 Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta correspondent The new laws could see the targeting of Muslim clerics such as Abu Bakar Bashir, who gave his blessing to the 2002 Bali bombers but escaped attempts to convict him of terrorism. Bashir is regarded by a small group of hardline Islamists as a guiding light, although he almost certainly had no direct involvement in recent attacks including the July 17 Jakarta bombings. He spends his time travelling throughout Indonesia preaching his anti-Western message. He presided at the central Java funerals three weeks ago of two suspected terrorists shot dead by police in relation to the July 17 attacks, describing them as "fighters for Islam" who would be given "God's reward" in heaven. Thousands of people crowded into the ceremony in the city of Solo to hear Bashir's words. The head of Indonesia's anti-terrorism desk, Ansyaad Mbai, told The Australian yesterday that encouraging terrorist sentiment should be a prosecutable offence. "What I think we need, in the sense of increasing our legal capacity, is the criminalisation of certain activities, such as preparation for terrorist acts, encouraging people to be involved in terrorism, and spreading hatred," General Mbai said. Under current anti-terrorism laws enacted after the 2002 Bali blasts, suspects can be held for just seven days before police must either outline charges or release the accused. However, General Mbai denied the proposed new laws signalled a return to the repressive days of former dictator Suharto, or that they were an attempt to copy the heavy-handed internal security acts of neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore. The retired police inspector-general, who was part of a delegation summonsed to the parliament on Monday to address legislators on the need for the rule changes, said that despite recent advances in Indonesian policing standards, the July bombings were evidence that "our legal protection remains inadequate". "Terrorism needs to be prevented, and the preventative means we have are through the legal system," he said. General Mbai cited as proof of Indonesia's systemic inadequacy the fact that one of the men buried by Bashir two weeks ago, Air Setiawan, had previously been arrested on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities and subsequently released. "That's a lesson that our laws are too soft," General Mbai said. Parliament has in the past considered and rejected proposals to institute a stand-alone internal security act like Malaysia's or Singapore's, but the current debate revolves around stiffening the already existing anti-terrorism legislation. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group, in a report last week on the support base of Noordin Mohammad Top, the Malaysian believed responsible for the July bombings, warned against a beefed-up legislative approach to the problem. "Strengthened legislation, harsher sentences for convicted terrorists, and new structural arrangements in the security apparatus (would be counter-productive) unless government agencies make a serious effort to understand and weaken the support base for terrorist activity," the group warned. Source: The Australian 
 The recent eruption of anti-Semitic bigotry in Sweden, amid lurid allegations published in the country’s top selling newspaper about Israeli soldiers conspiring with American Jews in harvesting the organs of Palestinian children, has now been pushed to the top of the European agenda.
According to a report in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper today, Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini has brokered an agreement with his Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt that a statement will be issued condemning anti-Semitism at a European Union foreign ministers meeting later this week. However, given the Swedish government’s dissembling on the affair what matters now is whether the statement is as clear and unambiguous as Frattini would like it to be or whether it will be watered down. Frattini told Haaretz that the allegations in Aftonbladet were: “terrible conclusions, lying and hurtful, and they have the power to assist all those who seek to incite against Jews or who oppose the existence of the State of Israel.” Sweden, by contrast, has adamantly refused to condemn the allegations.
The issue arises following allegations in the Aftonbladet newspaper that Israeli soldiers routinely kill Palestinian children to cut out their bodily organs and sell them on the international black market.
The reporter of the story himself admitted that he had “no clue” whether the allegations were true, as has the Palestinian source of the allegations, suggesting that the editorial team at Aftonbladet had simply ignored basic journalistic standards in order to smear the Jewish state in a manner reminiscent of medieval blood libels. The affair has sparked a major diplomatic row between Sweden, the current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, and Israel. The Israeli foreign mininstry said it would be watching how the EU handles the situation closely. Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor was quoted by Haaretz as saying: “Every initiative against anti-Semitism is welcome… But if the declaration is general and does not specifically relate to the article in Aftonbladet, it will not resolve anything.” To read the full article, click here: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1111229.html Source: Robin Shepherd
 MOSCOW. (Maxim Krans, RIA Novosti political commentator) - On September 1, 2004, The North Caucasus town of Beslan became know to the world for a tragic reason. A terrorist group took hostage 1,128 people who gathered at a local school on that day; two days later, 319 hostages including 187 children were killed in the storming of the building. Hundreds of schoolchildren and their relatives were injured. Full story and Source: Atlas
 The disclosure threatens to undermine the Government's determinedly neutral stance over the release of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi.
It could also deepen the rift with the Obama administration, which has demanded answers from the Government over its role in the affair.
Papers released by the Scottish government included the minutes of a meeting earlier this year during which a Libyan official stated that Bill Rammell, then a foreign office minister, had told Tripioli that neither the Prime Minister nor David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, "would want Mr Megrahi to pass away in prison".
Britain is under pressure over the decision to strike a prisoner transfer deal with Libya. Revelations that Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, believed that such a deal would be in the overwhelming interests of the UK have infuriated US diplomats.
The release of documents in both London and Edinburgh also show the pressure being applied by business leaders on Scotland to release al-Megrahi.
Lord Trefgarne, of the Libyan British Business Council, wrote saying that the possibility of al-Megrahi dying in prison would have "serious implications for UK-Libyan relations".
If his return under the prisoner agreement was not possible then the executive should consider compassionate release, the Tory peer added.
Mr Rammell, who visited Tripoli in February, did not dispute Libyan claims about the views he attrributed to Mr Brown and Mr Miliband. He said the decision to release al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds had been one for the Scottish government.
Downing Street sources did not comment directly on the claims but they pointed out that even the words attributed to Mr Rammell had been followed by an explicit statement that the matter of al-Megrahi's future was for the Scottish executive to decide.
David Cameron accused Mr Brown of double dealing and demand an inquiry: "The Prime Minister has got to be straight with the British people."
 September 1 Invited guests include three Cabinet secretaries, numerous diplomats, five members of Congress including the lone Muslim, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, and chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization mission. Here is the list of invited guests, as provided by the White House: Cabinet: Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Deputy Cabinet secretaries: Commerce Deputy Secretary Dennis Hightower and Education Deputy Secretary Adam Miller. Congress: Reps. Andre Carson (D-Ind.), John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.) and Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.). Diplomats: Ambassador Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al Hussein of Jordan; Ambassador Adel A.M. Al Jubeir of Saudi Arabia; Ambassador Husain Haqqani of Pakistan; Ambassador Erlan A. Idrissov of Kazakhstan; Ambassador His Excellency Said ... ... Tayeb Jawad of Afghanistan; Ambassador Aziz Mekouar of Morocco; Ambassador Peter N.R.O. Ogego of Kenya. Also, Ambassador Roble Olhaye of D’jibouti; Ambassador Michael Oren of Israel; Ambassador Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat of Indonesia; Ambassador Klaus Scharioth of Germany; Ambassador Meera Shankar of India; Ambassador Nabi Sensoy of Turkey; Ambassador Sir Nigel Elton Sheinwald of Britain; Ambassador Sameh Hassan Shoukry of Egypt; Ambassador Samir Shakir Mahmood Sumaida’ie of Iraq; and Ambassador Pierre Nicolas Vimont of France. Read more here,,,, Source: LA Times H/T JihadWatch
 by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz A highly influential Shi'a religious leader, with whom Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regularly consults, apparently told followers last month that coercion by means of rape, torture and drugs is acceptable against all opponents of the Islamic regime. Warning: The imam's question-and-answer session, partially reproduced here, contains disturbing descriptions of the sanctioned brutality. In the wake of a series of publications worldwide regarding the rape and torture of dissident prisoners in Iran's jails, supporters of Ahmadinejad gathered with him in Jamkaran, a popular pilgrimage site for Shi'ite Muslims on the outskirts of Qom, on August 11, 2009. According to Iranian pro-democracy sources, the gathered crowd heard from Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi and Ahmadinejad himself regarding the issue. According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), an independent Israeli intelligence analysis organization, Mesbah-Yazdi is considered Ahmadinejad's personal spiritual guide. A radical totalitarian even in Iranian terms, he holds messianic views, supports increasing Islamization, calls for violent suppression of domestic political opponents, and, according to the ITIC, "declared that obeying a president supported by the Supreme Leader was tantamount to obeying God." At the Jamkaran gathering, Mesbah-Yazdi and Ahmadinejad answered questions about the rape and torture charges. The following text is from a transcript alleged by Iranian dissidents to be a series of questions and answers exchanged between the ayatollah and some of his supporters. Asked if a confession obtained "by applying psychological, emotional and physical pressure" was "valid and considered credible according to Islam," Mesbah-Yazdi replied: "Getting a confession from any person who is against the Velayat-e Faqih ("Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists", or the regime of Iran's mullahs) is permissible under any condition." The ayatollah gave the identical answer when asked about confessions obtained through drugging the prisoner with opiates or addictive substances. "Can an interrogator rape the prisoner in order to obtain a confession?" was the follow-up question posed to the Islamic cleric. Mesbah-Yazdi answered: "The necessary precaution is for the interrogator to perform a ritual washing first and say prayers while raping the prisoner. If the prisoner is female, it is permissible to rape through the vagina or anus. It is better not to have a witness present. If it is a male prisoner, then it's acceptable for someone else to watch while the rape is committed." Read more here,,,, Source: INN
 by Maayana Miskin Two Hamas terrorists were killed on Tuesday in an explosion in northern Gaza. Hamas accused Israel of killing the two with tank fire. IDF officials denied the accusation, and said the Israeli army was not involved in any skirmishes in northern Gaza on Tuesday. The Hamas claims were backed by local medics. A source in Hamas's Al-Qassam Brigades told the Arab news source Maan that the two terrorists were engaged in “jihad” at the time of their death. However, villagers who spoke with Israeli media cast doubt on Hamas's version of the story. Villagers said the two died when a bomb they attempted to plant near the Gaza security barrier detonated prematurely. Gaza terrorists often plant bombs near the barrier in an attempt to harm soldiers patrolling nearby or civilian workers called in to conduct repairs. Earlier in the day, Egyptian officials announced that police had uncovered a major supply of explosives near the Gaza border. The explosives were apparently intended to be smuggled into Gaza via one of the many tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border. Egyptian officials estimated the quantity of explosives as roughly two tons. In addition to finding the explosives, police found four smuggling tunnels, the officials said. Source: INN H/T: Gramfan
 Iran's senior nuclear negotiator has said his country is ready for fresh talks with world powers over its nuclear programme. Saeed Jalili said that Iran had revised its proposal to the West, which accuses Tehran of using its nuclear programme to develop nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear programme is for purely civilian purposes. "The Islamic republic's package of proposals is updated and ready and will be presented [to world powers]," Jalili said. "We hope a new round of talks will be held for reaching a world full of progress and justice," he was quoted by al-Alam, Iran's Arabic-language satellite television channel, as saying. Iran has previously said it is ready for "constructive" talks, but has dismissed demands to halt or freeze uranium enrichment. The move comes just a few weeks before a deadline this month, set by Barack Obama, the US president, to accept six-party talks. Obama had given Iran until the end of September to negotiate its nuclear enrichment activities, or face harsher sanctions. Read more here,,,, Source: Al Jazeera (English)
 The Times gained access to the dress rehearsal of a spectacular two-hour show which extols Colonel Gaddafi for reviving his country and restoring Arab pride. As the finale approaches, the screen at the back of the giant stage in Tripoli's Green Square shows Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi stepping off the plane that brought him home from his Scottish prison two weeks ago. His arms are raised aloft by Colonel Gaddafi's son, Saif, as he acknowledges the joyful reception from the crowd below. Unless it is cut out at the last minute, the clip's inclusion seems almost calculated to provoke the West. Britain and the US had urged Libya to keep Megrahi's homecoming low-key. US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown both expressed disgust when he was given what appeared to be a rapturous welcome at Tripoli airport. It flew in the face of repeated assurances by Libyan officials, including Saif Gaddafi, that the reception was muted and not intended as a display of gloating. Megrahi himself is now in hospital, seriously ill with prostate cancer. Anxious to dampen down the controversy caused by Megrahi's release, Britain is expected to send only a junior representative to the ceremonies. The British embassy in Tripoli said that the ambassador Vincent Fean was in Malta, suggesting the job would be left to a more junior diplomat. "We are still considering the level of representation," a spokesman said. Other European states are sending ministers, ambassadors or official delegations, but the President of Malta is thought to be the only European head of state attending. However, the audience will include a large number of African leaders and Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. Read more here,,,, Source: The Australian
 BY HILLARY MANN LEVERETT Meet Mohammad Qasim Fahim, the unsavory Tajik warlord whose grip on Afghanistan just got a whole lot tighter. The real winner of Afghanistan's presidential election will not be Hamid Karzai or his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah.
It's a man named Mohammad Qasim Fahim. He is Afghanistan's senior-most military commander, with the lifetime rank of marshal, and was Karzai's running mate during the campaign.
Whether Karzai or one of his opponents wins, Fahim will hold and exercise extraordinary influence over the country's military and security apparatus -- more so than the elected president. This means the real loser of Afghanistan's presidential election -- besides the Afghan people -- will be the United States' long-standing ambition to train and equip enough Afghan forces to allow for an eventual withdrawal of the U.S. military. Building up the Afghan military and police is at the heart of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's latest assessment for Washington of what needs to be done in Afghanistan.
But McChrystal's forces will be training Afghan soldiers and police to work for Fahim: a human-rights-abusing, drug-trafficking warlord who might also have had a role in al Qaeda's assassination of his political godfather, Tajik warlord Ahmad Shah Massoud, on Sept. 9, 2001 -- an operation widely viewed in retrospect as a precursor to the terrorist attacks in the United States two days later. Read more here,,, Source: Foreign Policy
August 31st, 2009 8:10 am - Phyllis Chesler
The Burqa: Ultimate Feminist Choice?
Naomi Wolf Discovers That Shrouds Are Sexy Women in chadors are really feminist ninja warriors. Rather than allow themselves to be gawked at by male strangers, they choose to defeat the “male gaze” by hiding from it in plain view.
But don’t you worry: Beneath that chador, abaya, burqa, or veil, there is a sexy courtesan wearing “Victoria Secret, elegant fashion, and skin care lotion,” just waiting for her husband to come home for a night of wild and sensuous marital lovemaking.
Obviously, these are not my ideas. I am quoting from a piece by Naomi Wolf that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald a few days ago. Yes, Wolf is the bubbly, feminist author who once advised Vice President Al “The Climate” Gore on what colors he should wear while campaigning and who is or was friendly with Gore’s daughter. Full disclosure: I have casually known Wolf and her parents for more than a quarter-century.
Wolf recently traveled to Morocco, Jordan, and Eygpt, where she found the women “as interested in allure, seduction, and pleasure as women anywhere in the world.” Whew! What a relief. She writes:
“Many Muslim women I spoke with did not feel at all subjugated by the chador or the headscarf. On the contrary, they felt liberated from what they experienced as the intrusive, commodifying, basely sexualizing Western gaze. … Many women said something like this: …’how tiring it can be to be on display all the time. When I wear my headscarf or chador, people relate to me as an individual, not an object; I feel respected.’ This may not be expressed in a traditional Western feminist set of images, but it is a recognizably Western feminist set of feelings.”
Really? If so, I’m the Queen of England.
Now that Wolf is no longer the doe-eyed ingenue of yesteryear, she sees the advantage of not being on view at all times. A Westerner, “playing” Muslim-dress up, Wolf claims that hiding in plain view gave her “a novel sense of calm and serenity. I felt, yes, in certain ways, free.” In addition, Wolf believes that the marital sex is hotter when women “cover” and reveal their faces and bodies only to their husbands.
Marabel Morgan lives! In the mid-1970s, Morgan advised wives to greet their husbands at the door wearing sexy clothing and/or transparent saran wrap with only themselves underneath. Her book, Total Woman, sold more than ten million copies. According to Morgan, a Christian, “It’s only when a woman surrenders her life to her husband, reveres and worships him and is willing to serve him, that she becomes really beautiful to him.”
Well, what can I say? Here’s a few things.
Most Muslim girls and women are not given a choice about wearing the chador, burqa, abaya, niqab, jilbab, or hijab (headscarf), and those who resist are beaten, threatened with death, arrested, caned or lashed, jailed, or honor murdered by their own families. Is Wolfe thoroughly unfamiliar with the news coming out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan on these very subjects? Has she forgotten the tragic, fiery deaths of those schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia who, in trying to flee their burning schoolhouse, were improperly veiled and who were beaten back by the all-powerful Saudi Morality Police? Most Muslim girls and women are impoverished and wear rags, not expensive Western clothing beneath their coverings. Only the pampered, super-controlled, often isolated, and uber-materialistic daughters of wealth, mainly in the Gulf states, but also among the ruling classes in the Islamic world, match Wolf’s portrait of well kept courtesan-wives.
Being veiled and obedient does not save a Muslim girl or woman from being incested, battered, stalked, gang-raped, or maritally raped nor does it stop her husband from taking multiple wives and girlfriends or from frequenting brothels. A fully “covered” girl-child, anywhere between the ages of 10-15, may still be forced into an arranged marriage, perhaps with her first cousin, perhaps with a man old enough to be her grandfather, and she is not allowed to leave him, not even if he beats her black and blue every single day.
Wolf claims that she donned a “shalwar kameez and a headscarf” for a trip to the bazaar. I suggest that Wolf understand that the shalwar kameez and headscarf that she playfully wore in Morocco are not the problem.
I wonder how Wolf would feel if she’d donned a burqa, chador (full body bags) or niqab (face mask) for that same trip; how well she would do in an isolation chamber that effectively blocked her five senses and made it difficult, if not impossible, for her to communicate with others?
And, by the way, the eerie effect, ultimately, of shrouded women is that they become invisible. They cease to exist. They are literally ghosts.
Wolf presents the West as anti-woman because it treats women as sex objects. Am I happy about pornography and prostitution in the West? Hell no and, unlike Wolf, I’ve fought against them–but to portray these vices as a “Western” evil, and one that the Islamic world opposes, is sheer madness.
It is well known that the Arabs and Muslims kept and still keep sex slaves–they are very involved in the global trafficking in girls and women and frequent prostitutes on every continent. You will find pornography magazines in every princely tent–those for boys as well as for girls. I am told that the Saudis fly in fresh planeloads of Parisian prostitutes every week. Perhaps they veil them before they conduct their all-night and all-day orgies. Or, perhaps they view them as natural, “infidel” prey.
Let me suggest that Wolf read a book that is coming out in September, written by a Christian-American woman, Mary Laurel Ross, whose American Air Force husband trained the Saudi Air Force. It is called Veiled Honor and is a timely, comprehensive, “nuanced” (Wolf calls for “nuance” in our understanding of “female freedom”) account of her approximately fifteen year sojourn in Saudi Arabia. I would also suggest that Wolf read the works of Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Infidel) and Nonie Darwish (Cruel and Usual Punishment) for starters.
Then again, I suspect that Wolf is not necessarily looking for any “nuanced” truths about “female freedom” but is, rather, fishing for Saudi gold and positioning herself within the Democratic Party. After all, what she has written in this brief article supports President Obama’s position vis a vis the Muslim world. Source: http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2009/08/31/the-burqa-the-ultimate-feminist-choice/
 Danish politician Nader Khader says that "If anybody in the world should apologize to the rest of the world, it's Saudi Arabia.
They should apologize for oppressing their women.
They should apologize that women can only inherit half the portion of a brother.
They should apologize that women can't get a driver's license.
They should apologize that you can't build churches in synagogues in the country."
Khader adds that Saudi Arabia should also apologize for women having to wear a burka.
 |
|
|
Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
E-mail: info AT ReformIslam.org
|
|
|
Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta correspondent 
Posts
