind a veil and shut herself off from people in the community. But it is particularly wrong in Britain, where it is alien to the mainstream culture for someone to walk around wearing a mask.
The veil restricts women. It stops them achieving their full potential in all areas of their life, and it stops them communicating. It sends out a clear message: 'I do not want to be part of your society.'
Every time the burkha is debated, Muslim fundamentalists bring out all these women who say: 'It's my choice to wear this.'
Perhaps so - but what pressures have been brought to bear on them? The reality, surely, is that a lot of women are not free to choose.
Girls as young as four are wearing the hijab to school: that is not a freely made choice. It stops them taking part in education and reaching their potential, and the idea that tiny children need to protect their modesty is abhorrent.
And behind the closed doors of some Muslim houses, countless young women are told to wear the hijab and the veil. These are the girls who are hidden away, they are not allowed to go to university or choose who they marry. In many cases, they are kept down by the threat of violence.
The burkha is the ultimate visual symbol of female oppression. It is the weapon of radical Muslim men who want to see Sharia law on Britain's streets, and would love women to be hidden, unseen and unheard. It is totally out of place in a civilised country.
Precisely because it is impossible to distinguish between the woman who is choosing to wear a burkha and the girl who has been forced to cover herself and live behind a veil, I believe it should be banned.
French President Sarkozy has backed moves to outlaw burkhas in France President Sarkozy is absolutely right to say: 'If you want to live here, live like us.'
He went on to say that the burkha is not a religious sign, 'it's a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement... In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity.'
So what should we do in Britain? For decades, Muslim fundamentalists, using the human rights laws, have been allowed to get their own way.
It is time for ministers and ordinary British Muslims to say, 'Enough is enough'. For the sake of women and children, the Government must ban the wearing of the hijab in school and the burkha in public places.
To do so is not racist, as extremists would have us believe. After all, when I go to Pakistan or Middle Eastern countries, I respect the way they live.
Two years ago, I wore a burkha for the first time for a television programme. It was the most horrid experience. It restricted the way I walked, what I saw, and how I interacted with the world.
It took away my personality. I felt alienated and like a freak. It was hot and uncomfortable, and I was unable to see behind me, exchange a smile with people, or shake hands.
If I had been forced to wear a veil, I would certainly not be free to write this article. Nor would I have run a marathon, become an aerobics teacher or set up a business.
We must unite against the radical Muslim men who love to control women.
My message to those Muslims who want to live in a Talibanised society, and turn their face against Britain, is this: 'If you don't like living here and don't want to integrate, then what the hell are you doing here? Why don't you just go and live in an Islamic country?'
RIAD Malki, the foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority, would like to see Australian troops posted to the Gaza Strip as peacekeepers. More than that, he would be happy, in the event of an eventual Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories, to have Australians posted in the West Bank.
Malki told me this in a meeting in Ramallah earlier this week. Specifically, he would like Arab, probably Egyptian, forces to come into Gaza, to stop rockets being fired at Israel and, in his words, to "stop any Israeli incursions into Gaza".
Then, he says, the Palestinian forces in Gaza should be professionalised. But to provide security, he says the Palestinians "are willing to accept international forces, NATO, American or Australian forces, in Gaza or the West Bank. We will go the extra mile. We will take away any excuse from the Israelis (not to withdraw from Palestinian territories)."
At the moment, Malki's proposal is unrealistic. The Palestinian Authority cannot guarantee its own security in Gaza. Egypt, let alone the US or Australia, would be unlikely to commit troops and the Israelis would not accept a restriction on their right to self-defence.
Nonetheless, in the unlikely event that a peace deal is reached between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the question of international forces to monitor the deal and perhaps to guard borders will become a real one.
Given Australia's remarkable history of involvement in the Middle East, the question of our participation should be given serious consideration by Canberra.
The fact that the Palestinian foreign minister suggested Australian soldiers reflects the high reputation of our troops. But it also demonstrates that Australia's deep friendship with Israel has not remotely diminished our credibility with the Arab world.
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard and former treasurer Peter Costello are visiting Israel as part of the inaugural Australia Israel Leadership Forum, organised by Melbourne businessman Albert Dadon.
Gillard deserves particular praise for attending the forum, as she was subject to a nasty campaign from the Left to try to intimidate her out of going. The Left internationally is going through one of its periodic bouts of trying to isolate Israel. This is one of those demented moments where allegedly progressive opinion believes it's the height of creativity to engage the mullah dictatorship in Iran, as it steals elections and pursues nuclear weapons, but wrong to visit a democratic ally such as Israel.
The Rudd government has stood four square against this nonsensical position, as demonstrated in Kevin Rudd's long telephone conversation with Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, earlier this week.
Rudd, who follows the Middle East with forensic attention to detail, discussed Netanyahu's speech responding to US President Barack Obama's Cairo address to the Muslim world. Specifically Rudd and Netanyahu discussed the prospect of a Palestinian state and the situation in Iran. Read more here...
Authorities respond to protests with armed riot police and militiamen
June 24 | Martin Fletcher
It was a far cry from the massive demonstrations of last week. Today, just a few hundred protesters converged on Baharestan Square, opposite the Iranian Parliament, and they were brutally repulsed.
It was an exercise in courageous futility, not a contest. Thousands of riot police and militiamen flooded the area. They used teargas, batons and overwhelming force. Helicopters hovered overhead. Nobody was allowed to stop or to gather, let alone exercise their constitutional right to protest.
A video clip posted on YouTube showed young men and women, their faces concealed behind bandanas, throwing stones by a burning barricade and chanting “Death to the Dictator”.
Twitter was flooded with lurid messages. “They pull away the dead — like factory — no human can do this,” said one. “They catch people with mobile — so many killed today — so many injured,” said another. “In Baharestan we saw militia with axe chopping ppl like meat — blood everywhere,” said a third.
All that can be said for certain is the regime has finally recaptured the streets through strength of numbers and the unrestrained use of violence. Thirty years after the Iranian revolution it no longer rules with consent, but with military might, and it is cracking down with all means at its disposal.
“Neither the system nor the people will give in to pressures at any price,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, declared on state-controlled television today. “I will insist on implementation of the law.”
Saeed Mortazavi, an Iranian prosecutor notorious for his abuse of prisoners, has been put in charge of arresting and investigating dissidents.
Mr Mortazavi has a long record of involvement in cases of torture, illegal detention and extracting false confessions, Human Rights Watch said. “The leading role of Saeed Mortazavi in the cracksdown of Tehran should set off alarm bells,” it said.
Government officials, conservative politicians and hardline newspapers are pressing for the arrest of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the former prime minister who claims that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidential election victory was rigged.
One newspaper, Vatan Emrouz, which supports Mr Ahmadinejad, ran a front-page picture of the former prime minister beneath the headline: “Who is responsible for the week-long crime in Tehran?”. It quoted the alleged father of a victim saying: “The one responsible for my child’s blood is Mir Hossein Mousavi and I will follow up this issue until I get my right.”
All 25 employees of Mr Mousavi’s newspaper, Kalemeh Sabz, were arrested, with intelligence officers suggesting that it was plotting against national security.
Mr Mousavi’s freedom of manoeuvre appears to have been severely curtailed, with some reports suggesting that secret police and security agents are monitoring his every move. He was careful to distance himself from what he described as an “independent” demonstration yesterday, and some analysts believe that he will be arrested immediately if he calls for a strike.
Zahra Rahnavard, Mr Mousavi’s wife, said that it was “as if martial law has been imposed”. She said that her husband’s supporters had a constitutional right to protest and demanded the release of all detainees.
Another defeated candidate, Mohsen Rezai, a former Revolutionary Guards chief, fell into line by withdrawing his complaints about election irregularities. Mehdi Karoubi, Mr Ahmadinajead’s third challenger, remained defiant: “I do not accept the result and therefore consider as illegitimate the new Government,” he said.
Determined to portray the protestors as pawns of subversive foreign powers, the regime continued to fulminate against Britain, which it accuses of fomenting the unrest to destablise the Islamic Republic.
Asked about the possibility of Iran downgrading its relations with Britain, Manouchehr Mottaki, the Foreign Minister, replied: “We are studying it.” Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, the Intelligence Minister, claimed that some of the detained “rioters” had British passports.
In Washington the State Department confirmed, to nobody’s surprise, that not one Iranian diplomat, anywhere in the world, had accepted ground-breaking invitations from their American counterparts to share hotdogs at July 4 parties.
As I watched the Iranian uprising on TV, I could not help but remember the many years of demonstrations by Iranians against the Shah which ended in the 1979 revolution. The Shah regime was accused of being a puppet of the West, corrupt and not Muslim enough. The people of Iran then installed one of the most radical and cruel regimes in modern Middle East history. The Iranian Islamist movement negatively impacted the whole region and empowered radical Muslim groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Wahhabi Saudi sect.
Now, Iranians are having another uprising. What do they really want? A less Islamist and more modern regime? Wasn’t that what they had before? Do they want a Western style democracy where they can peacefully vote out a corrupt leader? But is that allowed under Islamic Law? It surely is not because under Sharia a Muslim head of state can hold office through a violent seizure of power. So who can tell a Muslim leader who seized office through a coup or an assassination that he is wrong? Such a coup will especially be popular among Islamists if the assassinated leader was friendly with the West.
There are parallels in almost all Muslim countries, especially in Egypt, where the dreaded label ‘America’s puppet’ can get a non-Islamist leader assassinated. The complaint of being a puppet of America can merely describe a Muslim leader who refuses to be the enemy of the West and to engage in jihad. President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and his successor Husni Mubarak until today are called ‘puppets of America’ for that reason. Before them, the revolution leader President Gamal Abdel Nasser ousted the Egyptian King Farouk on the grounds that he was a puppet of the British. The story keeps repeating itself in Muslim countries where many leaders end up with a dilemma. On the one hand, to win respect and fear of the Arab street, they must stand against Western interests and peace with Israel (i.e. Nasser, Assad of Syria and Ahmadinejad). On the other hand, several regimes try to hold the stick from the middle and allow hate speech against America and Israel in their media while in private have mutual respect and cooperation with the West and Israel. Read more ...
To the iconography of revolution -- the man in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square, young people ripping shards off the Berlin Wall -- we can now add this: the red nail polish, black eyeliner and side-swept bangs of young Iranian women.
So conservative by American standards, yet revolutionary by Iranian ones: these women, who by law can do and say and expose and adorn almost nothing, are agitating for the most basic human rights in the smallest of ways. And it is these tiny acts of rebellion that the Iranian government, which has further constricted the rights of women since the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, cannot abide.
"I do not know a single woman who is pro these laws," says a 29-year-old Iranian woman, who has lived in the US for the past 11 years. "They are not as bad as the Taliban, but it's all relative."
The women of Iran are on the verge. They are more literate and highly educated than men (63% attend university), and, as in the US, women comprise 50% of the vote. Ahmedinejad's challengers -- even Karroubi, the cleric! -- made a point of soliciting the female vote, appearing in public with their wives, or speaking to the need for more women in parliament or positions of power. Mousavi, the so-called reform candidate, shrewdly deployed his wife, political science professor Zahra Rahnavard, as a vocal campaigner. Her electrifying effect on the electorate led to comparisons to Michelle Obama. Read more ...
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dave Gaubatz, the first U.S. civilian (1811) Federal
Agent deployed to Iraq in 2003. He is the owner of DG Counter-terrorism Publishing. He is currently conducting a 50 State Counter-terrorism Research Tour (CTRT). He can be contacted at davegaubatz@gmail.com.
FP: Dave Gaubatz, welcome back to Frontpage Interview.
Just recently, Representative Frank Wolf stated he does not believe the FBI has completely answered his questions in regards to their relationship with CAIR.
In terms of the evidence you have gathered, is the FBI intentionally misleading not only Rep. Wolf, but the American public, and if so, why?
Gaubatz: Yes Jamie, FBI officials are intentionally misleading Rep. Wolf and I have first-hand evidence of this.
I will go one step further and state that the FBI and U.S. State Department have had very close and inappropriate relationships with CAIR and continue to maintain a “tight relationship.”
The biggest narrative challenge facing the “The Stoning of Soraya M.” is in the overcoming of its own title. With the awful outcome inevitable, co-writer/director Cyrus Nowrasteh is forced to hold our attention through means other than a curiosity over how things will end. Replacing this with a gut-wrenching dread awaiting the final act won’t suffice — not for two hours, anyway. This leaves a single, narrow and challenging avenue; the summoning of a rare kind of storytelling invention, the kind where the audience knows full well what’s coming but still hopes against hope some cinematic magic will occur to alter the unalterable.
In an impressive feat of direction Nowrasteh accomplishes this, making “Soraya” much more than a film of the political moment or a position paper on the Middle East. In a current events’ vacuum, maybe even set on another planet, the story would work without the benefit of allegory. This is a universal, human story, after all, but not the story of a victim, but of a woman’s remarkable courage and determination to free the truth. This woman is Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and yesterday her niece Soraya M. (Mozhan Marnò), was buried alive up to her chest and stoned to death.
Based on Freidoune Sahebjam’s non-fiction novel of the same name, “The Stoning of Soraya M.,” takes place in 1986, seven years after Iran’s Islamic revolution. Due to car trouble, Freidoune (James Caviezel), a French-Iranian journalist, finds himself stranded in a remote Iranian village. He had hoped the downtime would allow him to quietly sip tea in a cafe and catch up on some work, but Zahra won’t leave him alone. Discreetly, she flitters about, following, quietly hoping to catch his eye, demanding his attention. The villagers warn Freidoune that Zahra’s crazy, not all there, but a reporter’s instinct wins out and soon he finds himself in her courtyard listening to a very real horror story. From here, in flashbacks, we meet Soraya M. and watch with ever-increasing dread as terrible men, and even some women, move events against her trumping up false charges of adultery.
Soraya’s “sin” is innocence, an inability to recognize events for what they are. She’s a well drawn character whose strength and spirit we admire even as we shake our heads at the naivete which plays such a large part in her demise. She simply can’t fathom the defiance of her husband, Ali, could lead to anything worse than a beating, which she’s willing to take because the divorce he wants in order to marry a much younger woman means no support for Soraya and her children.
Zahra’s even more fascinating, a clever and wise woman incapable of dishonestly. Though unafraid to speak her mind in a society where such characteristics only mean trouble, Aghdashloo infuses Zahra with such an unspoken dignity and authority that this helps to make perfect sense of her survival. Any act of silencing her would be an admission that she’s right. At the same time, Zahra’s in a harrowing position of her own. Ever watchful, she not only understands that gears are in motion, but where they could lead. But like something out of a nightmare, she can’t stop what’s happening or convince her beloved niece to act until it’s too late.
The three central performances are flawless, the sense of time and place impeccable, and the score beautifully evocative. The pace does slow in spots and the final button on Ali’s relationship with the younger woman was a little too tidy in the irony department for my taste, but the central sequence, the stoning, is unforgettable. Explicit, unflinching and emotionally shattering, it’s also conceived, choreographed and shot like an accomplished short film with a three-act structure and devastating character moments all its own.
Because of the violence, setting, and presence of Caviezel, comparisons to “The Passion of the Christ” are inevitable, but these are two very different films. “The Passion” was about helping the faithful to better understand the suffering of our Lord. “Soraya” isn’t about suffering. Instead it serves as a compassionate and at times visceral reminder that monsters, shielded by monstrous laws, international indifference and those selfishly comforted by the stability of dictators, walk among us; that even today, societies exist where an ideological poison breeds men capable of such wicked and inhuman acts.
But on the flip side, Nowrasteh does something equally important, does something not a single one of these dozen or so anti-war films has dared: he puts a real, human and accessible face on the people of the Middle East. Leftist bigots refuse to do this. It works in opposition to their depraved need to embarrass Bush and America by abandoning millions of Middle Eastern and Muslim innocents to terrorists and death squads. Certainly Nowrasteh shines a light on monsters, but he also sees Soraya and Zahra and Freidoune and children and two somewhat sympathetic but weak and conflicted men caught in a tide of something evil and impossible. “Soraya” is a first in many years, a film that introduces us to the good people of this region and reminds us of our common humanity.
Those images of brave Iranians demanding self-determination currently playing across our television screens will undoubtedly add an emotional resonance to “Soraya” when it opens this Friday, but there’s no expiration date on the broader themes at play here. There will always be evil and there will always be a need to point to it and call it by name.
The current uprising in Iran is not merely about a fraudulent election. The simmering masses of Iran are restless for the freedom and prosperity they once enjoyed, before being straitened for decades by the strictures of religious fanaticism. The people have seized upon this election fraud to push for greater openness and such forgotten notions as women’s rights. Nothing better illustrates the awful injustices Iranian women face than a soon-to-be released film, The Stoning of Soraya M.
The film tells the grisly true story of an innocent woman who was stoned to death in Iran on charges of adultery. The events – which are described in flashback by the title character’s aunt, Zahra – take place in 1986, in the rural village of Kupayeh. Zahra recounts how years earlier her niece Soraya entered a marriage that had been arranged by her parents. She was 14 and her husband, Ali, was 20. Together they had four children, two boys and two girls. Ali was emotionally and physically abusive to his obedient wife, physically beating Soraya and openly cavorting with prostitutes.
At the age of 41, Ali fell in love with another 14-year-old girl and wanted to marry her, but couldn’t afford two wives. He requested a divorce, offering to take the two boys with him and to leave Soraya a meager settlement. Knowing the divorce would leave her and her daughters in abject poverty, Soraya declined, which only served to escalate Ali’s abuse. Read more ...
The Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi is under 24-hour guard by secret police and no longer able to speak freely to supporters, according to the film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
Mr Makhmalbaf, 52, an informal spokesman abroad for the protest in Iran, said that Mr Mousavi was not under arrest but "he has security agents, secret police with him all the time. He has to be careful what he says."
In a telephone interview, Mr Makhmalbaf, the director of the 2001 film Kandaha, denied suggestions that the protests against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were losing steam.
"The regime, arguably, is losing ground, not the protests," he said. "Ordinary Iranians are openly rejecting the legitimacy and power of Ayatollah Khamanei. That is entirely new, unheard of."
Mr Makhmalbaf, a friend of Mr Mousavi for 20 years, said that there were reports from Iran that some of the militia deployed to suppress protest were "speaking Arabic". "That is unconfirmed but it suggests that the regime is unable to trust its own security forces to repress the Iranian people," he said. "It suggests that people are being used from abroad."
Mr Makhmalbaf is touring Europe to try to explain events in Iran to the media. He denied reports that he had been formally appointed as a spokesman for Mr Mousavi outside Iran. "I am simply speaking on behalf of all the people who are protesting and dying on the streets of Iran," he said.
Mr Mousasvi's means of communication had been cut off, or confiscated, just after the disputed election, Mr Makhmalbaf said. He had therefore been asked informally to make sure that a true picture of what was happening in Iran reached the outside world.
Asked to explain where the protests might go from here, he said that Mr Mousavi had urged his supporters not to confront the regime directly but to "adopt the tactics of Gandhi, the tactics of non-violent protest and civil disobedience".
"The problem is that the more people that are killed, the more angry people will be, the more protesters will want to come out onto the streets."
The film director dismissed all hope of some form of negotiated agreement. "Within the last ten days, there has been a meeting between Mousavi and Ayatollah Khamanei," he said. "Nothing came of this meeting. I do not know of any further dialogue which is now going on."
Asked to explain how a Mousavi-run Iran would differ from an Ahmadinejad-run Iran, Mr Makhmalbaf said: "The first thing to say is that it is now clear that Ahmadinejad is irrelevant. He is not the real power."
If Mousavi was to become president, he said, Iran would invest in "improving the economy for ordinary people, not creating nuclear weapons or supporting conflicts abroad". Secondly, he said, there would be an end to the "constant harassment of young people which means that virtually every young person in Iran has been beaten up by the security forces."
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Green Brief #10 (June 26) 
